Report on Library Sakai Integration Planning Meeting
Submitted by Jon Dunn, Susan Hollar, Jerry Persons, and MacKenzie Smith
April 28, 2005
Background 1
Meeting Summary 2
Collaboration with Sakai Educational Partners Program 2
Use Cases and Priority Development Areas 4
Pilot Projects 4
Next Steps 6
Budget 7
Appendix 1.1: Licensed Electronic Content Use Case 8
Appendix 1.2: Data Sets Use Case 12
Appendix 1.3: Images Use Case 15
Appendix 1.4: Time-based Media Use Case 17
Appendix 1.5: Expert Research Guide (Student) 19
Appendix 1.6: Expert Research Guide (Librarian) 22
Appendix 2: Meeting Participants 24
Appendix 3: Library Sakai Meeting Agenda 25
Appendix 4: Sakai and Library Content and Services 27
Background
Major research library collections are central to the scholarly life of the university campus. The rapid digitization of collections is making ubiquitous access to the work of scholars, past and present, a reality. Libraries such as those of Indiana University, University of Michigan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Stanford University currently have vast collections of books, manuscripts, journals, maps, musical recordings, scores, film, and more. Digital content can be in a wide range of formats, including electronic texts, audio, images, video, or data sets, and is accessed through a variety of networked delivery methods.[1] While the Google digitization project and other digitization efforts are rapidly increasing the amount of online information, the paths to content are still quite complex. Libraries provide access to licensed content from a multitude of publishers, locally digitized collections, and open access content. Accessing this content is not as simple as linking to a particle article or image, as URLs are unstable, licensing agreements require authentication and copyright management, and publisher formats and delivery methods can and do vary. At the same time that more content is available online, virtual collaboration space is becoming more integral to teaching, learning, and research. Instructors, researchers, and students are more reliant on systems such as Sakai. The digitized content described above is central to the teaching, learning, and research process. To effectively deliver content to Sakai and avoid duplication of efforts, libraries and learning management system developers must work collaboratively to develop seamless integration, leveraging strengths of existing infrastructure and resources while at the same time developing new tools and modes of delivery.
This issue was the topic at a January 18, 2005 meeting at the Mellon Foundation. Library directors and staff from the University of Michigan, Indiana University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University, along with representatives from the Digital Library Federation’s Aquifer Project, Sakai Educational Partners Program (SEPP), and Mellon, discussed the need for integration of library content within the Sakai course management environment. While Sakai provides the framework for campus course management, collaboration, and portal systems, the library provides the student, instructor, and researcher with content and services central to the teaching and learning process. An outcome of the January 18 meeting was a Mellon-funded meeting to discuss and identify priorities for integrating library content with Sakai.
Meeting Summary
Three representatives from each Sakai Core Institution library, including a mix of digital library project managers, e-learning staff, electronic licensing experts, public services librarians, and library systems programmers, along with representatives from the Sakai Project Board and the Sakai Educational Partners Program, and the Aquifer Project gathered at Stanford University on March 2-3. The three main goals for the meeting were: generate use cases for integration of library resources and services into the Sakai environment; develop plans to coordinate and collaborate with the Sakai Educational Partners Program; and identify priority areas for future development work. As described below, all three goals were successfully met.
The meeting opened with an overview of the Sakai Educational Partners Program by Jim Martino, Bill Parod, and Mark Norton. We then proceeded with presentation of the use cases prepared in advance by each institution. After the presentations, attendees broke up into groups focused on each of three areas—images and time-based media, articles and datasets, and library services—to work on merging and refining these use cases. The result of the meeting was six revised use cases (see Appendix 1), which illustrate how users would interact with Sakai and library resources, systems, and services to complete a specific task/activity. Based on these use cases, we have identified five potential pilot projects that we plan to propose to the Mellon Foundation for consideration. After considerable discussion, we decided it was premature to suggest sets of requirements for core Sakai functionality for library-specific application. Through the pilot projects we will be able to determine where development in Sakai is appropriate and/or when hooks to existing resources are appropriate.
Collaboration with Sakai Educational Partners Program
As Sakai makes the transition from core development to a community managed project, it will become increasingly important for institutions to work collaboratively to develop tools and resources that are for the entire Sakai community. Indiana, Michigan, MIT and Stanford have premier digital library programs and proven track records in digital library development. Our institutions are ready to take an active leadership role with other research libraries in the SEPP community in developing Library Sakai integration. While integrating with the SEPP community is a process, significant progress has already been made.
An important step toward collaboration was the involvement of leaders in the SEPP and Sakai development community in the March meeting. The participation of Jim Martino, Bill Parod, Lois Brooks, and Mark Norton was very valuable. In addition to gaining a greater understanding of the activities and role of SEPP, we developed working definitions of learning objects, repository, and content types that was helpful in shaping discussion. Jim and Bill’s expertise and knowledge of the Sakai environment was integral to development of our use cases and pilot project descriptions.
As Sakai moves from targeted development to SEPP-governed open source software,
active participation in the SEPP Discussion Groups is essential to the success of the core institution libraries. While the obvious choice for involvement is the Library DG, wider involvement is necessary to ensure alignment of priorities and avoid duplication of efforts. Other relevant Discussion Groups include SEPP Content, Pedagogy, Requirements, and the Sakai Tools Team. It is through full engagement in these communities that library integration with the Sakai framework will be realized. One example of how we will engage as part of the SEPP community in the near future is through participation in the June 9-10 SEPP conference in Baltimore. A representative from the core institution libraries will participate in a panel with the representatives from the University of Colorado and Yale University to discuss construction of use cases, user needs addressed in the use cases, and how we envision moving from the use case to pilot projects. This will be an excellent opportunity to identify potential partners for collaboration on pilot projects, which are described later in the report.
