These are slides from the Lesson Enhancement Project Sakai webinar held on October 15, 2014. The Sakai Lessons tool has gained a significant amount of attention over the past two years as it provides new and innovative capabilities for authoring sequenced instructional content that includes rich media and other interactive elements. The Lessons Enhancement Project, supported by a range of Apereo Foundation Members, was launched with the goal of completing a major user interface/user experience overall of Lessons for the Sakai 11 release in 2015.  Join us for an update on the Lessons Enhancement Project and learn about progress to date on this important community collaboration.

1. Lessons Enhancement Project
(LEaP)
Josh Baron
Senior Academic Technology Officer
Marist College

2. Webinar Overview
• Historical Context – Realizing the T&L Mission
• Project Background – How we got here…
• LEaP Overview – Goals and Governance
• LEaP Status and Next Steps
• DISCUSSION – Using the LEaP Model for other
Improvements to Sakai

3. Many have contributed…
Dina Kurzwei
Gail Hunger
Luisa Li
Janet Hill
Yitna Firdyiwek
Ann Jensen
Jason Dom
Aurora Collado
Salwa Khan
Wilma Hodges
Jim Mezzanotte
John Lewis
Trisha Gordon
Charles Hedrick
Emily Corse
Neal Caidin
Marilyn Dispensa
Janice Smith
Kara Stiles

4. Historical Context
Sakai Teaching and Learning Mission Statement (2007)
To drive innovation on teaching and learning within the
Sakai community. To share best practices, understandings
and experiences among faculty members themselves and
between faculty and other Sakai community members. To
communicate the goals and issues of the teaching and
learning community to contributors in Sakai including
developers, UX (user experience), system administrators,
documentation, support, and QA (quality assurance).

5. LEaP Background
• Discussions began at 2013 Apereo Conference
– Teaching and Learning session that include PMC
– Issue of “unfunded mandate” surfaced
• Initially developed Capability Review Process
– Idea was to provide a service to the community
– Goal: T&L review tools and provide feedback
• Focused on “new capabilities” and “user experience”
– See: https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/QwzzB
• Decided to experiment with Lesson Builder

6. T&L Capability Review Spreadsheet

7. Lessons Learned
• Using a spreadsheet had pros and cons
– Helped organize feedback but was difficult to view
• Many contributed but skills with UX varied
– User stories were not consistent in focus
• Surfaced that we were too process heavy
– Could we operate in a more agile fashion?
• Clear that UX was a major issue with Lessons
– Yet we were very limited in UX resources

8. LEaP Overview
• Stepping back from the spreadsheet we…
– Decide focusing on the Lessons tool was good idea
– Highest priority was on user experience issues
– Need to find UX/UI design and tech resources
• Launched Lessons Enhancement Project (LEaP)
– Goal #1: Improve Lessons UX for Sakai 11 release
– Goal #2: Experiment with new model for Sakai work

9. LEaP Overview
• UX Designer helped develop project budget
• Worked with Charles Hedrick (developer) to
get his input into the project
• Developed a high level proposal for
institutional decision makers seeking support
– $5000 or equivalent in staff time
• Took two months to raise $35k + UI Developer

10. LEaP Partners

11. LEaP Overview
• Conducted search for UX Designer
• Selected Espress Labs - espresslabs.com
– Have done with for the OpenCast project
– Matt Mischuk is lead UX Designer
– Aram Stamboulian is PM
• Apereo Foundation is legal entity holding the
funds and contracting with Espress Labs

12. Project Governance
• Developed “light weight” governance model
– Steering Group – Institutional decision makers
• High level project oversight, final decisions (if needed)
– Working Group – Experienced Lesson tool users
• Drive all operational decision making
• Selected Co-Chairs to represent WG
– Collaborating closely with larger T&L Group
• Governance Doc at: http://tinyurl.com/m4tlsg2

14. Project Status
• Held project “kick-off” call on September 22nd
– Working Group and Espress Labs
• Initial effort focused on…
– Getting UX Designer familiar with Lessons tool
– Identifying high priority design issues
• Work w/ T&L to develop community survey
– Used broad categories from spreadsheet
– Received over 90 submission as of October 14th

15. Project Status
• Espress Labs is currently creating initial UI
redesign concepts based on initial feedback
• Co-Chairs are coding survey results and
analyzing them for trends
– Will feedback into redesign priorities from WG
• Goal is to have new designs by December and
UI develop work by code freeze for Sakai 11
https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/PED/Lessons+Enhancement+Project

16. Q&A and Discussion
Josh Baron
Senior Academic Technology Officer
Josh.Baron@marist.edu