UC Davis Prepares for New Course Management Tools

Under the guidance of the UC Davis Sakai Oversight Committee, chaired by Dr. Yellowlees, UC Davis is preparing for the launch of several Sakai pilot implementations over the next few months. The Sakai Project is part of a much larger consortium that originated from the University of Michigan and Indiana University and is committed to delivering a complete learning management system to higher education. The UC Davis project team, composed of representatives from the School of Veterinary Medicine, the School of Medicine, and IET, expects to roll out a production version of Sakai for the School of Medicine this fall 2005 and a pilot version for Veterinary Medicine in Spring 2006. The third pilot, including quiz and assessment modules, will be conducted by IET in the fall with select faculty. In addition, IET is working to integrate authentication and authorization capabilities into the local version of Sakai. In parallel efforts, a subcommittee of the Campus Council for Information Technology is preparing migration and functional recommendations to guide the implementation of the next generation of course management tools at UC Davis. Included in this effort are consultations (held jointly with the UC Davis technical team) with other campuses (e.g., Indiana University, Stanford, and UC Berkeley). The recommendations are expected to be ready by mid-June 2005.