JASIG ANNOUNCEMENTS
- Jasig and Sakai Foundations Finalize Merger Plans
- Community Naming Process for Jasig-Sakai Merged Organization
- The 2011 Jasig Unconference
JASIG PROJECTS
Central Authentication Service (CAS)
- phpCAS has moved to GitHub
uPortal
- uPortal 4.0.1 Released
- New uPortal Release Schedule
- Targeted uPortal Unconference Topics
Bedework
- Bedework 3.7.0.16 bug fix release now available
uMobile
- uMobile 1.0 GA Released!
JASIG INCUBATOR
- Announcing Email Preview 1.1.0
- Announcing General Availability of the Jasig Scheduling Assistant
AROUND JASIG
- Shibboleth Installation Training (Nov. 7-8, 2011)
- Kuali Days 2011 - Empowering the Community (November 14-16, 2011)
- Open Source Mobile Platform Designed to Meet Campus Needs - Webinar (Tuesday, November 22, 1 p.m. EST)
JASIG ANNOUNCEMENTS
Jasig and Sakai Foundations Finalize Merger Plans
In 2010 the Jasig and Sakai Foundations undertook an evaluation of the benefits and feasibility of bringing our two organizations together. Following a positive initial investigation, work began after the 2010 EDUCAUSE conference to merge organizations. We are now approaching the final stages of this process and wanted to take this opportunity to report our progress.
The Jasig and Sakai Foundation Board of Directors have now independently elected four members from each of their existing Boards to serve on the “Founding Board” of the new common organization. A list of the members elected by each Board is included below. A Founding Board is a legal precondition for incorporating a new 501(c)3 Not-For-Profit entity which necessitates it formation at this point in the process. Although the Founding Board will not have any legal authority prior to incorporation they will be consulted and heavily engaged as we finalize the merger process. Once incorporated, community elections will be held to elect four additional Board Members (details of the election process are being finalized in the bylaws). Following a timeline to be established by the new Board (of no more than three years in length), members of the Founding Board will rotate off to allow their position to be filled by individuals elected directly by the combined communities.
Following approval by our two communities, we plan to file for incorporation early in the new year and gain non-profit status within the first quarter of 2012. The specific timeline for finalizing the incorporation process depends heavily on the how quickly we gain state and federal approvals. During this time, the Founding Board will also likely be working to form an Advisory Council of international leaders within higher education to provide guidance as the new organization matures. Additional details on this Advisory Council and the merger, including an updated version of the bylaws and a draft membership model, will be released to our communities for review and comment in the coming weeks.
As we move into this final phase, we will also select a name for the merged organization. It is important to emphasize that bringing together Jasig and the Sakai Foundations will not dissolve or merge our respective software communities or projects. Existing brands will not go away, but will benefit from being exposed to the new audiences reached by the new organization. The Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment will still be promoted and maintained as the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment, Jasig uPortal as uPortal, and so on. The new organization will build on the successes of the past in developing brand recognition, without seeking to supplant existing brands. Managing this branding issue is critical, and our respective Boards have been dedicating significant attention to this issue. It is within this context that we are now seeking input and suggestions from our communities, and beyond, for the name of the new Foundation.
Following the EDUCAUSE conference, we will be announcing a Community Naming Process which we hope will stimulate community members, instructors, and student groups to assist in this effort as means to draw on the wealth of expertise within our communities. As part of this initiative we are also releasing an updated version of a document articulating the value of the new organization which was first released in April 2011. The new version, which has been re-titled “The Value of a Common Foundation” (see attached, web version coming soon), provides new content based on feedback and questions from our communities. It is important that our new name reflect the communities and values of the new organization and we hope this updated document will be useful in identifying appropriate names for consideration. The final selection of a name for the new Foundation will be the responsibility of the members of the Founding Board.
We thank all of the members of our communities, as well as the many other interested third parties that have provided invaluable feedback as we have made progress towards merging our two organizations. We truly believe that the new joined foundation will represent a positive step forward both for our founding communities, but also for the use of open source in institutions of higher education around the world.
