Sakai and ALEX

A Brief Look

Ethan Ehrenberg

Sakai is a “community source” software product developed by the higher education community to serve as an open source learning management system (LMS) and collaboration suite alternative.

During the past two years, NYU has been carefully tracking the evolution of the higher education LMS market and evaluating the many available options. NYU has been a partner in the Sakai program for several years, and during the 2007-08 academic year ITS closely monitored the activities of the Sakai international community and supported a pilot project for 26 courses on the Washington Square campus using the Sakai product. The NYU School of Medicine also successfully implemented Sakai in its courses in a project known as ALEX (Advanced Learning EXchange).

Preliminary results from the Washington Square pilot suggest that Sakai is not yet ready to perform the features that NYU requires in an LMS. However, as other major research universities become more involved with Sakai (which has many possibilities for group collaboration and support), ITS plans to continue to test and explore possibilities.

For more information on Sakai, visit www.sakaiproject.org. For more information on NYU’s ALEX project, visit www.nyu.edu/its/alex.

Author Biographies

Ethan Ehrenberg is a Faculty Technology Specialist within ITS Faculty Technology Services.