Jim Martino of the Sakai Education Partners Program says the following regarding collaboration amongst the core institution libraries and SEPP:
“As co-leads of the SEPP Library and Repository discussion group, Bill Parod and I were happy to accept an invitation early this year to visit Stanford for a meeting of representatives of the core Sakai institutions' libraries for the purpose of developing use cases for possible Sakai / library services integration projects. One of the main interests of the SEPP Library group is enhancing connectivity between Sakai and library services. Our plan is to take pilot implementations of tools that integrate library services within Sakai and develop them further. The procedure will be to form work groups consisting of representatives from several diverse institutions with common interests who will examine the pilot projects and formulate scenarios of how the services might be implemented at their own institutions. From these scenarios we will construct more general use cases, which will allow us to anticipate and minimize the effort required to localize these Sakai tools at various institutions. Resulting functional specifications can then be used by developers to adapt the pilot tools for general use. Early Sakai adopters who build pilot implementations will offer us the first opportunity to develop these more general tools. As the core Sakai institutions are naturally most deeply involved with Sakai at this stage, their libraries are well positioned to undertake library integration projects. Michigan has already built a pilot reserves tool, which we hope to use for establishing the above procedures within the SEPP Library/Repository group. We look forward to furthering progress made at the Stanford meeting by encouraging the core Sakai institutions libraries to play a substantial role in the work of the SEPP Library group.”
Use Cases and Priority Development Areas
Each institution came to the meeting with three or more draft use cases focusing on interaction of library resources and services in the Sakai environment. Upon presentation of the use cases, certain themes emerged and the use cases were consolidated into six use cases, included in Appendix 1 of this document. Interestingly, the use cases demonstrated that users often interact simultaneously with combinations of the four content types: licensed electronic content; digitized content; open access content; and learning content.[2] Additionally, users interact with librarians and other subject experts while researching amongst the content types.
Upon presentation of the use cases, five themes emerged. Through the process of presenting and further refining the use cases, priorities area of development for library integration emerged:
a. Reading lists of licensed electronic content with electronic rights management
b. Use and sharing of numeric data
c. Access to and manipulation of digital images for study and presentation
d. Incorporation and annotation of video and audio content
e. Generation of subject research guides of content and interaction with expert (librarian)
Pilot Projects
Based on the use cases and priority areas of development, five pilot projects were identified.
Licensed electronic content with electronic rights management, MIT Lead
Based on Use Case in Appendix 1.1
Instructors make heavy use of library materials to support their courses, and especially readings (i.e. journal articles, book chapters, theses, technical reports, etc.). In the past this was done with a "reserves" service, but in the online environment most of these readings are available digitally from publishers or other content providers via licenses that the Library acquires and via Library-based technology. In the Sakai environment it will be very important for instructors to have easy means of finding relevant Library resources and adding them to their course website, and for students to access these resources as part of their coursework. And all this must be done in a way that complies with the terms and conditions set forth in the license that the Library has signed. This functionality does not currently exist in the Sakai framework, so the work of this prototype will be to design the user experience of working with digital resources from the Library, identify and develop the necessary standards and protocols to move content around for this service, do the related technical analysis and development to make Sakai and the Library technical infrastructure interoperate, and test the whole process with a range of types of content under different legal license terms. This will be a large effort that crosses many parts of the Library -- public services, acquisitions, and the IT group to name just three -- and will allow us to insure that the instruction process in the online environment is as rich as it was in the past, and more convenient for everyone.
Numeric data, Stanford Lead
Based in Use Case in Appendix 1.2
In this project we plan to investigate, codify, and report the problem sets for facilitating use of statistical data sets and geospatial information by Sakai including: discovery associated with content that lies outside traditional library searching tools (i.e., book catalogs, indexes of journal literature); issues associated with digital rights management, for both the data itself as well as the tools needed to process it; identification and creation of subsets of data that are appropriate to a specific class assignment; and metadata and content packaging to enable inclusion of (or reference to) each type of content from within Sakai assignments. The pilot will demonstrate a set of functions for teachers to identify and include each type of content as assignments in courses that are managed by Sakai and students to study each type of content, learn from their experience, and report their findings based on successful use of the requisite tools.
Digital Images, Michigan Lead
Based on Use Case in Appendix 1.3
Instructors in art history use art images extensively in their lectures. In the past, this was largely done with slides, and libraries built large slide collections to support both research and instruction. Recently, many libraries have digitized portions of those slide libraries, and commercial services such as, first, AMICO, and then ARTstor, made large collections available in digital form. However, instructors use these images with presentation software such as Microsoft PowerPoint, because they can control the appearance more readily than they can with LMS. Yet PowerPoint and other software are not well designed for other aspects of this task, such as importing and editing descriptive metadata. Professors in this field need software that is well integrated in Sakai that will allow them to capture metadata and images at the same time, edit and annotate, and create a presentation.
Annotation of video and audio content, Indiana Lead
Based on the use case in appendix 1.4
In this project we plan to design, prototype, and pilot a set of tools to support secured access to streaming audio and video from within the Sakai environment. These tools will support linking to audio and video objects in the institution’s streaming media service from within Sakai, including the ability for faculty and students to select and link to excerpts of these objects and build personal media playlists. They will also support the annotation of video content using tools based on the ideas, and possibly the code, of existing programs such as the Timeliner audio annotation component of Indiana’s Variations2 digital music library system <http://variations2.indiana.edu/> and the video annotation/segmentation tool developed as part of the Mellon-funded EVIA Digital Archive project <http://www.indiana.edu/~eviada/>. The goal will be to, as much as possible, design these tools to be format- and streaming platform-independent.