Founding Board Members
Jens Haeusser, University of British Columbia
John Lewis, Unicon
Josh Baron, Marist College
Maggie Lynch, Thanos Partners
Michael Feldstein, Cengage Learning
Nate Angell, rSmart
Robert Sherratt, University of Hull
Tim Carroll, University of Illinois
Josh Baron
Chair, Sakai Foundation Board of Directors
Co-Chair, Jasig-Sakai Joint Working Group
Jens Haeusser
Chair, Jasig Board of Directors
Co-Chair, Jasig-Sakai Joint Working Group
Community Naming Process for Jasig-Sakai Merged Organization
What’s in a name? We want you to be involved! (and you and your team could win an iPod Nano!)
Jasig and Sakai are coming together to create a new organization that will support open source projects and practices in higher education. The new organisation will have a strong emphasis on existing software communities, and existing project brands. Names such as Sakai and uPortal won’t go away, they will remain an essential element of reaching constituents old and new. We are iteratively developing a shared value document describing the benefits of the merger which we believe will be of use to those considering suitable names. “The Value of a Common Foundation” document is available at: http://www.sakaiproject.org/sites/default/files/CommonFoundationValue1-1...
We invite you to get involved in the process. We want to draw on the strengths of our communities to create a name that will last, and communicate our culture and our values. A name that is unique and easy to remember. We’d also like to hear the explanation, or back story, behind your name suggestion. The following are suggestions of how you may create a name:
(1) Engage your faculty and students, especially in business schools and courses associated with the creative industries. “The Value of a Common Foundation” document could act as a brief for student or staff engagement.
(2) Engage your institutional marketing team.
(3) Engage your colleagues.
If you decide to get involved we would recommend that you review basic principles for naming (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_naming) and also keep in mind the following:
(1) It should be something people can say and spell fairly easily, even in different languages
(2) We don’t want to be confused with other existing organizations or products
(3) We are an international organization and thus are particularly interested in non-US/English Language centric names
(4) You may find it useful to read a bit about branding and mergers, one good source is: http://www.mergerbranding.com/articles/2006%2006%20M&A%20Branding%20-%20...
The Founding Board will be announcing the new name in a press release in early 2012. Please submit your ideas by December 16 to be considered. If your idea is used you will receive a formal Letter of Appreciation from the Founding Board along with iPod Nanos for your entire team (up to five total).
Please send entries to Patty Gertz ed@jasig.org and Ian Dolphin iandolphin@sakaifoundation.org by December 16, 2011.
Thanks for your help!
The 2011 Jasig Unconference
Date: 7 Nov 2011 - 9 Nov 2011
Location: UMass Online Offices in Shrewsbury, MA
Connect with your peers. Help plan strategic direction for products that matter to you. Enhance your skills.
Jasig is pleased to offer this year's Unconference with No Registration Fee!
WHAT'S AN UNCONFERENCE?
"An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small group of organizers, in advance." -Wikipedia
Jasig has always been about people coming together to share and learn in an open environment, and this is what an "unconference" is all about. This fall event provides both spontaneous and planned opportunities to collaborate on all Jasig community initiatives as well as initiatives from other community open source projects.
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?
It's up to you. Ideas people are talking about so far include the following:
* Meet with experts, newbies, and everyone in-between from a variety of open source communities
* Pursue a topic that's important to you and your institution
* Collaborate and compare best practices with your peers
* Get up to speed on uPortal, CAS, Bedework, IdM Topics, Portlets, OpenRegistry, HelpDesk,and other applications
* Bring home solutions that you can use
* Get help with your own code
* Work on integration projects
* Help improve our user manuals
* Discuss the proposed merger of Jasig and Sakai and share how this new organization could best promote Open Source in Higher Education
* Spend time in informal discussion about the subjects that are of most interest to you
The Unconference sessions go from Monday morning through Wednesday noon. Following the unconference are Developer/Implementor days. These last two days offer a chance for developers and implementors from any institution to work on their projects in the company of their colleagues. It is a chance for you to informally collaborate with others, discuss issues in detail, or get help with your own project.
