OpenSyllabus: Building a Coherent Learning Environment in Sakai 2.x

Jacques Raynauld, Faculty, HEC MontréalMartin Montminy, Business Analyst, HEC Montréal

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FINALLY, OPEN SYLLABUS IS NOW AVAILABLE … …first discussion at the Newport Beach Sakai conference in December 2007

Thanks to the team!

Objectives of the session

• Overview of a new course site authoring tool to organize quickly all your Sakai resources and tools

• Convince you of the importance of using some kind of structure or semantic approach for Sakai course websites

• Faculty? Teaching Support? IT? Deans? Students? • Possible Sakai adoption?

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Outline

• HEC Montréal and the origins of the project

• Syllabi and Sakai• Quick demo of the tool• Open Syllabus structure and architecture• Summary, roadmap and questions

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• Large business school • Part of the University of

Montreal campus• 12 000 students• 250 career professors• 500 adjuncts• 4 000 full time undergraduate students• Oracle PeopleSoft Enterprise Campus

Solutions511th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010

Origins of the project

• Learning material disseminated in various course web sites …

• Very confusing for the staff, the students and the public …

• Development of an in-house easy-to-use Web platform to build a centralized electronic syllabi web depot

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Origins of the project

• Good tool …. but unable to share the code for technical reasons

• Spring 2007 : consensus to rewrite the program with a open source vision (Sakai)

• CRIM and the University of Montreal joined the team and brought their expertise and their experience (use cases)

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Origins of the project

• Proof of concept at the Paris 2009 meetings

• Beta version at the Boston 2009 meetings• Pilot in the 2010 Winter term• Report on the pilot in Denver 2010 • Large roll-out in the Fall 2010 (10 000

students).

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SYLLABI AND SAKAI

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Syllabi and Sakai

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1. Contact information2. Objectives3. Requirements (evaluation)4. Grading5. College policies6. Schedule of readings, due

date

PDF - paper• Documents to download

(pdf, ppt, doc, etc.)• Citations• Hyperlinks• Assignments• Quizzes• Discussion Boards• Etc.

Ressources - web

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Syllabi and Sakai

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1. Contact information2. Objectives3. Requirements (evaluation)4. Grading5. College policies6. Schedule of readings, due

date

PDF - paper

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Actual Syllabus tool in Sakai

Post a doc or PDF fileUse an editor

No semantic or tool integration

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Syllabi and Sakai

• There is a need for a tool to organise all the resources (files, citations) and tools (test&quiz, assignments,etc.) in one easy to consult place

QUICK DEMO OF THE TOOLSCREEN CAST HTTP://VIMEO.COM/24932699SAND-BOX : HTTP://OSYLTEST.HEC.CA

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Demo

• We are going to demo a Sakai friendly version of Open Syllabus (not the one used at HEC Montréal)

• Works like any other Sakai Contrib tool – easy to install – part of the list of tools

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Demo

• Creation of an OpenSyllabus course site• Superb integration with resources,

citations and tools (entity picker)• PDF printing• OpenSyllabus sites can be copied (links to

the tools are preserved) • Etc.

OPEN SYLLABUS ARCHITECTURE

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Open Syllabus architecture

Root

Structure

Unit

Context

Resource

Semantic organization makes OpenSyllabus a very powefull and evolutive tool (mobile version)

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OpenSyllabus Architecture

Sakaï ServerOpen Syllabus Server Open Syllabus Client –

Google Web Tool kit

Exchange of XML files between Open syllabus server and client

Sakai Tools - Services

OpenSyllabus Architecture

• Allows access to computer databases accessible trough the Z39.50 client server-protocol such as library catalogue.

• Allows a faster integration of the citation helper tool

Z39.50 Repository OSIDImplementation

Integrated Library System

Z39.50 communications

protocolOSID RETURN

OSID CALL

SUMMARY, ROAD MAP AND QUESTIONS

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10 good reasons for Open Syllabus

1. Student request : What should I do? Where is it? Especially for distance learning!

2. Faculty requests : keep it simple (training)!3. Regular contrib tool … simple to make it

available4. Thoroughly tested by 10 000 students and

500+ instructors at HEC Montréal

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10 good reasons for Open Syllabus

5. Easy to modify the templates for the wording of your institution

6. Archive/Share/Export6. Cutting work : PDF printing for students7. Public gate for the community, future

students, parents, etc.8. Reporting : assessment methods,

accreditation, Bologna, etc.

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10 good reasons for structured syllabi

9. Dynamic links to your library catalog (Z39.50).

10. Sakai OAE ready!

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Road-map and questions

• Available now for Sakai 2.7• Migration to Sakai 2.8 coming• Plans for a mobile version• Other nice features presented by Martin

Montminy – Life Cycle Management at HEC Montréal, Thursday 12:30:13:30, San Gabriel A

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Road-map and questions

• Tech Demo Wednesday at 5pm• http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/

OSYL/OpenSyllabus+Home• Sakai SVN – available now!• Video : http://vimeo.com/24932699• Test server : http://osyltest.hec.ca• jacques.raynauld@hec.ca

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NEW SECTIONAnd now here’s a…