Today we announced that Asahi Net International has acquired the Sakai Division of rSmart. I’ve been getting to know Asahi Net for a couple of years now and I’m  enthusiastic about their increased commitment to Sakai. As an investor in rSmart, Asahi Net has been indirectly supporting the Sakai and Kuali communities for years. This acquisition positions them to more directly engage and contribute.

If your focus has been mostly in the United States, as mine has been, you might be wondering… Who is Asahi Net? I was wondering the same thing two years ago when Toru Iiyoshi, one of the early leaders in the open source portfolio initiative, introduced rSmart and Asahi Net. Since then I’ve come to know them primarily as a company with a passion and commitment to improving education globally, as they have been doing in Japan for some time. And I’m looking forward to working with the team going forward, in my capacity as a director, as they contribute to and expand Sakai’s adoption globally.

For our Sakai customers… 

First, I want to say thank you for being a customer of the rSmart Sakai Collaborative Learning Environment. I know how important the Sakai service is to your campus and I’m committed to making this transition a smooth one for you. With that in mind rSmart’s entire Sakai team will continue to support you from the same office here in Scottsdale Arizona. The people and systems you interact with every day to help deliver a great experience with Sakai on campus will be the same as they were the day before the acquisition.

Over the past few days I’ve had the opportunity to speak with many of you about this and we appreciate your support and enthusiasm. The next few months will be exciting with the upcoming updates to Sakai 2.9, and the upcoming Open Apereo 2013 Annual Conference. The Asahi Net team, along with the Sakai team you already know, will be at the conference in June and look forward to seeing you then.

For additional information, we’ve created a resource center with all information about the acquisition. We’ll be keeping that updated with frequently asked questions.

For our Kuali customers…

rSmart will continue to provide Kuali-related solutions and services. These are not part of this acquisition. And just as we’re excited for the Sakai team and the new potential with Asahi Net, we’re excited to sharpen our focus on Kuali’s higher ed administrative solutions. The challenges with higher education’s ERP solutions are enormous – aging legacy systems, rising costs, ridiculously expensive upgrades.

The Kuali community is tackling these challenges with open, community developed software that includes financial management and reporting, HR, student services, library, and research administration. rSmart will continue to support adoption of these solutions by adding essential implementation, support, and cloud delivery to make Kuali affordable for any size institution.

The Sakai community is gaining a significant new contributor that will continue in rSmart’s footsteps and expand in new ways. The Kuali community is gaining more focus from rSmart. And I believe that our customers and the higher education community will benefit from the increased capabilities and focus. Not a typical acquisition.

The post Asahi Net International Acquires the Sakai Division of rSmart appeared first on rSmart.

The Curriculum Management module guides users as they propose new courses and programs. Faculty and other curricular administrators create proposals that the system then routes for the appropriate approvals.  The system facilitates the review process by highlighting changes and by automating the document routing, eliminating unnecessary data entry and making the curricular review process more efficient.

With the Curriculum Management module, your institution can:

• improve the proposal and approval process
• more effectively manage courses and programs
• tailor KSCM to meet your specific needs and workflow processes using learning objectives, dependency analysis, and workflow features

Read more about the release on the Kuali Foundation blog >>

The post Announcing the release of Kuali Student Curriculum Management version 2.0 appeared first on rSmart.

For years we’ve been known for delivering simple, complete technology solutions for higher education, built on top of open source software. During the development of this new solution, we drew on several years of real-world research administration software implementations and best practices from the nation’s top research institutions to develop a fast and easy deployment solution that:

• Simplifies Set Up for Kuali Coeus: rSmart has developed multiple pre-configured parameters, hierarchies, and workflows to accelerate implementation of Kuali Coeus by reducing the need to configure hundreds of parameters. Workflows, roles, and responsibilities have also been standardized to create logical steps and provide a pre-configured, ready-to-use solution for Kuali Coeus that embodies the best practices of the nation’s top research institutions.

• Automates Data Collection and Mapping: rSmart has automated the process of collecting an institution’s unique data and mapping it to the correct places in Kuali Coeus. This will significantly speed up data collection and mapping and thus implementation.

• Deploys in the rSmart Cloud: Kuali Coeus is deployed in the rSmart Cloud for fast, easy, reliable, and cost-effective management.

Contact us to schedule a demo or proof of concept >>

The post rSmart Kuali Coeus Accelerator Launches – deploying eRA has never been faster and easier appeared first on rSmart.

Two years ago, rSmart was asked to perform a KFS proof-of-concept to help UConn evaluate KFS against competing financial solutions. Once the evaluation was completed, rSmart was selected to spearhead the 18-month implementation of KFS because of our deep expertise in the Kuali platform. Several comments were publicized around the implementation that helped explain the decision to move forward with both KFS and rSmart:

Charles Eaton, UConn Controller and Kuali Project Executive Director

“The Kuali Financial System just made sense and rSmart was selected to help us deploy the software. Because KFS is purposefully built by higher education for higher education, we get highly functional, easy to use software, plus the benefits of collaboration with other universities involved in its open, community development.”

Vince Schimizzi, KFS Functional Council Chair

“We were impressed with rSmart’s work with UConn’s implementation. rSmart consultants were knowledgeable and well versed in the functional and technical details of the Kuali Financial system. They made a huge difference in pulling the project together.”

UConn now enjoys improved financial management, usability, and workflow as a result of the successful transition to the Kuali Financial System. The new system is highly sustainable and allows UConn to optimize business processes based on the collective insights of a global education community.

The post University of Connecticut Improves Financial Management with KFS appeared first on rSmart.

Recently institutional representatives from the member institutions of the Sakai and Jasig communities voted overwhelmingly to combine their two organizations into a new, umbrella organization focused on open educational technologies and practices: Apereo.

Inspired by other multi-project open technology organizations (eg, the Apache Foundation), Apereo’s mission is to assist and facilitate educational organizations which “collaborate to foster, develop, and sustain open technologies and innovation to support learning, teaching, and research.” Sakai and its Collaboration and Learning Environment (Sakai CLE) and Open Academic Environment (Sakai OAE) projects will maintain their brand and identity, living on under the Apereo umbrella along with Jasig’s many projects such as Bedework, CAS, uMobile, and uPortal. We are especially excited to extend and enrich Jasig’s established incubation process as we work to become a fully multi-project organization. Read more about Apereo and its formation on our FAQs.

I’m honored to be on Apereo’s founding Board of Directors, along with three of my fellow Sakai Board members: David Ackerman (NYU), Josh Baron (Marist), and Steve Swinsburg (ANU/Flying Kite), joined by four estimeed colleauges from the Jasig Board: Jim Helwig (Wisconsin), John Lewis (Unicon), Robert Sherratt (Hull), and Tim Carroll (illinois). One of our first tasks as founding board members will be to initate elections to bring on more representatives from our now joint community.

The post Sakai + Jasig > Apereo appeared first on rSmart.

Packt, publisher of many worthy books about technology topics that have helped me know what I’m doing, is about to publish their 1000th book.

Many Packt titles, such as Sakai CLE Courseware Management: The Official Guide, books on Drupal, and jQuery have been my guides to the open-source technologies I use every day.

To celebrate, Packt is giving away gifts to their readers who register before 30 September 2012 over at Packt.com.

Thank you Packt, and congratulations!

The post Open-Source Publisher Packt Reaches 1000th Title appeared first on rSmart.

I have been supportive of the idea of the merger because I’m always looking for ways education can increase control of its technology destiny and leverage common resources. Because Sakai itself is evolving to be a multiproject organization (with the Sakai CLE and OAE projects), it makes sense to consider evolving our community further to support multiple projects, and multiple approaches to project success. As someone who has participated in the formation and maintenance of a number of nonprofit organizations, I especially welcome the idea that with such an umbrella organization, like-minded projects and communities might not have to form their own independent nonprofit organizations, a necessity that I have seen result in significant duplication of efforts and seems an inefficient use of our scarce resources.

