10th Sakai Conference - Boston, MA

1. Sakai at The Claremont Colleges
Elizabeth Hodas
Director, Educational Technology and Media Services
Harvey Mudd College

3. The Claremont Colleges Consortium
• 5 Undergraduate institutions:
• Pomona College (1887)
• Scripps College (1926)
• Claremont McKenna College (1946)
• Harvey Mudd College (1955)
• Pitzer College (1963)
• 2 Graduate institutions
• Claremont Graduate University (1925)
• Keck Graduate Institute (1997)
• Claremont University Consortium (1925)
• Provides central services such as benefits and
purchasing.

4. Sakai at TCC
• Pilot program of Sakai at HMC in Fall 2005. In
production at HMC in Spring 2006.
• In April 2006 the Academic Deans Council mandates
Sakai as the replacement for WebCT at all of The
Claremont Colleges.
• HMC is chosen as “lead college” for Sakai.
• Sakai in production at all 7 institutions in Fall 2006.

5. Sakai Implementation and
Administration
• Sakai Implementation Team (SIT) coordinated
implementation of Sakai at all 7 institutions.
• After implementation the team was renamed Sakai
Administration Team (SAT).
• Comprises at least one member from each institution
and from the Libraries.

6. Claremont-wide decisions
• Course sites are created automatically for
all courses
• Registered users can create project and
portfolio sites
• Users can add guest accounts to their sites

7. Support Structure for Sakai
• As lead college for Sakai, HMC hosts and
maintains the Sakai application for The
Claremont Colleges.
• At HMC, Tier 1 issues are handled by the
Help Desk, Tier 2 issues by Educational
Technology, and Tier 3 by the Sakai
Administrator.

8. Support, cont’d
• At the other Claremont Colleges Tier 1 and Tier 2 issues
are handled at the local level by Help Desk and/or
Instructional Technology.
• Some colleges have chosen to handle all Sakai support
in their Instructional Technology unit.
• Tier 3 requests and escalated issues are sent to HMC
Help Desk and assigned accordingly.
• Created accounts for each college that are
automatically added to each course site with maintain
role. Used by IT staff for faculty support.

9. Examples of Issues
• Tier 1:
• User can’t login
• User can’t find their Sakai site
• Tier 2:
• Faculty needs advice on which tools to use
• User needs help with more advanced tool
• Tier 3:
• Bug report
• Feature request
• Course imports

10. Next steps
• Develop project management strategy for
Tier 3 issues.
• Would allow for better prioritization of
bug fixes, feature requests, etc.
• Better tracking of support time provided
by HMC.
• Also developing a formal SLA between
HMC and The Claremont Colleges.

11. SAKAI SUPPORT FROM A
CLIENT/USER PERSPECTIVE
Benjamin Royas
Instructional Technology Specialist
Claremont McKenna College
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12. Tier 1: The Easy Stuff
• Immediate resolution via phone or email
• Users can’t login
• Check/verify username
• Remind user of password conventions (case
sensitive, etc.)
• Remind guest accounts not to use School
Selector pull-down menu when logging in
• Guest password reset tool
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13. Tier 1: The Easy Stuff
• User can’t find course site
• Explain tabs and “More…” pull down-menu
• User needs access to a particular course
site
• CGU students (manually add)
• Re-activate inactive student accounts
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14. Tier 2: Intermediate Issues
• Helping faculty with advanced tools
• Troubleshooting, set-up, training
• Gradebook, Tests & Quizzes
• Creating and managing guest accounts
• Auditors
• Troubleshooting/training
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15. Tier 2: Intermediate Issues
• Managing student accounts
• Auditors, TAs, etc.
• Importing materials/tools from older
course sites
• Old WebCT archives
• Older Sakai course sites
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16. Tier 3: The Difficult Stuff
• Beyond the scope of Inst. Technologist
• Admin intervention required for closure
• Examples:
• Combined course site creation
• Academic dishonesty/data verification
• New tool request
• Bug reports
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17. Tier 3: The Difficult Stuff
• More examples:
• Specialized faculty course sites
• Summer internships
• Faculty search committees
• Math Placement Exam
• Course site population
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18. Decision Making
• Sakai Administration Team (SAT)
• Monthly meetings
• Tool testing/reporting
• Discussion of bugs, problems, concerns
• Voting
• Default tools
• New tools
• Dates for upgrades, server reboots
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19. Training & Common Resources
• Workshops
• Semester and during breaks (fall, spring,
summer)
• Resources in SAT Project Site
• Documentation
• Videos
• Wikis
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20. Sakai at the Claremont Colleges:
Administrative Uses
Mary McMahon
Director of Instructional Services
Pomona College

21. Administrative Uses
• Single, secure place for all project
-specific materials
• Project sites self serve at Claremont
• Sustainability

22. Committee Work
• Sakai Administration Team
• Faculty Personnel Committee
“Sakai use has proven to enhance
confidentiality”
Kris Fossum, Assistant Dean of Faculty
• Curriculum Committee

25. Academic Department Sites
• Meeting minutes
• Course evaluations
• Van, cottage scheduling
• Telescope adjustment wiki

26. Overall Themes

28. Faculty Development
• First year seminar program shared
curricular resources
• Archive particularly useful to new
faculty

30. Advancement: Project Management
• Software implementation process
• Guest logins for vendors
• “Everything in one place.”
Nadine Francis
Director of Advancement Services

31. Residence Hall Management
• Forms repository: expense, video release
• Hiring process
• Equipment circulation wiki

32. Administrative Use Themes
• Materials repository
• De facto standard
• Ease of access
• Communication

33. Library Integration @ Claremont
Jezmynne Dene
Science Librarian
Claremont University Consortium
jez91711@gmail. Com
Jez91711 on chat
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34. Library Presence
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35. Library Presence
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36. Library Presence
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37. Library Presence
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38. Library Presence
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39. Library Presence
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40. Library Presence
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41. Library Presence
• Pros
• Familiar work environment for users
• Faculty copy/reuse materials
• File hosting for resources
• Cons
• Users must search the directory to find the
site
• Cumbersome to permalink from other sites
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42. Ereserves
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43. Ereserves
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44. Ereserves
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45. Ereserves
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46. Ereserves
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47. Ereserves
• Pros
• Easy for library staff
• Circumvents political issues of course access
• Cons
• Not service oriented
• Additional service time required for user
training & support
• Faculty animosity over loss of service
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48. Sakai at the Claremont Colleges:
Training & ePortfolio
Susan Roig
Director Academic Technology
Claremont Graduate University

49. Introduction
• Claremont Graduate University
• free-standing graduate school
• ~1500 students, ~100 faculty
• Nine Schools:
•Arts & Humanities
•Information Systems & Technology
•Religion
•Politics & Economics
•Behavioral & Organizational Sciences
•Mathematical Sciences
•Drucker-Ito Management
•Educational Studies
• Global and Community Health
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50. Claremont Graduate University
• Training modules
• http://www.cgu.edu/pages/4990.asp
• ePortfolios
• Contracted with Serensoft
• First used for advising
• Fall 09 opening to individual students, courses
and schools
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