What is your definition of "informal student use"?

Stephen Marquard: We are exploring how students use online environments outside or beyond the direct requirements of the courses they are taking. So by "informal use", we are referring to optional online activity that students are pursuing on their own initiative, for their own goals. This would be the online equivalent of students chatting in the "hang out" spaces on campus or having an ad-hoc meeting about a shared activity. We've seen examples of informal use both directly related to the formal curriculum and independent of it, for example to support student societies or other social pursuits.

The Centre for Educational Technology (CET) at UCT introduced Sakai to the campus community in February 2005 under the local name of VULA. What does it imply?

Stephen Marquard: Vula means "open!" in several South African languages. It has associations of opening doors, providing access, unlocking possibilities, and providing an empowering space.

What experiences have you had so far?

Stephen Marquard: Vula has been very popular, and we've seen dramatic growth in usage. At present, around 65% of UCT students are using Vula for one or more courses or other activities. Students and staff appreciate how easy it is to get going and create new sites. Around 35% of all sites are non-course sites (some of which fall into the category of "informal use" explored in the presentation), which shows that Vula is meeting previously unmet needs for easy-to-use online collaboration tools.

What implications for the design of eLearning systems do you see?

Stephen Marquard: The age of course-centric "learning management systems" and "course management systems" has passed. While the formal course structure in universities will be with us for some time to come, collaboration and learning environments need to support learning processes and social interaction across and beyond courses.

Why did you implement Sakai in the first place and how would you describe your experience so far?

Stephen Marquard: UCT took a strategic decision to move to an open source learning environment in 2004, migrating from a proprietary system (WebCT) and a home-grown system (connect). The open source model offers the advantages of flexibility (to adapt the software to local requirements or extend it to meet teaching and learning needs) and avoids the risks of vendor lock-in or escalating license costs. We were attracted to Sakai by the size and expertise of the community around it.

So far, our experiences have been positive. We have learnt a lot about how software evolves in open source communities and how to work with a global community to meet local needs. Running enterprise open source applications is a different type of adventure to using proprietary systems, with a different set of risks and rewards. So far, the rewards have far outweighed the risks, and we look forward to exciting times ahead.