February 15, 2006

SVM DEVELOPERS MEETING

Scott F. - Course evals coming along; using Maven to build & deploy as a tool. Will need to split out among services & APIs.
Calendaring - first draft from Chris - in design stage, to integrate in Subversion w/build
Working with Aaron Zeckoski, Virginia Tech - Aaron and Scott will collaborate during boot camp end of Feburary.

Beau asked if we had seen Glenn's email re: core changes between 2.1.1 & 2.1.2 sent about 2 days ago.

John Gardiner - Lisa mentioned that Kirk, et.al., are interested in the skins work John has done for VM; John consented to Armando Arbizo contacting him and mentioned that there is a lot of information in the Sakai UI DG. John used a local instance for design process.

Keith - on Ilios, currently importing from CAF by termcode
Ray - Reordering working before & after, if content, date, or time changes. Erin's scheduling process in Ilios: ordered initially by content but that changes with faculty changes that solidify topics and order (general sourse/session info); Erin then matches to locations and date/time of offering. The new process is a web form (w/AJAX?) to give her and faculty drag & drop functionality.

Dave - re: Unicon training session last Friday: There were lots of things presented that we don't want to do, and the tools were not taught as SVM would want to teach - i.e., every tool, every function was covered. Learned that not all tools are hooked into each other yet or into gradebook. Student usage - study areas, etc.
Faculty probably not interested in allowing students interaction w/their materials (rWiki.) There is a potential for confusion between sakai internal tools and current UCD tools. SVM needs to firm up their list of tools that will even be optional and will roll out additional tools as they are vetted as solid and useful to VM. Negative faculty reactions during training over duplicate functionality - faculty have limited time. 8 hrs of training for committed FMF faculty means less training time desirable for regular faculty. Mental workflows don't adapt easily to tool set introduction - too many rabbit trails. "If you're showing this to me, you must want me to use it." SVM will present a simple, short list of tools w/focus on what faculty really need.

Rick - on Captivate demos: has a list of proposed topics; the campus list is very extensive and broad. VM list will be shorter and to the point, focusing on specific needs. Rick met with Nancy & Chris S. again to discuss the demos; VM versions will be short clips; he's firming up the list. Berkeley & Merced are very interested in training clips; tool tip documents to be used as initial script for clips and will utilize ETP students to record from those scripts;
How to Integrate? Will identify demos in Help files list w/media icon. Most will be about 2 mins, brief and succinct. Demos, Indiana tips and pdf tool tips all listed together. Probably on an outside site, e.g., ET Partners tech tool tips site. Ray asked about a timeline for creating these clips; Rick said they will discuss/solidify a timeline in meeting 2 weeks (next week is short.)

Beau - on hardware update. Chris's machine to be the production model; it's racked at DC, needs config; noticed that My was down recently - due to rack shuffling yesterday?

Ray - VM was able to recruit a new Java/Sakai resource - not sure where to physically locate him yet.

CERE IMPLEMENTATION MEETING

Rick - Review of Captivate list; focusing on core kernel for training; will email to Jan for approval. VM plans on automated course sites; project sites w/more flexibility; next week - codify all the standards for clips.

Dave - on Unicon training sessions: Interesting to see training curriculum - too long and covered too much; backwards introduction of some tools, e.g., starting Tests & Quizzes w/Templates. Take Home Lesson - keep it simple, start with a limited menu from day 1; showing tools advocates using them; launch with Resources, Announcements for the intro to Sakai with more advanced training later. Intro to Sakai in 1.5 hour format; give faculty time to get used to the tools before introducing other (mature) tools. Faculty in training session were overwhelmed by number of tools and frustrated by overlap of functionality in tools.
Message that VM wants to give their faculty - simple, functional, w/limited tool accessibility, since everything is new to them. Separate classes for quizzing, discussion, etc., one topic at a time. Must be done in computer lab to get hands on experience.

Issues on Resources: Need to increase 20 MB file size to ?; current manual process of converting to OneNote files - ppt slides & pdfs are huge as content may encompass multiple lectures; students assisting faculty by uploading OneNote files for faculty prior to the lecture - maybe minutes before.

Jan - we need to encourage faculty to deliver content at least 24 hrs prior to allow time for upload and for student downloads prior to lecture.

Pilot users for spring; WebDav makes it easy to move content up - on Mac, using Goliath, although there will be a fix with next Sakai release. Process worked out to build folder structure in sakai, then move over files using WebDdav. Determined that they will not give faculty default folder structure.

Where we will pull topical outlines for spring? For 414C (Birgit Puschner) and 405 (Pat Conrad/Walter Boyce) from Ilios - will get session topics today. Will manually load, if needed, to ensure material in Sakai. Appears that these faculty have tried a few things out in their courses already.

Re: Twin Peaks linkage to the library? Researching now. Also, Dave has done a partial install of DSpace; Rick reviewed others' content in DSpace, need to experiment to see if it's useful; doesn't look like there's a batch/bulk upload function allowing default metatdata. Harvest Road/Hive - commercial version; may need to sign up for demo account to see how it works (Portland used it?)

VM faculty with an interactive online quiz need; needs it to be accessible behind iWeb for both students and certain outside users. Type of quizzing tool? Already built - needs it to be launched ASAP.