TU Delft in bestuur OCW Consortium

Het OCW Consortium is het wereldwijde samenwerkingsverband van universiteiten, die open courseware beschikbaar stellen (oftewel vrij beschikbaar cursusmateriaal). TU Delft loopt in Nederland voorop op dit gebied, samen met de Open Universiteit. Heden is Anka Mulder van de TU Delft gekozen in het bestuur van het OCW Consortium, zo meldt Willem van Valkenburg vanuit China.
Ik vraag mij af: wie is het volgende lid vanuit Nederland van het OCW Consortium?

New Commercial Affiliate for Sakai Foundation

There is a new commercial affiliate for the Sakai Foundation, namely Campus EAI. From the press release at sakaiproject.org:

"We have proven the viability and affordability of Sakai to small and midsize institutions who are struggling to provide a feature-rich and robust eLearning solution with limited resources and strapped budgets," said Anjli Jain, Executive Director of CEAI. "As a partner of the Sakai Foundation, we look forward to collaborating with the members and other Commercial Affiliates to further reduce costs of implementing and supporting Sakai by producing standards, sharing documentation, best practices and lessons learned across the community."

[Dutch] Zoek je Sakai expertise?

Kijk dan op SakaiPedia: Sakai Consultants - SakaiPedia. Je zult daar informatie vinden van de kleinere bedrijven en één-pitters die zich wereldwijd met Sakai bezig houden.

Did you know?

Did you know that all board meetings of the Sakai Foundation are documented and are available for everyone to see? Check here for all the minutes. Don't get disappointed too quickly, because you see a long list of documents... You want to read the minutes of the last meeting, don't you? Well, click here.
Did you know that there are several interesting listings. Just to name a few:

1. the Sakai installations that we know of on a map,
2. the Sakai sites in a long list (143 items and still counting) with all technical details (e.g. Georgia Tech, or Lubeck), or
3. a status page where you will find information on all Contrib projects?

Interesting presentations, part 3

Today the last recommendations for the upcoming conference. I will point to three sessions that promise to be interesting. I must admit that I am really really looking forward to our next conference. I hope to see people I already know, but I also hope to see and meet people that don't have familiar faces. YES, I really expect and hope to see lots of people that are not part of the Sakai community (yet). I hope that the experience of the conference will make them feel at home too.
My first recommendation, mainly also as a note for myself, is a panel discussion called "Models for Project Teams" (Peter Knoop and others) where several recent examples of how project teams have expanded their membership and adjusted their structure, will be shared. (June 12, Zurich 2, 12.oo hrs)
The second recommendation is a presentation by Jim Farmer, who always has interesting angles to his subject, based on facts and figures. He will present The Public Face of eLearning. Jim will 'prove' that "eLearning does improve retention and completion--two goals of U.S. and U.K. government". (June 12, Zurich 2, 2.40 PM).
And the last recommendation is the public Q&A with the Sakai Board. This is your chance to ask your question that you always wanted to ask. (June 14, 11.30 AM, Zurich 2)

New Executive Director for Sakai Foundation

John Norman, chairman of the Sakai Foundation Board of Directors, has announced today that we have a new Executive Director: "After a thorough search I am pleased to announce, on behalf of the Board of Directors, that Michael Korcuska has been named Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation, effective July 23, 2007. In this role, he will lead the Foundation's activities in developing technology, sharing best practices, and fostering collaboration on behalf of the Sakai community."
Michael (link to this current position, including picture) will be present in Amsterdam, so that he can meet with the community.
See sakaiproject.org for the complete announcement.

Question of the Week

Recently a new initiative was started by Peter Knoop (great idea!) within the Sakai community: you can vote on a question of the week through a poll.
The second poll is titled "Which three areas of Sakai do you think are the most important for your implementation?"
To respond, please access the Polls tool in the "DG: Open Forum" site on Collab. (Note: you need an account on Collab and have to be a member of this site to access the poll. If you need an account, go to Collab's home page and use the New Account tool to self-register for an account. If you are not a member of the site, then use the Membership tool in your MyWorkspace to join the site). Or click here and you will be (re)directed.
The question of the previous poll was: What version of Sakai do plan to be running in production in September 2007?
The results were
Sakai 2.1 (n=0) 0%
Sakai 2.2 (n=0) 0%
Sakai 2.3 (n=26) 24%
Sakai 2.4 (n=34) 76%

Contrib(utions) from The Netherlands

While browsing through Confluence, I came across a (new!) Contrib bool from The Netherlands, Sakai Maps. I am not sure if this is really the first Contrib tool from The Netherlands, but is certainly worth a note here.
The SakaiMaps tool integrates Google Maps into Sakai and allows users to define and browse points of interest (POI) on the map. Each POI has a name, a short description, a type and optionally a url with more information.

Sakai conference 2007 Logo, Dutch Design!!!!

Portfolio4u and some of the members of the Sakai Foundation (Susan Hardin and Joseph Hardin) worked together to design the new Sakai Conference logo.

Dutch Graphic Designer, Rik Laurentzen, did the design. so..this is really Dutch Design.

We went to lots of designs with Windmills, Wooden Shoes and finally the one with the Tulips.

The Tulip stands as a central point and reflects one of the main (export)products of The Netherlands.

You can also see the wavy blue Sakai lines, they represent the water in The Netherlands. And maybe you know, but there is a lot of water in The Netherlands.

The new logo will be seen on all the conference items like poster, programs and t-shirt's.

The Portfolio4u team is proud the Sakai community choose the Dutch designed logo.

What do you think of Sakai conferences?

In case you missed it: there is an intensive and open discussion on when, where and how often Sakai conferences should take place. This is what is so good about Sakai: the open, positive athomospere that shines through in every discussion like these.