Join the conversation!
Source: http://www.jasig.org/2011-jasig-unconference
JASIG PROJECTS
Central Authentication Service (CAS)
phpCAS has moved to GitHub
We are pleased to announce that the development space for phpCAS has been migrated to GitHub:
https://github.com/Jasig/phpCAS
The migration to GitHub makes it much easier for everyone in the community to contribute to the project. Anyone can now fork the repository and send pull requests to share their improvements. As well, issues can now be submitted using a free GitHub account, something many of you already have. During the migration we quickly received two pull requests (thanks Bradley Froehle and Daniel Frett) and two issue reports (thanks ADmad and admeagal), unsolicited actions which make us confident that this is the right direction for the phpCAS community.
Here are some things you can do now that we are on GitHub:
* "Watch" the project to be informed of new commits and issues, look for the "Watch" button on the top-right of the GitHub pages.
* fork the repository to publish improvements you are working on.
* send pull requests to submit your improvements back to the project
* Submit reports of issues to the issue tracker in GitHub.
* Use the phpCAS project as a submodule of your application.
If you are unfamiliar with Git, the documentation on git-scm.com is a great place to start. The GitHub:Help is also a good resource.
Thank you for involvement in the project whether as a contributor or user. We look forward to an even more collaborative future for phpCAS.
From cas-dev list: Adam Franco
uPortal
uPortal 4.0.1 Released
Jasig is proud to announce the general audience release of uPortal 4.0.1. The first of our scheduled monthly patch releases for uPortal 4.0 we've fixed a number of issues that have been brought up by initial adopters.
Important Update Notes
The admin-lo layout in 4.0.0 incorrectly includes the fragment-admin portlet in the layout header, this can cause extraneous warnings in the portal log. To resolve this problem follow the steps below:
* Export the admin-lo layout: ant data-export -Dtype=fragment-layout -Dsysid=admin-lo -Ddir=export
* Edit the export/admin-lo.fragment-layout.xml file and remove the <channel fname="fragment-layout"/> element, there will be other attributes on the element.
* Import the admin-lo layout: ant data-import -Dfile=export/admin-lo.fragment-layout.xml
There are a few new tables in 4.0.1. To add these tables run ant db-hibernate-update once you have the 4.0.1 source installed.
Bug
UP-3163 - DLM feature 'allowExpandedContent' broken
UP-3164 - Detached Resource URLs result in 302
UP-3167 - Md5Passwd doesn't manage JPA session correctly
UP-3179 - data-delete fails
UP-3183 - Fragment Admin link Incorrect
Improvement
UP-3156 - There should be a Parameter for portlets to obfuscate them from Impersonated users
UP-3166 - Use @NaturalId annotations where possible on JPA entities
UP-3168 - Switch to modern Hibernate caching SPI
UP-3169 - Create db-update task for applying minor db changes
UP-3172 - Upgrade Depdencies
UP-3186 - Convert invalid fname values to valid ones during layout import
Task
UP-3144 - Fix typos and formatting in portal.properties
UP-3180 - Remove crn-make-data-xml ant task
UP-3181 - Publish XML Schemas
UP-3184 - Add ant task to update DB schema
Sub-task
UP-3097 - Create DB-based message source
Downloads: http://www.jasig.org/uportal/download/uportal-401
Release Notes: https://wiki.jasig.org/display/UPC/4.0.1
Eric Dalquist
New uPortal Release Schedule
uPortal 4 will have monthly patch releases. A new release will be published around the 1st of every month and include all issues that have been resolved before that time. We will be trying to reduce the minor release timeline to the 6-12 month range but that will be more dependent on time available to do new feature development.
