Sakai Software Basics

I have been serving as the Sakai Foundation "webmaster" for the past month. Part of my duties are to answer questions that come through the contact form at sakaiproject.org. Each day I get a few requests about licensing from commercial firms looking to see if they need to pay someone to use or distribute the software (no, they don't) or if they need to join the foundation to do so (no, they don't). But I also am getting a fair amount of basic support requests that fall along the lines of:

• How do install Sakai?
• How do I use Sakai?
• Will Sakai meet these needs (insert list here)?

My gut tells me that some of these requests are coming from folks that are familiar with the ease of installing applications on a LAMP stack and are surprised by the relative complexity of a Sakai installation. But beyond that, it seems that the distributed nature of the Sakai community has never done a great job of projecting the basic message of what Sakai (the software) is and it's basic features.

That's not to say that the information isn't out there. It is. There are plenty of text out there that describes the essence of all of the tools, but I don't think that they are the BEST way to communicate with the public. Many other open source project sites get the curious visitor up to speed in a hurry with a few short videos that explain the benefits and features and installation of the software to the general public.

My highest priority project for the site is to shepherd the creation of some simple videos targeted at someone completely new to Sakai. I've created a page on the Sakai wiki to outline some high level objectives and a plan for the project. I hope to flesh it out a bit more so that the community can address it at the Denver conference. If you would like to be involved, sign up on that page or contact me personally.