Investigating site exports from Sakai 2

So the export/import file format investigation has reached some early conclusions regarding the use of Moodle’s backup schema and it looks like we will be looking elsewhere. See: Moodle export-import format investigation and the email thread itself.

While we ponder IMS Commmon Cartridge, I thought I would investigate what it would take to provide the capability of exporting Sakai 2 sites into the existing Sakai 2 proprietary XML format. This is a long standing request within the Sakai community, but one that no one has been willing to tackle. This is a bit of a dodgy situation as most tools do participate in the method EntityTransferrer.transferCopyEntities(), so it is possible to copy the structure of a site from semester to semester. I use the term “structure” because this is common practice among LMS applications to only copy what might be termed a “template” across semesters. For example, this copy process would include content like forum definitions, but not student responses; grade book items, but not student grades, etc.  The primary use case is an instructor who taught a class last semester can import that previous site into the current semester’s course site to reduce setup time.

So far so good – but here is where things get a bit dodgy… The EntityTransferrer.transferCopyEntities() method copies entities directly from one site to another (i.e. without writing any of these entities to XML). While Sakai 2 does have a mechanism for writing entities to XML, called ArchiveService.archive(),there are at least two problems with it: 1) Unlike transferCopyEntities(), all student positngs, grades, etc. are included in the XML produced (i.e. more like  a site backup), and 2) only a small subset of tools actually implement the ArchiveService.archive() interface! So this leaves me wondering:

1. Does anyone actually depend on ArchiveService.archive()? My instincts tell me no since most of the tools do not implement it. Am I wrong?
2. Could we usurp the ArchiveService.archive() interface and change the behavior so that only site structure is exported without student content?
3. Do we leave ArchiveService.archive() alone and create a new API?
4. How many tools still need to implement archive()?

Sakai 3 export/import formats research

Since Sakai 3 is a ground-up rewrite, there is plenty of opportunities to rethink assumptions that have accumulated over the years.  One of those areas where a fresh look should do some good is in course export/import formats.  Sakai 2 has its own proprietary format which provides a “full fidelity” capability to move from one course site to another without losing anything.  While not losing anything is desirable, it comes at quite a cost; i.e. not being compatible with anything else on the planet.  This approach is not uncommon and I see now that Moodle also has its own proprietary format.

While there are some good open standards for course export/import (e.g. IMS Common Cartridge or SCORM), they will not provide a “full fidelity” export/import workflow where one could export from Sakai 2 and then import into Sakai 3; i.e. some information would get lost in the translation.  Now, supporting these open standards would have other important benefits, they are not first order solutions for simply getting from Sakai 2->3.  My hopes are that one day an open standard could be expressive enough to cover such a use case, but the innovation curve in the applications and tools may always exceed the ability of a lowest common denominator solution.

With that said, we thought it would be beneficial to see if Moodle’s export/import format provided enough capability to move data from Sakai 2->3 without losing any critical structure.  If this worked out, we would have one great feature out-of-the-box: the ability to move from a course from Moodle to Sakai and vice-versa.  It will be interesting to see how this works out and I will keep you updated as progress is made…

Tags for OS X Users – Finding Stuff

I have been experimenting with some tools over the past six months to help me get better organized and increase the chances I can actually find something on my computer. I started my exploration with a program called Together from Reinvented Software.  Together was a good place for me to begin exploring the set of tags I would use and to incorporate tagging into my daily work-flows.  The things I liked about Together:

1. It did not lock my content up into some bizarro binary file that could never be parsed again.  Instead, it neatly organized all of the files you added to Together in your Documents folder.  Seemed like a pretty reasonable thing.
2. The tagging UI was pretty fast and had auto-complete.

These aspects of Together kept me using it for a few months until I discovered:

1. The tags themselves were locked up in some bizarro binary file format! That did not sit well with me thinking about years and years of collected tags. While the program does have some way to sync those tags to Spotlight comments, the author warns that it will slow the application down and consume huge amounts of resources.
2. The application became slow and unresponsive – even though I did not have the Spotlight-tag-syncing, resource-sucking option turned on.
3. The work-flow of drag-and-drop became too cumbersome and I wanted something more streamlined.

I continued trudging through my use of Together, when one day the MacUpdate Promo had an application called Tags by Gravity Applications advertised for steep discount. It sounded like a good fit – maybe too good to be true – but the price was right and was worth trying to see if it met the hype. What I liked:

1. Your tags are not locked away – they are part of the file’s metadata. This should allow my tags to travel as long as Spotlight is around.
2. Spotlight can search for the tags – try a search like: tag:receipt apple.
3. The UI is lightweight and fast. It may feel a bit unprofessional (just a personal opinion), but it cuts mustard.
4. It is integrated with almost every application I use, and thus knows what file I am trying to tag without some cumbersome drag-and-drop work-flow. Very smart and efficient.

