Open standards and Sakai

As many of you know, open specifications and standards are becoming more and more important as we are moving into the future. One of the most promising open specifications out there regarding interoperability between LMS / CMS / VLE systems, is called the IMS Common Cartridge. Please have a look at this Sakai Video Report: IMS Common Cartridge Demonstration at Alt-I-Lab 2006 if you want more detailed info: "This video shows the successful demonstration of IMS Common Cartridge at Alt-I-Lab 2006. "

The Sakai Foundation Releases Sakai Version 2.2.1

2.2.1 is a maintenance release, meaning that its purpose is to distribute a further set of fixes to issues that were present in 2.2.0, while deliberately avoiding any new features which may introduce novel bugs. In short, 2.2.1 is currently the latest and greatest release of the 2.2 codebase, and those running 2.2.0 should be able to move to 2.2.1 with confidence: there have been no API changes, so all 2.2 code should run without modification. Sites moving from the 2.2.0 to 2.2.1 will need to perform a small database conversion operation. The details of the steps necessary to upgrade are specified in the release notes.

For more information about Sakai and to download the 2.2.1 release, please visit: http://www.sakaiproject.org/release

from the Sakai website

Requirements for Sakai: listed for the first time

Sakai Special Interest Group Netherlands: "Op woensdag 13 september (..) in ieder geval (..) werken aan het definieren van requirements. Een eerste inventarisatie van Dutch/European issues is in de attachment te vinden."
Translation: We have created a list of 22 issues that are of interest for the Dutch /European users of Sakai. Please read and see what you think. You can also check out this information at our wiki, that we have set up for the pilots with Sakai that we are starting as of today at the University of Twente! Just go to ...sakaiwiki/european_dutch_enhancements.
And now it's my time to take some vacation. I'll be back on August 28. See ya!

We are present(ing) in Lubeck

Since we have been doing some promotion here for the European Sakai Days in Lubeck, we might as well tell you that some Dutch collegues are not only going there as visitors.
Alan Berg, together with Bas Toeter, will have (I think!) a very interesting session in Lubeck. Alan will, no doubt about that, tell us that we should be focusing more (and more) on quality of our software. He will tell us how to automatically test our code and use this to improve our code.
And me, myself and I will be presenting on the forming of the Sakai Special Interest Group The Netherlands. I will especially try to focus on some actions that we can do together as Europe, so that the European perspectives will be more visible then now within the wider Sakai community. Therefore I am also very keen on what our collegues from Germany, Italy, Sweden, Norway, Portugal and Spain will bring to the table. I will listen closely.
Hope to see you there! And again: registration is free for Lubeck, so why not go?

Website to ground control: I can be launched!

SakaiSIGNL
Originally uploaded by wytze.

Since Jan 2006 we used this weblog for communication on the subject of Sakai in The Netherlands. We hope you have enjoyed the ride so far (have you noticed our new banner, nice isnt't?).
Since today, we also have an official website for the Sakai Special Interest Group The Netherlands. There we will do our 'official' stuff, like meeting agenda's, presentations etc.
The website can be found on the elearning portal of the SURF Foundation at http://elearning.surf.nl/sakai. There is stuff available in English, but also in Dutch. For both languages we have an RSS feed available, in case you want to follow closely what we are doing.