Transitions

When we started the Sakai project in late 2003, our goals were primarily economic. Along with our colleagues at Indiana, Michigan and MIT, we at Stanford wanted to collectively create a single course and collaboration software that we could all deploy on our campuses. We were quickly joined by other schools, most notably UC Berkeley, as active development partners. The first couple of years were hard work, more than any of us had anticipated, and it was through sheer perseverance that we were each able to do our local deployments. At Stanford, Indiana, Berkeley and Michigan, we all run Sakai at an enterprise level, and all have benefitted from the economies of shared effort and shared reward.

Our aspirations were higher than just to produce this software; we wanted to create a community of developers and educators. It was idealistic, but indeed, it was the right idea. The Sakai Foundation is a robust and vibrant community of about 100 members, as well as many more adopters and participants in the larger educational community. There are scores of people deserving credit for this success, but none more so than Michael Korcuska. His boundless enthusiasm and wise leadership of the Foundation have enabled this transition from a project to a community, and it is with thanks and gratitude that I wish him prosperity and happiness in his next venture.

There are two demonstrable marks of success in the Sakai community. First, the leadership and innovation -- technical, pedagogical, and governance -- has moved well beyond the tenure of the original project team. There is real vision and passion in the community, and the Foundation and the software are owned by all of us. Second, the model has been emulated successfully for other projects. Our friends over at the Kuali Foundation directly modeled their work on Sakai, evolving the model to meet their own challenges quite successfully. We see thriving communities in other academic spheres as well, including digital libraries, eportfolios, and open content. Collectively we have demonstrated that collaboration works. The higher education community can successfully innovate and deliver solid products that meet academic needs, and can sustain those efforts. We have created positive change in the technology marketplace in higher education, and we have benefited from the ideas and expertise of our peers.

I stepped down from the Sakai board in December, coincident with retirement from Stanford, with confidence that Sakai is a success. Even with Michael’s decision to grab hold of a new opportunity, I remain unwaveringly confident in Sakai because of the widespread commitment to the Foundation, and the collaborative leadership of current and future versions of the software. I am proud to hold the helm during this transition from Michael’s tenure to that of the next Executive Director, and hope that my involvement again with Sakai benefits the community. To avoid speculation I will share with all of you that my leadership of the Foundation will only be during this transitional period, and once new leadership is in place, I will retire (again) from the Sakai Foundation.

I look forward to working with the community for the next several months.