This document discusses the past and potential future of the Sakai learning management system (LMS). It summarizes Sakai's growth over the past 10 years and release of version 2.9, which established Sakai as a full-featured LMS. It then speculates on a "Sakai.X" release that could further improve scalability, performance, and the software-as-a-service model for Sakai within the next 10 years through increased collaboration between institutions. However, it notes these ideas are just one person's thoughts and would require collective effort to implement.

1. Sakai
The First TenYears and
The Next* TenYears
Dr. Charles Severance
University of Michigan School of Information
Blackboard Chief Sakai Strategist
X* Some ideas about the next ten years

2. During this talk, I am not speaking for
the University of Michigan, I am not
speaking for Blackboard, Inc., I am not
speaking for the IMS Global Learning
Consortium, and I am not speaking for
anyone except for myself.

4. D'Arcy Norman's Law of
eLearning Tool Convergance
Any eLearning tool, no matter how
openly designed, will eventually
become indistinguishable from a
Learning Management System once
a threshold of supported use-cases
has been reached.
http://darcynorman.net/2013/02/15/normans-law-of-elearning-tool-convergence/

5. http://www.deltainitiative.com/bloggers/state-of-the-higher-education-lms-market-a-graphical-view

6. http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/11/07/tech-officials-weigh-big-data-moocs-and-open-source

7. NYU
THE COMPARISON
MAKE IT
COUNT
MAIN
METHOD
LESSONS
LEARNED
MAKE IT
COUNT
MAIN
METHOD
GETTING
RESULTS
Campus Computing
Survey Count by
Institution
New York University
Count by Enrollment
SAKAI MARKET SHARE
What is the Real Market Share of Sakai?, David Ackerman,AssociateVP,
Crystal Butler, Research Associate, NewYork University

8. 1.0 1.5
2.0
2.9
2.82.72.6
2.5
X2.9.2

11. Sakai 2.9
• Out first release where the overall UI is
market leading out of the box
• Our first release with structured content
(LessonBuilder)
• Our first release with support for IMS
interoperability standards

12. Sakai 2.9 - Our first "LMS"

13. Sakai 2.9 Becoming Our
Center of Gravity
We owe these schools a debt of gratitude...

14. Sakai is Not a Clone
• Still far and away the best at combining
research, collaboration, and learning
• Most powerful / flexible role system
• Highly customizable for local needs
• Real Apache-Style open source

15. Worldwide Market
Penetration
US! 185!
UK! 14!
Spain! 8!
Canada! 7!
Australia! 6!
Netherlands! 6!
France! 4!
South Africa! 4!
Japan! 3!
Russia! 3!
Sweden! 3!
Turkey! 3!
Brazil! 2!
Mexico! 2!
Pakistan! 2!
Portugal! 2!
One reported install:
Argentina, Austria, Belgium,
Germany, Denmark, Algeria,
Guatemala, Hong Kong,
Ireland, Iran, Italy, Korea, New
Zealand, Puerto Rico,
Romania, Singapore
225 reported schools worldwide.
Missing some commercial
partner customers and other
unreported installs. About
300-350 worldwide enterprise
installs is a good estimate.
Sakai has nearly complete
support for 22 languages
including Asian languages and
right-to-left languages.
https://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/PROD
November 2012

16. S Cambridge
* Harvard
* MIT
M University College London
S Oxford
L Imperial College London
SYale
L University of Chicago
L Princeton
M Caltech
S Columbia University
L University of Pennsylvania
M ETH
L Cornell
S Stanford University
L Johns Hopkins
S Michigan
D McGill
L Toronto
S Duke
L Edinburgh
S Berkeley
S Hong Kong University
S ANU
L NU Singapore
Top 25 Schools In The World (June 2013)
http://www.usnews.com/education/worlds-best-universities-rankings/top-400-universities-in-the-world
Sakai: 10, Learn: 9, Moodle: 3, D2L: 1, Canvas: 0

17. http://www.dr-chuck.com/bracket/

18. Open-Open-Open
Rutgers University and Stanford
University do not have TCC
representatives but have made
major contributions to Sakai
over the years.

19. What might*
we see NeXT?
* This is just one person's ramblings...
X

20. A New Strategy
• With Sakai 2.9, we can actually relax for a
while - it is a solid and beautiful product
• When you have a solid product in hand,
your thinking and planning changes from
filling gaping holes to polishing and
reinforcement
• You can take more risks and incur less risk
X

21. Some Rumblings...
• Amsterdam, Montreal, UPMC are all doing
MOOC experiments with Sakai....
• Two new search technologies: SOLR from
Oxford and Elastic Search from rSmart
• Complete sakai.web tool replacement
• Dashboard tool
• KNL-1011 - SiteService Caching
Performance Improvement
X

22. Sakai.X
• We can attack larger and larger areas that
need improvement in Sakai if we work
together in larger teams
• Get a collective focus on fewer, larger, more
impactful improvements.
• Fix things we never thought could be fixed
- sticky sessions as an example...
X

23. What might be in Sakai.X?
• Big, fast, powerful, scalable Sakai CLE.
• Scalable to millions of users
• Shard across multi-tenant - even at a single
course
• Spin up spin down instances easily
• Easy upgrades - continuous migration....
• Software as Service Model
X

24. When is Sakai.X?
• I don't know when - we will know
collectively
• Since we are in less of a rush it will likely be
2 years between major Sakai releases
• We will make bold changes somewhat and
then collectively test and validate those
changes together...
X

25. This is just an idea...
• I have no resources other than my own
spare time...
• I cannot make this happen - I can only
present an idea and see if people resonate
with that idea...

26. Thank you for your
time..