University of Pacific: Sakai migration approach, strategy and lessons learned

Copyright 2010, all rights reserved

University of Pacific: Migration approach, strategy and lessons learned Scott Christensen, Academic Technology Services Director


Today’s Agenda

•Introduction to the University of Pacific

•The reason for change

•Migration approach and timeline

•Lessons learned and recommendations

•How can rSmart help?

•Q&A


University of Pacific

• The University of the Pacific is a private university with about 6,700 students on three campuses in Northern California.

• 839 faculty– 497 Full-time

– 342 Part-time

• ~ 1500 courses taught per semester in 2009• 1120 courses used blackboard in 2008

• Blackboard (7.3) Academic Suite with iTunesU, Wimba, Learning Objects, and Turnitin.


The reason for change:

• The University Administration offered to reallocate any realized savings from the transition to an educational technology innovation fund.

– Fund managed by the Academic Technology Services Director.

– Recommendations for the use of the funds are made by an all faculty committee with a charge to enhance teaching, learning, and research through the use of technology.


University of Pacific chooses Sakai:

• In 2009, the largest free of license, open source applications available at the time were Moodle and Sakai CLE. – Poll: Which LMS are you currently evaluating?

• Sakai CLE is an institutional enterprise application and not just course management software.–Course Sites, Project Sites, and ePortfolio Sites

–Links with Library resources and Web 2.0 Technology

• Many local institutions within California have adopted Sakai CLE.


University of Pacific chooses rSmart:

• What hosting model works best for Pacific?–On campus or SaaS?– Poll: What hosting model works best for you?

• Limited resources at Pacific to support Sakai CLE–The need for back end support for integrating various tools

• rSmart’s connection with the Sakai community

• rSmart’s growing partnerships with other tools–Turnitin, Elluminate, Kaltura, Apple (iTunesU)


Preparing for Sakai CLE:

• 12 month transition from June 2009 to June 2010. Blackboard ran in parallel for the year.

• June 2009: Contract signed, implementation training, and configuration

• July: LDAP Integration, month of technical testing, and pilot group of testers began to use Sakai.

• August: Update to 2.6.1, TurnItIn integration, Migration assessment by rSmart, Technical Support Provider training, Seminar courses created, and Sakai CLE went live two weeks before the start of School.


Preparing for Sakai CLE (Continued):

Fall Semester: –Regular workshops through our Center for Teaching and Learning.

•Overview, Managing Content, Communicating, Assessments Tools.

–One-on-one consultations also remained available through the Center for Teaching and Learning.

–Faculty in our Seminar courses collectively decided to use Sakai CLE.

–Faculty had the ability to access Sakai CLE for testing or production use.

–Meetings took place at each school to answer technical questions regarding Sakai CLE.


Preparing for Sakai CLE (Continued):

Spring Semester: –One-on-one consultations also remained available through the Center for Teaching and Learning.

–Faculty were encouraged to create courses within Sakai CLE.

–Technical Meetings continued to answer questions regarding Sakai CLE and to advise of the June 30th Blackboard shutoff date.

–Began demonstrating Sakai CLE to Administrative departments for non-instructional use.


The Content Migration

Main Campus• The migration assessment and the suggested tools,

though useful, didn’t provide the “auto-magical” content migration that we were looking for. This ended up being less of an issue than we thought.

• Faculty saw the migration as an opportunity to “clean house” and update their content.

• We did offer the option for departments who needed their content moved. Migration in these situations occurred manually.


The Content Migration (Continued)

Professional Schools–Pharmacy: Faculty chose to begin migrating first year courses only. The migration was done by faculty.

–Law: Continued to use their own Learning Management System (LMS), but took the year to evaluate Sakai CLE.

–Dental: Migrated all of their courses after each quarter for use the following year. This migration was done my the IT staff and validated by the faculty during workshops.


Lessons Learned

• Overall migration was well received by faculty.• ~1500 courses offered per semester in 2009• 505 courses utilized Blackboard in 2009• 934 courses created in SAKAI for 2009. • 298 project sites created.

• Use the Sakai Community.

• SIS integration would have been there from the beginning

• Initial integration with third party vendors proved problematic.


How can rSmart help?

rSmart Sakai CLE

Best of Community Innovation

Implementation, Migration and Training Services

Documentation, Tutorials and Knowledge Base

Enterprise Integration

Comprehensive Support

Provide a reliable, feature-rich product

Empower your staff

Offer transition tools and expertise

Connect your platforms

Support your long-term success


The rSmart Sakai Team

• Member on the Sakai Foundation Board • 2010 Sakai Fellow • Original leader in the Open Source Portfolio (OSP) project • First elected member of the Sakai Foundation Board • Developed the licensing and intellectual property practices for Sakai • Currently serving on the Sakai Product Council • Currently participating in the Sakai Maintenance Team • Active participants in the Sakai Teaching and Learning Group • Active participants in the Portfolio Working Groups • Are Sakai committers • Contributed DB2 and Websphere support, Ellumuniate Integration,

Icodeon scorm integration, content hosting virus scanning capabilities, and assorted bug fixes to the Sakai community

• Were lead developer in the transition of making OSP part of the Sakai CLE

• Created over 350 features and enhancements to date • Resolved over 1700 defects in Sakai • Collectively has 55 years of experience in the Sakai community • Active members and presenters at Sakai conferences


Migration Assessment

An rSmart functional consultant will analyze up tofive courses within your existing LMS and providethe following:

–Document outlining the workflow of migrating a course from your legacy system to the rSmart CLE

–Provide options regarding additional custom development migration work if requested

–Develop and deliver an 8-hour customized on-site training and consultation workshop instructing your IT staff, instructional designers, trainers and faculty members on how to implement, execute and manage their own migration plan


How to get started with Sakai:

http://mysakai.rsmart.com

Build a course in the rSmart Sakai CLE: Free training

workshop

One last poll question, then back to your questions!!!

Education

University of Pacific: Sakai migration approach, strategy and lessons learned