Targeted uPortal Unconference Topics
While the Jasig Unconference next month will undoubtedly provide many opportunities to learn about and discuss a variety of uPortal and portlet topics, the uPortal Steering Committee is particularly interested in having focused discussions on the following:
Documentation. What positive and negative feedback do you have regarding the User Manual? Are there ways to improve the manuals? What are the opportunities for people within the community to easily contribute to making the manual better?
Skinning. Have recent changes to the uPortal skin structure made uPortal skins easier to manage? Are adopters using the common/overlay approach, or writing new skins from scratch? Is the community interested in more use of sass? What can we improve?
Layout Management Refactoring. We are planning on updating the layout manager and need to gathering requirements and use cases to ensure that this next version is designed appropriately.
Bedework
Bedework 3.7.0.16 bug fix release now available
A Bedework 3.7.0.16 bug fix release is available at
http://www.jasig.org/bedework/download/bedework-3.7
The fixes in this release improve both the Bedework 3.7 code base and the Bedework Quickstart environment itself. Most notably, this release:
* addresses the recently discovered security bug in the JBoss JMX console;
(see https://wiki.jasig.org/display/BWK37/JBoss+Security+Update+for+Bedework+3.7)
* improves subscriptions to external calendars;
* improves cross-tagging of events;
* corrects X-Property handling problem when editing some events.
On behalf of the Bedework Steering Committee,
Gary Schwartz
uMobile
uMobile 1.0 GA Released!
Jasig is excited to announce the first general audience release of the uMobile platform. uMobile provides an enterprise framework distributing personalized, role-based content in a mobile environment. The platform consists of 1) a server application providing a Web-based experience optimized for recent smartphone and tablet browsers and 2) optional native apps for iOS™ (iPhone™, iPod Touch™, and iPad™) and Android™ devices.
A uMobile quickstart download is available at http://www.jasig.org/umobile/download. More information about uMobile, including information on engaging with the community, can be found at http://www.jasig.org/umobile, with a dozen screen shots available at http://www.jasig.org/umobile/see-it.
Features
uMobile is built atop a sophisticated and mature portal framework, enabling distribution of relevant role-based content to campus communities, such as students, faculty, alumni, while an unauthenticated guest mode targets prospective students and campus visitors. Persistent authentication and SSO integration allows users to conveniently access personalized information, as well as save individual preferences. uMobile's administrative toolset provides delegated administration capabilities, content creation tools, and debugging and monitoring resources.
uMobile's out of the box modules include:
* Calendar
* News (RSS/Atom)
* Video
* Directory
* Search
* Maps
JASIG INCUBATOR
Announcing Email Preview 1.1.0
Yesterday I cut a new release of the Email Preview portlet: 1.1.0. There have been a lot of really cool updates since the 1.0.0 release (list of JIRAs at the end).
It's excellent to have a new release for several reasons, but in particular I wanted to put this one out in the hope of bundling it with the uPortal platform. It's a really sharp portlet, and I hope it will help uPortal make a good impression with potential adopters by building on the notion that uPortal comes with many compelling portlets "out of the box."
With this purpose in mind, a new Service (data source) implementation has been added to Email Preview: DemoAccountService. This service doesn't access emails over IMAP, POP, SOAP, or through any other customary means. It loads a collection of "demo" emails from a JSON file contained in the project itself. In this way, it can give example users -- like admin, student,and staff -- the experience of entering the portal and immediately seeing their "INBOX." No setup or configuration required. All the nice Email Preview features work with this service implementation: view message, mark seen/unseen, delete, etc. But the collection is a user-specific copy, so when the user logs in again (or another user logs in) the INBOX will be "reset" to the original contents.
I'll be taking up these plans on the uportal-dev list shortly.
