Case study of Marist College successfully using Sakai.

1. CLIENT SUCCESS STORY
MARIST COLLEGE
INNOVATION.
SUPPORTED.
MARIST COLLEGE AND SAKAI
Marist College, located in Poughkeepsie, New York, is known
as one of the most technologically advanced comprehensive
MARIST COLLEGE AND rSMART
Marist partnered with rSmart, a company dedicated
liberal arts colleges in the United States. Marist, with its
to open source software support and services in
4,300 students and 1000 staff, is a proud recipient of the higher education, for implementation and operational
Campus Technology Innovators Award and recognized by support. William Thirsk, Vice President and Chief
The Princeton Review and Forbes as one of the 25 “Most Information Officer at Marist College, explains Marist’s
Connected Campuses” in America. perspective for the value of partnering with rSmart:
“As both an IT leader and a small liberal arts college,
In early 2006, Marist College embarked upon a rigorous we approach technology development differently
two-year assessment of Sakai. Josh Baron, Director of than a large, research university. Strong partners
Academic Technology and e-Learning at Marist College, led that support our vision are critical to our success;
we cannot achieve what we do alone. rSmart brings
the learning management system decision-making process
a strong, fully verified and supported Sakai instance
at Marist College.
and excellent support and maintenance services. As
our partner, rSmart focuses on our institution’s needs
and interests, they invest with us in the development
efforts most critical to our college, and they maintain
...no other system compared with Sakai’s ability
an ongoing dialogue about how to optimize our
to enable teaching and learning innovation. relationship for the greatest mutual benefit.”
A significant example of this optimization is the
support rSmart provided for Marist’s Sakai-SIS
“We looked at five decision criteria when we evaluated Sakai: (Student Information System) integration. Working
functionality requirements, available support, the health of with rSmart’s development team, Marist’s IT offices
the Sakai community, innovation factors, and reliability and were able to leverage Sakai’s course management
stability.” After a thorough analysis of Sakai, Marist College API to tightly integrate their legacy SIS system
with Sakai course sites. This work automated the
concluded that Sakai met their requirements under these
enrollment and “drop/add” process for courses,
criteria, and that no other system compared with Sakai’s saving Marist 72 people hours per year, resulting in
ability to enable teaching and learning innovation. an overall productivity gain of 4%. rSmart’s services
significantly reduced the development resources
needed to implement the integration. In addition,
once the integration was completed, rSmart provided
“just-in-time” support to make sure technical issues
were addressed quickly, ensuring an extremely positive
user experience as the integration was rolled out.

2. To migrate to Sakai, Marist College had to
address questions of how to educate faculty M I G R AT I N G A
rSmart Sakai CLE
to the opportunities of the new system, how
CAMPUS TO
to engage their interest, and how to optimize
their ability to translate their knowledge into
SAKAI
improved teaching strategies with favorable,
tangible outcomes.
Marist implemented effective communication
and educational strategies to address these
issues. One of these strategies included a
summer educational program, initially geared
specifically to faculty in charge of fully on-line
courses. This evolved into the “Academic Technology Institute,” a program that was adapted to meet
specific faculty needs, with flexible offerings such as weekend availability for adjunct faculty or a fully
online version of the workshop, run in Sakai itself.
The results of efforts like these have been positive and significant. Setting goals for faculty conversion, Marist
College consistently surpassed benchmarks. The fall 2008 goal was to have 15% of faculty opt to move to
Sakai. Actual faculty conversion was 65%. Spring 2009’s conversion goal was 75%, with actual conversion
being 85%. Marist’s ultimate goal is that by fall 2009, all faculty will have transitioned to Sakai. Given the
expedited rate of conversion experienced thus far, Mr. Baron feels comfortable that this goal will be met.
SAKAI AFFORDS IMPROVED Dr. Mark Van Dyke, an associate professor in Marist
College’s School of Communication and the Arts, was
intrigued by the possibilities of Sakai’s collaborative
TEACHING STRATEGIES WITH learning environment, and early in the implementation
process, he integrated Sakai into his teaching strategies.
FAVORABLE, TANGIBLE For the spring semester of 2008, Dr. Van Dyke created
separate work sites, using Sakai, for two sections of a
OUTCOMES public relations case studies course that would be the beginning of a year-long
project. These sites promoted active learning among students within each
section. However, Dr. Van Dyke wanted to take the course collaboration to the
next level, to allow collaboration among students in different course sections.
Building upon the success he was experiencing with Sakai, Dr. Van Dyke
moved the project forward to a fall 2008 communication capstone course. He
created two more Sakai worksites for each section of the course and he added
a project collaboration site. Course materials were then migrated from the
spring and fall courses into the project site. The collaboration site connected
all students from both sections of the fall course and created a bridge to the
experience and knowledge gained by students in his spring course.
As he explains, “The collaboration site was like the hub of a wheel, with
the spokes being the connection between the collaboration site and unique
course sections.” The students were largely responsible for populating the
collaboration site, which they did, adding forum discussions, chats, blogs,
podcasts, wikis, resource folders, contact lists, and more. Ultimately, the
project site facilitated collaboration among 70 students working in 15 teams
from four different course sections, over two semesters.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT As remarkable as his success with Sakai has been, so is the fact that neither
WWW.RSMART.COM Dr. Van Dyke nor his students had ever used Sakai before or had received any
specialized training other than what was offered to all faculty and students.
OR CALL TOLL FREE In fact, he explains, “we completed a couple of tutorials, and the students
866.874.4338 took to it right away.“