rSmart Releases Commercial Sakai CLE Update
Education support services provider rSmart has rolled out an update to its commercial implementation of the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment, bringing it in line with the latest major release from the Sakai Foundation. rSmart's version is built on the regular Sakai software but also includes additional functionality and contracted support.
Sakai 2.5 from the Sakai Foundation was released back in late March with some 1,500 improvements and fixes, including 300 individual feature enhancements. Some of these enhancements include:
- Improved forum functionality;
- New gradebook tools;
- Significant changes to tests and quizzes;
- New portfolio features;
- Additional mobile support, as well as other "user experience" improvements;
- New portal functionality; and
- Expanded assignment handling capabilities.
A complete list of changes to version 2.5 can be found here.
In addition to distributing the software and providing support, rSmart also provides training, installation, integration, data migration, customization, and application hosting, among other services. The company said that more than 30 educational institutions are currently using its Sakai package.
One of these is Cerritos College in California.
"Given our available resources it would be difficult for us to effectively use Sakai without using the rSmart Sakai CLE. With rSmart supporting us we benefit from the many innovations being driven by the Sakai community while allowing our few academic computing resources to focus on faculty and student support instead of technical support," said M.L. Bettino, dean of academic affairs at Cerritos College, in a statement released Monday. "We are looking forward to upgrading to the new release because of the many new features and enhancements being delivered."
rSmart Sakai CLE 2.5 is available now for hosted and on site implementations. It can be downloaded immediately from rSmart's site here. Support is available on an annual contract that starts at $10,000 for up to 2,000 users. A demonstration site has also been set up at sakaisandbox.com.