Cheers,
Drew Wills
** UPDATES FOR 1.1.0 **
Bug
[EMAILPLT-39] - Email Preview doesn't support Chinese Characters
[EMAILPLT-52] - Fix case-sensitivity issue with attachments
[EMAILPLT-53] - Error accessing content of digitally signed emails -- MessagingException: Unable to load BODYSTRUCTURE
[EMAILPLT-56] - Errors reading digitally-signed emails
Improvement
[EMAILPLT-33] - Make username label ajustable in Edit Page
[EMAILPLT-47] - User experience reboot for moving between rollup and preview screens
[EMAILPLT-48] - Allow users to delete a message while they're viewing it
[EMAILPLT-49] - Provide a link to the Preferences screen from both the roolup and preview screens
[EMAILPLT-50] - Mark messages as READ when they are viewed (in their entirety) in the portlet
[EMAILPLT-51] - Improvements to JavaScript error handling
[EMAILPLT-54] - Improve the email reading experience when message is long and in plain text
[EMAILPLT-58] - Overflow Text Issue
[EMAILPLT-59] - Move CONFIG mode text to the messageSource
[EMAILPLT-60] - Do not throw MailAuthenticationException from inside EmailAccountDaoImpl.fetchAccountSummaryFromStore because 3rd-party code write the full stack to Catalina.out
[EMAILPLT-62] - Rollup Layout Changes
[EMAILPLT-65] - Add support for Groovy-based unit tests
[EMAILPLT-66] - Split the EmailAccountDaoImpl class into one that implements the DAO interface and one that handles the caching; encapsulate javax.mail types behind the new DAO implementation
[EMAILPLT-67] - Refactor javax.mail types out of the AccountSummary class
New Feature
[EMAILPLT-42] - Add a lightweight Summary sceen that can optionally replace preview.jsp as the default screen
[EMAILPLT-43] - Support Internationalization by implementing a Spring messageSource for UI strings
[EMAILPLT-44] - Add a link to the webmail INBOX to the new rollup screen
[EMAILPLT-45] - Make the portlet MAXIMIZE itself going from 'rollup' to 'preview' and provide the ability to opt-out of the behavior
[EMAILPLT-55] - Add hooks for Maven Filters
[EMAILPLT-57] - Ability to great new users with a custom welcome screen when the portlet is not yet configured
[EMAILPLT-63] - Provide a customizable HELP screen
[EMAILPLT-70] - Add a 'DEMO' data service impl and configure a demo version of the portlet in portlet.xml
Announcing General Availability of the Jasig Scheduling Assistant
We are pleased to announce immediate availability of the first release of the Jasig Scheduling Assistant. I apologize for cross posting to both lists; future Scheduling Assistant announcements will be published on just the sched-assist-user list.
The Scheduling Assistant is a partner application to be deployed with Enterprise Calendar servers to enhance scheduling capabilities of the Calendar server. A full list of features can be viewed at:
https://wiki.jasig.org/display/SA/Scheduling+Assistant+Features
This release for the Scheduling Assistant has support for 3 known Calendar Servers:
* Bedework
* Oracle Communications Unified Communications Suite
* Oracle Calendar
The first 2 servers leverage the CalDAV protocol for event creation and manipulation, the latter depends on a proprietary native library provided by Oracle.
There are other Calendar Servers (like Zimbra) that will likely work with the Scheduling Assistant; we are very interested in working with volunteers to help investigate further compatibility.
Project Home:
https://wiki.jasig.org/display/SA/Home
Screen-shot Tour:
https://wiki.jasig.org/display/SA/Scheduling+Assistant+Screenshot+Tour
The Scheduling Assistant is very easy to deploy, only requiring changes to a single property file to get integrated with your Calendar Server. The text displayed by the Scheduling Assistant can be translated to other languages quickly as well.
If you'd like to try it out, please follow the Getting Started instructions on the Scheduling Assistant wiki. If you have any questions or are interested in development or trying it out with other Calendar Servers, the following mailing lists are available:
sched-assist-user@lists.jasig.org
Subscribe: https://lists.wisc.edu/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=sched-assist-user
sched-assist-dev@lists.jasig.org
Subscribe: https://lists.wisc.edu/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=sched-assist-dev
Thanks!
