[Bodington-developers] UHI developments in Bodington / Sakai

[Sean M. <se...@sm...>]

UHI recently convened an academic review panel to consider the =20
Learning and Information Services' VLE strategy. That strategy, which =20=

reflects the Tetra strategy, was that a framework solution was =20
required to provide institutional, enterprise services to staff and =20
students across a range of domains, all integrated and increasingly =20
using loosely coupled, independent components. A key part of that =20
solution involved the present provision of Bodington as the VLE and =20
involved a stepwise transition plan to Sakai over the next four =20
years. After taking the evidence, the panel deliberated and concluded =20=

that the UHI strategy of an e-Framework was the correct one:

"Having reviewed the evidence carefully, taken advice from the =20
external members, the Panel will report to the Executive Board at its =20=

meeting of 15 February. The Panel recommends that UHI should freeze =20
the development of CLAN; investigate the feasibility of a fast track =20
transfer to SAKAI as UHI=92s VLE; and in the meantime the Panel =20
recommends that UHI continue to use as its VLE, Blackboard and Web CT.
In coming to this decision the Panel wished to record its recognition =20=

of the hard work and commitment of the teaching and support staff who =20=

have developed, tested and used the CLAN system. The Panel believes =20
that the experience gained will provide valuable support for the =20
transition to SAKAI. The Panel believes that the community of =20
universities which are developing SAKAI, including MIT, gives =20
confidence in this route for UHI as does the fact that this route is =20
currently under exploration at the University of Edinburgh, one of =20
UHI=92s sponsor universities."

We have an Executive Board on the 14th of this month, after which we =20
will have some better idea of what any practicalities are from this, =20
but UHI are being told to Tetra faster rather than slower. This =20
should free dev resource on our end to facilitate Tetra(ish) =20
developments. Does anyone want to have a conference (tele or vid) to =20
discuss sometime later this week? If so, i'm here anyway.

Best regards,
Sean


Sean Mehan
Head of e-Frameworks
Learning and Information Services
UHI - www.uhi.ac.uk
www.weblogs.uhi.ac.uk/sm00sm/
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GuanXi - a SAML/Shibboleth IdP, SP and Toolkit - http://=20
guanxi.sourceforge.net/
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Bodington - a Free VLE - http://bodington.sourceforge.net/