Last year the company announced that it would allow royalty-free access to its patent portfolio for the development and implementation of selected open software standards for Web services, electronic forms, and open document formats in education.

IBM developed the donated code exclusively for Sakai to enable the tracking of learning content and help Sakai better support universities that adopt its collaboration and learning environment (CLE). IBM will also contribute the expertise of a senior architect to help speed the development and growth of Sakai software and of open-computing communities in higher education.

IBM's code donation will enable teachers using the Sakai environment to track the progress of their students consistently using Sakai-based courseware. For students, the IBM code will allow more freedom in how they access distance and self-directed learning applications. Since the Sakai environment is on the Web, students can learn and track how they access distance and self-directed learning applications.

"Sakai was created on the premise that open standards and open source solutions lower costs, increase interoperability, and enhance flexibility," said Chuck Severance, PhD, Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation and Chief Architect of the Sakai Project at the University of Michigan. "This generous donation will help Sakai offer the most comprehensive and accessible open learning CLE framework in higher education."

At the recent Sakai conference in Vancouver, more than seventy percent of the attendees surveyed reported that they were planning on deploying Sakai in pilots, expanding their existing implementation, or putting Sakai into production at an enterprise level.

"Open-source software and open standards can revolutionize the applications and technology for learning, just as Linux, Apache and Eclipse have transformed and standardized infrastructure software," said Michael King, director of market development, IBM Global Education Industry. "We believe an open cycle of innovation that leverages common platforms such as the Sakai framework will become the model for developing and broadly deploying new solutions for educational institutions."