Nicholas Blair
AROUND JASIG
Shibboleth Installation Training (November 7-8, 2011)
InCommon, the California State University, and the California Community College system are sponsoring Shibboleth installation training Nov 7-8. Here are the details.
SHIBBOLETH WORKSHOP SERIES
Identity Provider * November 7, 2011 * 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (PT)
Service Provider * November 8, 2011 * 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. (PT)
The California State University Chancellor’s Office * Long Beach, CA
www.incommon.org/educate/shibboleth/
Register now for the Shibboleth Workshop Series, November 7-8, 2011, at the California State University Chancellor’s Office in Long Beach, Calif.
Have you decided to deploy a web single sign-on (SSO) system and leverage it to access resources and contracted services through InCommon? Do you need training on installation and support?
Consider attending one or both:
* Shibboleth Identity Provider Workshop on November 7, 2011
* Shibboleth Service Provider Workshop on November 8, 2011
The InCommon Shibboleth Identity and Service Provider Workshops will provide attendees with technical installation and configuration experience with Shibboleth Single Sign-on and Federating Software, version 2.
Developed for organizations new to Shibboleth and those with existing implementations interested in upgrading to the v2 release, the workshops will offer attendees the chance to:
* Install either a prototype Shibboleth identity or service provider in a virtual machine environment.
* Hear tips for configuring and running the software in production.
* Learn about integration with LDAP directories and selected packages.
AUDIENCE includes higher education and partner organization representatives with knowledge of identity management concepts and related implementation experience. Organizations are encouraged to send one or two attendees who best represent the following functions:
* System install, integration, and ongoing support staff
* Campus technology architects
REGISTER SOON (http://www.incommon.org/educate/shibboleth/registration.html) to reserve a seat. Participation is limited to maintain program quality. For those staying overnight, there is a list of hotels on the workshop website (www.incommon.org/educate/shibboleth). NOTE: There is a separate registration process and fee for each workshop (IdP and SP). If you wish to attend both days, be sure to register for each.
RESOURCES: To learn more about Shibboleth, see shibboleth.internet2.edu. More information on federated identity can be found at www.incommon.org.
THIS SHIBBOLETH WORKSHOP SERIES event is sponsored by InCommon, Internet2, the California Community College system, and the California State University.
Dean Woodbeck
Program Manager, InCommon
woodbeck at internet2.edu
Kuali Days 2011 - Empowering the Community (November 14-16, 2011)
"Save the Date! Kuali Days 2011 will take place November 14-16, 2011 at the new JW Marriott in beautiful downtown Indianapolis. Kuali Days is the annual Kuali conference where current and potential members meet to share information with the community at large. The conference is designed for all levels of interest, so if you’re new to the community or a long-time member, mark your calendar now and plan to join us! Teams from all seven projects including the Kuali Financial System, Kuali Coeus, Kuali Student, Kuali Open Library Environment (OLE), Kuali Ready, Kuali People Management for the Enterprise, and Kuali Rice will be there in full force."
For further details, visit the Kuali Days 2011 web site at:
http://kuali.org/kuali-days-2011
Open Source Mobile Platform Designed to Meet Campus Needs - Webinar (Tuesday, November 22, 1 p.m. EST)
Campuses are already looking for the next-generation mobile platform. Early products are proving to limit flexibility and an IT manager's ability to push out new native and browser-based applications. Jasig has launched a new open source mobile app for higher education, uMobile. This webinar will share the benefits of adopting uMobile as the campus mobile platform. uMobile allows academic communities to cost-effectively deliver campus applications, personalized content, and data to mobile devices. Register for this webinar at http://www.unicon.net/uMobile/webinar
Jasig Newsletter - October 2011
Editor: Mark Rogers
Online edition at:
http://www.jasig.org/jasig-newsletters/october-2011
Past editions of the Jasig Newsletter can also be found in the Jasig wiki at:
https://wiki.jasig.org/display/JSG/Newsletter
