rSmart Launches rSmart Sakai CLE 2.5

PHOENIX, AZ. (April 28, 2008) -- rSmart, the leading provider of software support services for open source applications in education, today announces the availability of the rSmart Sakai CLE 2.5 at the JA-SIG open source conference in Minneapolis, MN. This represents the newest version of the industry’s first and only commercial distribution of the open source Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE). This milestone release comes early enough in the academic year that institutions considering a new learning management system can adopt Sakai in time for Fall semester.

The rSmart Sakai CLE is the company’s fully packaged, tested and supported distribution of the Sakai software. Similar to the way RedHat™ distributes and supports the Linux™ operating system, rSmart distributes and supports Sakai.

The CLE provides a feature-rich, fully scalable, enterprise ready software application that is unique in its ability to support teaching and learning, project collaboration, group interaction and ePortfolio construction. It offers an open source collaboration environment that is polished, customizable and fully supported by an accountable partner — rSmart. The company also provides professional services including Sakai assessment and planning, training, installation, integration and data migration, customization and application hosting to compliment its support offerings.

“More institutions are finding that the rSmart Sakai CLE 2.5 is a highly cost effective alternative to their older Blackboard™ or WebCT™ systems,” stated Chris Coppola, president of rSmart. “Institutions owe it to themselves to take a look at Sakai, or look at it again if they saw it years ago. It is amazing how advanced the software has become in such a short time.”

With over 30 educational institutions using rSmart Sakai CLE as the basis of their eLearning, ePortfolio, and online collaboration activities, rSmart is helping grow the number of Sakai users worldwide. Sakai, in use at more than 200 institutions globally, can be easily adopted by institutions with few to no IT resources through rSmart’s packaging, hosting and support services.

“Given our available resources it would be difficult for us to effectively use Sakai without using the rSmart Sakai CLE. With rSmart supporting us we benefit from the many innovations being driven by the Sakai community while allowing our few academic computing resources to focus on faculty and student support instead of technical support,” said M.L. Bettino, Dean of Academic Affairs, at Cerritos College. “We are looking forward to upgrading to the new release because of the many new features and enhancements being delivered.”

The rSmart Sakai CLE 2.5 is available for hosted or on-site deployments immediately. To experience rSmart Sakai CLE 2.5 please visit http://www.sakaisandbox.com to sign up for a free account or download a full, easy-to-install version directly from rSmart’s website.

About rSmart

rSmart is the leading open source application software company serving the education market. rSmart packages, certifies, deploys, and supports a suite of enterprise financial, collaboration and learning applications for colleges, universities, and organizations serving grades K–12. As an active member of open source projects like Kuali and Sakai, rSmart is able to provide its clients with software applications specifically designed to meet the unique needs of educational institutions. This collaborative approach allows rSmart to offer open source applications that break the dependence of educational institutions on traditional proprietary software vendors.

Please visit www.rsmart.com for more information.