While the somewhat different cultures and technologies of Jasig don’t necessarily make it the ideal first partner for Sakai, I believe we have more in common than we have different. The merger investigation alone has started new collaborations and insights across our communities. With an expanded umbrella, we could shelter new partnerships of different types in the future with other like-minded open educational technology organizations (eg, DuraSpace, Kuali, Opencast, etc). We don’t all have to merge, but we call all work more closely together.

As the merger has moved forward however, I have become less supportive of an immediate merger, only because I have seen it generate sufficient friction within the Sakai community that I believe could be a damaging distraction to other important work. Let’s face it: everybody involved has more in common than we have different and we all have far better things to do to achieve our mostly shared goals than argue amongst ourselves. I hope to to see some more healthy, respectful, open debate in our communities before finalizing my personal viewpoint. I’m disappointed that some of those who seem to think the merger is important—both for and against—have not engaged in more public discourse on the matter.

The post Critical Mass? On the Proposed Sakai-Jasig Merger appeared first on rSmart.

There’s been quite a bit of discussion, analysis, and reaction to last week’s announcements that Blackboard had acquired Moodlerooms and Netspot, hired Dr. Chuck, and cancelled the Angel LMS’ end of life.

There are lots of questions. And much speculation about the answers. But I think we’re just going to have to watch closely to see how this all plays out. What seems clear at this point is that:

• Blackboard has bought back some of the market share they’ve lost over the past few years
• Angel users have a reprieve at the moment from the forced march to choose another LMS
• Blackboard, through Moodlerooms and Netspot, has a new ability to engage with the Moodle community
• Blackboard is more seriously evaluating how to monetize open source… if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em

Phil Hill has done a nice job organizing the key announcements, statements, and reactions in his April 4th post. Who knows, maybe Phil will add this one.

From my perspective, these new announcements are mostly consistent with what we’ve seen for years. Blackboard’s core business continues to be the LMS. It is the basis for the relationship they have with their customers. And while they are quickly diversifying through acquisitions beyond the LMS, they can’t afford for their LMS base to erode as quickly as it has been eroding. Acquiring a bunch of Moodle customers buys them time. Letting Angel customers continue on Angel for now buys them time.

It’s no surprise that the open source aspects of the announcements have generated the lion’s share of reaction. But Blackboard’s strategy is not really about open source. It’s about customer acquisition and retention. And there just aren’t that many proprietary options with significant market share to acquire anymore. So Blackboard looks to acquire customers that have chosen Moodle or Sakai–the open source options.

Naturally many have expressed concerns about what this means for open source. Fortunately neither Sakai nor Moodle can be acquired. They will be perpetually available to anyone who wants to use, modify, or share them. The licenses guarantee it. And “the key”, as Brad Wheeler, CIO at Indiana University and Chair of the Kuali Foundation board of directors, notes is

“… to ensure that this doesn’t become a different path back into the old set of problems yet again.”

The key is community

Those of us who’ve been deeply engaged in the open / community movement know that the open license is important, but insufficient, to generate the most compelling benefits. I’ve spent nearly a decade working to establish and build open source options for education that span support for teaching, learning, research, libraries, student services, and administration. Most of my work has been through the Sakai and Kuali communities, who I believe are empowering institutions to improve education–and that’s something that I’m passionate about. Community is the key. Moodle and Sakai are first and foremost communities that have developed deep competencies that enable innovation through diverse global collaboration. One result of these communities’ effort is innovative software that helps students and educators extend and re-invent education.

