While four leading universities plan to develop a new open-source online course-management program called Sakai, the University of Wisconsin System plans to switch from WebCT to a different new program.
Researchers at Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Michigan and the Indiana University System are sponsoring Sakai, as are the Open Knowledge Institute and uPortal consortium. After funding from the two commercial sponsors, each university will contribute approximately $1.1 million this year for the development of the program.
The program, which will be similar to WebCT, will allow the universities to build upon their own experiences with other systems to customize the program, according to Christine Fitzpatrick of Indiana University.
“This is an open-source initiative, which by nature essentially means there will be participation by the institutions,” she said. “That means that the partner institutions would have unrestricted use of Sakai.”
Developers say that by uniting several universities but still allowing flexibility, Sakai will benefit the involved institutions.
“This endeavor allows four institutions that have committed to software development to vet our ideas and implementations with each other, creating the opportunity for a best of breed to emerge,” said Lois Brooks, director of Academic Computing at Stanford University, in a written statement. “By committing to work with each other and devote our resources to the common good, we are assuring that the collective value is returned to our own institutions, to our partners’ institutions, and to the community.”
Some express concern because the program will be developed by universities as open source, and proper technical support might not be available. Fitzpatrick said even with commercial options such as WebCT and Blackboard, support is often left to the university.
“Course-management systems and other tools which will be affected by Sakai are already supported largely by the individual university,” she explained. “And each partner institution will still provide its own technical support.”
Unsure whether Sakai was ever considered by UW, Brian Rust, Communications Manager for the Department of Information Technology, pointed to upcoming changes in the University’s online programs.
“Last summer, the UW system decided to license and move to Desire2Learn,” Rust explained. “There are already plans to use Desire2Learn in the immediate future. It’s going to be rolled out statewide.”
Like Sakai, the system will be tailored to the specific needs of the UW System, Rust said.
“There are services being added to the basic Desire2Learn,” he said. “The overall system will be called Learn@UW. Folks using WebCT can continue through the end of the academic year, but there are already several courses designed for release in Learn@UW, and by the end of next summer, we plan to switch everyone over.”
Sakai is also scheduled for release by the end of this summer.