I am glad to say that I am still using Tags on a daily basis and have built some Automator work-flows around it as well. And… They recently provided me with an update to get everything working smoothly with Snow Leopard. Overall, I am very satisfied with this solution – I am able to find things reliably.  And after using this work-flow for awhile, it does strike me that this should be a base capability in OS X. I do find some evidence that Apple is headed down this path if you try the following in Snow Leopard: Print -> Save as PDF -> then play around in the Keywords field. I am seeing auto-complete. Are you?

Sakai3 tool development; lessons learned from rapid prototyping in jQuery

So this one definitely got me outside of my comfort zone. This is also the first presentation I have given where I did not use even one slide! I seemed to have gotten favorable reactions from the audience – so I am going to share it.

Watch the Screen-cast

Description: Learn how you can use simple HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery technologies to build rapid prototypes that can be quickly user tested in short iterations. Unlike more traditional prototyping methods, jQuery allows you to build fully functional user interfaces that not only aid in the design process, but then actually become the tool code itself.

Presenters: Lance Speelmon, Indiana University

What Did iLearn Today? Sakai and the Net Generation

This presentation tells a compelling story of how some motivated Marist seniors applied their education to deliver some very real-world outcomes.

Watch the Screen-cast

Description:    This presentation explains how an innovative network of Sakai course and project sites form a collaborative community of students and faculty from different courses, sections, and semesters. This also demonstrates how students can help promote Sakai deployments from a communication perspective. Marist students and instructor will present.

Presenters:    Jaclyn Weiner, Marist College; Victoria Banks, Marist College; Jennifer Sussin, Marist College

iPhone found ready for enterprise, better than BlackBerry

http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/09/04/13/iphone_found_ready_for_enterprise_better_than_blackberry.html

In a report issued last week, Ted Schadler of Forrester Research has presented an about-face for the research group’s attitude towards iPhones that recommends businesses consider the devices for their network and that many users are genuinely more interested in accessing work content on an iPhone than on corporate mainstays using Microsoft or Research in Motion software. Using the web is a “chore” on a BlackBerry but intuitive on an iPhone, Schadler writes, and many workers are ultimately happier when they can pick their phones instead of having that choice dictated by IT.

MIT to make all faculty publications open access

ars technica

If there were any doubt that open access publishing was setting off a bit of a power struggle, a decision made last week by the MIT faculty should put it to rest. Although most commercial academic publishers require that the authors of the works they publish sign all copyrights over to the journal, Congress recently mandated that all researchers funded by the National Institutes of Health retain the right to freely distribute their works one year after publication (several foundations have similar requirements). Since then, some publishers started fighting the trend, and a few members of Congress are reconsidering the mandate. Now, in a move that will undoubtedly redraw the battle lines, the faculty of MIT have unanimously voted to make any publications they produce open access.

Google, Mozilla Back 3-D Acceleration Web Standard

http://www.informationweek.com/news/internet/webdev/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216300312

In an effort to address one of the last major deficiencies of the Web browser as a platform for application delivery, a consortium of tech companies that includes Adobe, AMD, Apple, Google, IBM, and Intel on Tuesday announced an effort to develop an open, royalty-free standard for presenting accelerated 3-D graphics online.

Finally, a SPAM solution cometh…

Nielsen: Social networking tops email

The dramatic rise of social networking means that in a few short years social networks and blogs have become the fourth-most-popular online activity, passing personal email, according to a new study from Nielsen. What’s more, the amount of time that surfers are spending on these sites is still growing at a rapid pace. Last year, the category grew three times faster than the rate of growth for the internet overall. Now 67 percent of the global online population visits what Nielsen calls the member communities category, which includes social networks and blogs. It is growing twice as fast as the other major categories, passing email and now only ranking behind search, portals and PC software. Facebook, says Nielsen, is now the world’s most popular social network and is visited by 30 percent of people online each month across the nine markets that Nielsen tracks.

Safari 4 Tips, Tricks and Special Effects

http://www.macrumors.com/2009/02/25/safari-4-tips-tricks-and-special-effects/

This is a good article about Safari 4’s amazing peformance and then shows off some of the cool HTML5/CSS3 animation stuff.  Very, very cool!