Flexibility. Rubrics. The cloud. Early this year, the institutions behind Sakai agreed upon a three-year roadmap. It will align the community’s needs with the open source LMS outstanding features.
A recently published infographic details the plans on a year-to-year basis. We have already witness some of its progress in 2019. April was the month for Rubrics and LTI, aiming to expand its presence on the open learning ecosystem.
How Sakai 2019 envisions the future of open source (and how it does not)
It makes sense to test Sakai’s vision and features in the light of the competing landscape. When stacked against open juggernaut Moodle, there is a notion of a higher aim and focus, in part due to its smaller community. On the technical side, however, Sakai has a lot to catch up on if it intends to win over “Moodlers” or other LMS users. In general, institutions running Sakai are more involved in the development roadmap. But the Moodle’s community’s sheer size ensures limitless functionality available faster.
In any case, one of the key insights of Sakai’s roadmap is the fact that the vision for an “open ecosystem” is impending. If that is the case, embracing increasing user demands for decentralization is a must. It would involve enabling integrations, including APIs, at a higher rate. But promoting openness for its own sake could hurt the brand. As the LMS market begins a “race to freedom,” a faster pace of development could increase risks. Security, breach from standards, or careless vetting stand out among them.
The Sakai 2020-2022 roadmap
Many of the elements that are on the works by Sakai are already available, here and in other LMS. The roadmap seeks to make the LMS experience more seamless as much as to enhance the technology. Responsiveness, simplification and replacement of third-party solutions are recurrent elements of the plan.
2019
Sakai’s roadmap kicked off one year under schedule. From the latest previous release, Sakai 12, the LMS takes a leap to sync the versioning with the current year.
Sakai 19 (or Sakai for 2019) sets the stage for the many improvements to come. We already witnessed some key developments: Rubrics, LTI Advantage certified compatibility, and expanded choices across the board, including grading and assignments.
2020
- New Capabilities
- Cloud storage
- Document preview
- Course site builder
- Key Improvements
- Back-End Enhancements
- Web Components
2021
- New Capabilities
- Lessons 2.0
- Rapid grading
- App store
- Key Improvements
- User experience
- Analytics
- Back-End Enhancements
2022
- New Capabilities
- Tests & Quizzes 2.0
- Others, TBD
- Key Improvements
- Notifications
- Others, TBD
- Back-End Enhancements
- Notifications
- Others, TBD
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