An Insider's Perspective on the Sakai Project: Reality and Promise for Sustainable Economics and Innovation

Abstract

In just two short years, the Sakai Project has imperfectly demonstrated the immense potential of the community source model for higher education. We have learned how to pool our resources, run an effective governance, deliver on date-driven development, grow an international community of both not-for-profits and commercial interests, develop a sustainability plan with US$1M cash flow, and most importantly, implement the resulting software at enterprise scale in full production environments. Sakai is providing a unifying community for rapid innovation to support e-learning, e-research, digital libraries and collaboration, but much, much work remains to be done. This session will explain the Sakai Project’s recent history, its future in the hands of the Sakai Foundation, applicability of community source to administrative systems, and assess Sakai’s local impact through implementation at Indiana University. Show more