Community is everything. Moodle and Sakai have very different community models, but for both community is everything. Did I mention how important community is? Community brings diversity–a key ingredient for innovation. Community is resilient to change–there is no single point of failure in community. Community is the safety net that minimizes the risk of lock-in. Community promotes transparency and predictability. And so on…

And so the good news for higher education is that we have built two very durable open source communities. And it’s not up to Blackboard whether these communities continue to thrive. Hundreds of colleges, universities, and companies like rSmart, whose values and mission are aligned with the community mission and values, are investing in community developed and governed software. It is this diversity and breadth of contribution that gives me great confidence that Sakai will continue to thrive. Sakai is a path that we can count on to empower students and educators with innovative support or teaching, learning, and research.

Will Blackboard be a contributor in the Moodle and/or Sakai ecosystems? Time will tell. But as Brad put it recently…

“Blackboard now has an excellent opportunity to demonstrate its new values in openness in licensing and community,” although “time will tell” how deep its convictions are on that score.

… and aligning values and mission is very different than shifting strategy.

So despite the uncertainty that comes with announcements like these, there are a few things that I’m sure of:

The Sakai software will continue to empower students and educators. Hundreds of institutions and millions of learners and educators around the world use Sakai with great result. The current generation of LMS’s including the Sakai CLE have matured to a high level of parity. And the Sakai open academic environment (OAE) is demonstrating community innovation at its best by creating a new learning platform that isn’t shackled by current market expectations.

The Sakai community will continue to be diverse, durable, and capable. The Sakai community is made up of a highly diverse group of education-focused organizations who share strong alignment of values and mission. And the community has demonstrated for nearly a decade the collaboration competency to produce and evolve great software, and the durability to endure changes that impact individual members of the community.

rSmart will continue to deliver Sakai. rSmart was founded to support the open community development movement in education. Our mission is to deliver the open platform and achieve the greatest potential impact by making our community’s work accessible to the widest possible spectrum of institutions. We’ve been doing this for many years and know how to engage as an integral part of communities like Sakai, and to leverage that community engagement to partner with our customers and help them improve learning outcomes and increase access to education.

A couple years ago I wrote about how path matters… and how choosing the right LMS is more about choosing a path, than choosing a product. I believe that the community source path enables a rich ecosystem of like-minded, education-focused organizations to put the best innovation in the hands of students and educators. Will Blackboard’s change in strategy help them align values and mission to contribute to that ecosystem? Time will tell.

The post The key is community: Why Blackboard’s changing strategy won’t change the landscape… much appeared first on rSmart.

I was inspired to propose and deliver a session titled “Sakai vs the World Wide Web 2.0: To Facebook or Not to Facebook?” for the recent Sakai 2011 conference in Los Angeles by the question below. While I write specifically of higher education here, I think the same questions—and perhaps answers—might be applied to any educational level or sector./

How is Sakai—or any online platform supported by an educational institution—relevant in an environment full of compelling web activities that engage our everyday lives? Does Sakai matter in the Age of Facebook, and if yes, then why and how?

The post Sakai vs the World Wide Web 2.0: To Facebook or Not to Facebook? appeared first on rSmart.

Like the FCKEditor, the Sakai CKEditor is an open source, what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) rich text editor, with a variety of powerful features. But, it represents a complete redesign, with many important improvements:

• Faster load time and overall performance
• A new user interface
• New features, such as page break insertions for printing and a “Show Blocks” feature that outlines individual blocks of text for easier editing
• Better accessibility–the CKEditor is compliant with both W3C WCAG and Section 508 accessibility standards

Keep in mind that rSmart is not yet supporting the CKEditor. The new editor currently lacks several plugins, such as the “Entity Link” and “Insert/Edit Movie” features, that are included with the FCKEditor. But you can configure the CLE for the CKEditor–and you can also try out the editor on a more limited basis, by adding it to a single site.

Visit the CKEditor site to learn more about the editor and see a demo, and visit RSN for instructions on adding the CKEditor to a single site.

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