Sakai 11 Update - 29 Feb 2016

Hello Sakai Community!
My intention is to give a brief update on Sakai 11 progress, at least every couple of weeks. So here goes.

Release date - Targeting a (mid-)May release of Sakai 11 . Keep this in mind. That's what we are working towards. To reach this date we need most of our QA and Bug fixes done by late March/early April-ish so that we can have several weeks for our final release process.

Sakai 11 was branched off the main Sakai (previously called trunk, now referred to as master), last week, on February 17. We have volunteer branch managers from Oxford and Longsight. Instructions have been updated on Confluence [1]. Branching is important because it shows a commitment to closely controlling Sakai 11 so that new features do not "leak in". It means now is a good time to start translations and primarily we are focusing on bug finding (QA) and bug fixes (awesome developer community). 

Slack channel - We have an Apereo Slack and channels set up for Sakai development, Morpheus (Responsive design work), and QA testing. If someone at your institution has already joined, then you can self join at  https://apereo.slack.com/signup , otherwise email me to add you (and I'll add your institution's domain for self signup). Slack is a tool which facilitates real time communication, primarily as a group chat, but with some nice features and plug-ins available to extend it.

Sakai QA testing - QA server hosted by Marist. Marist, NYU, Sakai Coordinator, and Murcia co-leading QA planning (but especially NYU and Marist). 9 institutions total represented on QA planning team! Rutgers and Murcia have also volunteered QA servers, but we will see what we need as we progress. We have had two "dry runs", getting things in shape to have broader community participation. Lots of testing has been completed for Morpheus! Our process for Morpheus testing is a little different than for Functional testing. Functional testing is ramping up this week. Regular Sakai Test Fests are scheduled every Thursday at 10 am Eastern (currently -5 GMT but daylight savings hits on March 13, and it moves to -4 GMT). Please join us! Also, Sakai QA badging coming soon!

Ra11y is the Accessibility plan for Sakai 11 [2].  Ra11y is not expected to be complete in time for the Sakai 11 release, but we do expect a lot of progress to be made. Ra11y has contracted with SSB Bart [3] for the project. We will need community support to learn more about accessibility best practices, learn how to help with testing accessibility issues, and getting accessibility issues corrected, after they are identified. 

Sakai 11 marketing - a small team of community members is working on ways to better promote Sakai on a (very) limited budget. We want to have Sakai 11 featured prominently on www.sakaiproject.org before launch (preferably in April) and we would like to provide our community (you) with materials that make it easier to promote Sakai at your institution or at conferences. Many cool ideas are emerging and we will make as much progress as we can, given a lightly staffed Apereo. :-)

Sakai video repository (self service) [4] . The Sakai Video Help Repository is a simple community repository of links pointing to "help videos." Videos will be minimally screened to remove from our database any inappropriate and irrelevant content. Please add your video links!

Sakai 10.7 - a 10.7 release is planned for March. It's a relatively small release focusing on fixes of blocker bugs, updates to translations, and security fixes. This may be the last Sakai 10 release (unless additional blocker priority issues or security issues become known) before Sakai 11 is released.


Please email for any questions, concerns, or suggestions.
Thanks,
Neal Caidin
Sakai Community Coordinator

[1] Instructions for using Git with Sakai, including special instructions for developing with the Sakai 11 branch - https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/SAKDEV/Git+Setup
[2] Ra11y accessibility plan - https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/2ACC/rA11y+Plan
[3] SSB Bart - http://info.ssbbartgroup.com/AdW-SSB-BART-Group.html?utm_term=ssb%20bart...
[4] Sakai project website - Video Repository - https://www.sakaiproject.org/sakai-video-help-repository