Supporting Open Source Software for Education
December 8, 2011
rSmart is asking our community to read the letter to the House and Senate Appropriations Committees regarding the language included in Section 124 of the House Labor, Health and Human Service, Education and Related Agencies Subcommittee's draft Fiscal Year 2012 budget for the U.S. Department of Labor. This language may compromise our ability to ensure that all students have affordable access to the highest quality educational resources and tools. Negotiations over this provision and the broader budget are expected to wrap up over the next few days, so any reinforcing grassroots outreach we can generate to Chairman Rehberg's office (the source of the offending language in Section 124) would be welcome.
September 27, 2011
June 21, 2011
rSmart’s Open Source Leaders Addressed Community about Benefits of Latest Release, Significant Growth and Innovation at Recent Sakai 2011 Conference --
Scottsdale, AZ, June 21, 2011 - rSmart (www.rsmart.com), a leading provider of open-source software for education, released version 2.8 of its Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE). rSmart staff, customers, and partners spoke about the benefits of rSmart and Sakai 2.8 at the recent Sakai 2011 conference, June 14–16 at the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. Approximately 500 Sakai designers, developers and faculty members participated in the community’s marquee annual event.
June 13, 2011
We're pleased to announce the release of rSmart Sakai CLE Version 2.8, which includes 170 enhancements and over 1500 bug fixes. Get ready to explore its new tools and features!
April 26, 2011
Scottsdale, AZ, April 26, 2011 - rSmart today announced that it has been awarded part of two different grants from Next Generation Learning Challenges (NGLC) totaling $1 million. rSmart will participate in the Kaleidoscope Project and the Open Academic Analytics Initiative (OAAI).
March 25, 2011
With spring having officially arrived, the CLE team is hard at work on the upcoming release of version 2.8 of the rSmart Sakai CLE. It’s based on Sakai 2.8, which the Sakai community has tentatively scheduled for release at the end of March. If this schedule holds, we plan to release version 2.8 of the CLE in late May or early June 2011.
In keeping with our typical practice, we are allowing for additional time between the Sakai release and the CLE release. We use this time to integrate new features and perform extensive testing, as well as develop additional documentation. As always, our goal is to ensure that the CLE provides the best combination of functionality and reliability, and that users have all the support resources they need.
March 25, 2011
rSmart offers many training resources to help users take full advantage of the rSmart Sakai CLE. Now, we've developed a new resource for the administrators who manage the CLE at their institutions: "CLE Admin Training."
With this self-paced, online course, admins can learn everything they'll need to know for maintaining a successful CLE environment--from tools in the Admin workspace for managing users and sites and troubleshooting various issues, to advanced tasks such as scheduling jobs and customizing the CLE's look and feel.
March 25, 2011
Proposals are now being accepted for Sakai Conference 2011, to be held June 14-16 in Los Angeles, California. If you'll be attending the conference, there are many ways you can get involved--through presentations, pre-conference workshops, "Birds of a Feather" sessions, and showcase/tech demos.
Keep in mind, however, that time is running short. Pre-conference session proposals must be submitted by March 27, and the deadline for all other proposals is April 3. To learn more and to submit a proposal, visit Sakai Conference 2011.
March 25, 2011
If you're an admin, you may want to expand the number of tools you can report on with the Site Statistics Admin tool. You can do so easily, by adding the appropriate tools to the Admin workspace.
(Note: the Site Statistics tool does not report on all tools in the CLE. For more information, see What activities does the Site Statistics tool track?)
To add a tool, first log in and access the Admin workspace. Then, select the Sites tool and follow these steps:
March 23, 2011
Work is well under way on a new module for the Kuali Financial System—the Travel and Entertainment Module (TEM). Six members of the Kuali community are investing in the project, and they have partnered with rSmart to develop the module.
At many institutions, travel and entertainment expenses are handled through time-consuming paper processes and ad hoc legacy systems. This module provides a streamlined electronic system for authorizing and tracking travel and entertainment expenses. TEM will be integrated with Financial System e-docs, which will route authorization, disbursement, and reimbursement requests and also capture required data.
March 23, 2011
We’re pleased to announce that the University of Arkansas is partnering with rSmart to implement Kuali Coeus (KC), the open source solution for research administration.
The University of Arkansas is a public research institution with more than 20,000 students. Like many schools, it has struggled with a cumbersome paper trail for its award process. U of A leaders decided to adopt Kuali Coeus and move to an electronic system for the routing and submission of proposals.
March 23, 2011
At your institution, you may have costs associated with a contract or grant that the sponsoring agency requires be paid from other university accounts. In the Financial System, you can track these costs in special cost share sub-accounts:
February 28, 2011
If you're an instructor, you can easily check who has--and has not--submitted an assessment in the Tests and Quizzes tool. But what about students who accessed the assessment and then did not submit?
You can gather this information by using the Site Statistics tool. To do so, select the tool and click Reports in the menu bar. Then, follow these steps:
February 28, 2011
In recent months, the rSmart team has resolved a variety of issues with the Lessons (Melete) tool. To make these bug fixes readily available to our clients, we've put them in a binary release.
This release is for versions 2.6.4 and 2.7.1 of the rSmart Sakai CLE. The release includes bug fixes that resolve issues with site import, student access, user permissions, resources links, and the optional Sferyx rich text editor.
If you are a hosted CLE client, our support staff will be in contact with you to apply this release to your instance. If rSmart does not maintain your instance, you may download the release from RSN, where it is slated to be available in early March.
February 28, 2011
In "The Bygone Decade of Definition, Distance"--a recent Viewpoint piece for Campus Technology magazine--rSmart Chairman and founder John Robinson examines how higher ed has been responding to the changing demands of the digital age.
Starting with a look at the relatively slow progress of the past decade, he then focuses on the importance of open collaboration between institutions as a way to increase innovation and realize new goals. To read the full article, click here.
February 28, 2011
In some cases, a user may want a greater allowed file size for uploading files in My Workspace with the Resources tool. As an admin, you may increase the upload quota for a single user’s My Workspace site--and avoid changing the quota for all other My Workspace sites in your instance of the CLE. Access the Admin workspace and follow these steps:
January 31, 2011
Helping with Sakai QA
As we mentioned in last month’s issue of Smart Talk, the Sakai community needs volunteers to provide QA testing for the upcoming Sakai 2.8 release. Earlier this month, rSmart joined Rob Egan, from rSmart client Marist College, in coordinating a community functional testing effort.
January 31, 2011
We would like to thank all who attended our recent “Build a Course in the rSmart Sakai CLE” webinar. A “winter” version of our Sakai Summer Institute, this two-day workshop drew more than 150 attendees, including users from several rSmart client institutions.
Led by rSmart Senior Education Consultant Kara Stiles—with help from rSmart’s Megan Perrone, Paul Houser, and John DeFonzo—the webinar showed users how to create and conduct a course site in mySakai, rSmart’s free, hosted instance of the rSmart Sakai CLE.
January 31, 2011
In a pair of recent blog posts, rSmart CEO Chris Coppola explores the ways in which organizations can be successful in adopting open source solutions. You’ll find both posts on the rSmart web site:
January 31, 2011
Our central mission at rSmart is providing the best possible experience for our clients. In order to improve that experience, we recently conducted a thorough evaluation of our subscription services. Now we’ve begun implementing some wide-ranging changes, as we reorganize and expand the rSmart subscription services system. Three teams will now work together to provide our clients with comprehensive support: