Nate Angellraised by wolves, accidental open-source evangelist

Presenters

• Stephen Marquard (University of Cape Town)
• Nate Angell (rSmart)
• Lucy Appert (New York University)
• Josh Baron (Marist College)
• Roger Brown (University of Cape Town)
• Madan Dorairaj (New York University)
• Charles Hedrick (Rutgers University)
• Dan Kiskis (University of Michigan)
• Eitel Lauria (Marist College)
• Steve Lonn (University of Michigan)
• Nicolaas Matthijs (CARET, University of Cambridge)
• Maggie McVay Lynch (Thanos Partners, Inc.)
• Milton Nielsen (Texas State University, San Marcos)
• John Norman (CARET, University of Cambridge)
• Kim Thanos (Thanos Partners, Inc.)

Description

Is your institution currently piloting, engaged in, planning, or otherwise in preparation for a tool or project involving learning analytics? Come meet others working in this space and discuss various uses of open source tools, products, shared approaches, and lessons learned (sometimes in very hard ways).

Leaders from Marist, Michigan, the Kaleidoscope Project consortium, rSmart, Cape Town, NYU, Cambridge, and others will share their progress. We will also discuss possibilities for future collaboration within the Sakai and Jasig communities and how to best work with designers to leverage CLE and OAE infrastructure and other community-supported tools for learning analytics tools and displays.

Finally, we will discuss how best to summarize and continue the dialogue begun during the conference week through cross-institutional collaboration based on shared and similar approaches, practices, and applications for learning analytics-based techniques.

Presenter Biographies

Stephen Marquard

Stephen is responsible for co-ordinating the portfolio of learning technologies. These include online learning environments (WebCT and a next-generation environment built on the Sakai framework), and other software and hardware technologies which support teaching and learning processes at UCT. Stephen also pursues interests in online collaboration, open source software and learning theory.

Nate Angell

I work at the intersection of internet technology, business strategy, marketing, and communications with deep experience in large and visible public sector organizations. Strong skills in envisioning a different world, making a different world happen, and sharing ideas between people. Specialties: Evangelizing, shepherding, wrangling, herding, (en)visioning, communicating: technology, education, non-profit, open source, information architecture, web design.

Lucy Appert

Lucy Appert is the Director of Educational Technology in the Liberal Studies Program at New York University and the co-chair of NYU's Sakai/ATLAS Working Group, a joint faculty and IT task force formed to develop Sakai OAE at NYU (see the project blog here: http://chartingatlas.blogspot.com/). She is also the organizer of the User Reference Group (URG) for the Sakai OAE Community Project. Within NYU and the larger academic community, she has worked to raise faculty awareness of and support for the new direction in academic technology represented by Sakai OAE. Dr. Appert holds a PhD in 17th & 18th c. British literature and has 19 years of teaching experience, 10 of them at NYU. She was the recipient, with Liberal Studies Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs Bob Squillace, of a 2008 NEH Digital Humanities Start-Up Grant to build the Simonides electronic portfolio tool for Sakai (read the resulting white paper here: http://www.neh.gov/ODH/Default.aspx?tabid=111&id=67). Since 2006, she has worked to find creative instructional technology solutions for Liberal Studies' more than 2000 students and 130 faculty members in New York, London, Paris, Florence, and Shanghai.

Josh Baron

As Director of Academic Technology and eLearning at Marist College, Mr. Baron is responsible for supporting a wide range of instructional technology initiatives, including distance learning, faculty professional development, and learner support. He also plays a leadership role in strategic planning for the College in areas of academic and information technology. Mr. Baron was elected to the Sakai Foundation Board of Directors in 2007 and is currently serving as Chair. He is also a member of the Education Dynamics Advisory Board and IMS Learning Technology Advisory Council (LTAC). Before coming to Marist, Mr. Baron was the associate director of instructional technology at Stevens Institute of Technology. In this capacity, he helped lead a $10 million U.S. Department of Education technology initiative working both at the K-12 and college level. He was also a member of the Stevens WebCampus initiative and developed one of the first Stevens online graduate courses. Mr. Baron has presented at numerous higher education and K-12 conference including EDUCAUSE, NECC, Sloan-C, League of Innovation CIT, and the international Sakai conferences. He has taught students from the Kindergarten to graduate level in face-to-face, blended and fully online formats. He graduated magna cum laude from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Science degree in Aerospace Engineering and holds a Master of Arts degree (online) in Educational Technology Leadership form George Washington University.

Roger Brown

Forgot your password? Can't find your course site? Don't know how to use a tool? Then Roger is the man to know as he is responsible for handling Vula help queries. Receiving a flood of queries daily can be rather unnerving, but we are in awe of the professional and highly efficient manner in which he deals with them. Therefore it's easy to see why most staff and students consider Roger to be indispensable. When not dealing with Vula support, he conducts Vula training sessions and assists us at CET with all IT related matters. His expertise is greatly valued as Roger sits on various IT committees, such as the ICT users group and CHED equipment committee. Currently, Roger is involved in the Lecture Capture pilot project. We know it and now you know it, Roger Brown is a superstar. Our IT guru's original degree is in environmental management and in a previous life he did fieldwork in the Knersvlakte investigating fog in arid zones. Proudly Australian - Roger is a loyal Wallabies supporter. Watching a good rugby game with a Hansa beer in hand is his ideal way to relax after a hard day's work.

Madan Dorairaj

Madan Dorairaj serves as Project Manager for Piloting Sakai OAE at NYU and integration of Sakai with academic systems. He collaborates with academic community, technology specialists, industry experts, and management to identify, plan, build, and deliver innovative solutions that will position Sakai as next generation academic learning and collaborating platform for NYU. Madan has over 16 years of IT management experience, spending the past six years in higher education industry. Prior to joining NYU's Sakai initiative, he worked for Princeton University as Business Intelligence and Analytics architect, and contributed to Higher Education Data Warehouse forums. 

Charles Hedrick

http://toolbox.rutgers.edu/~hedrick/

Dan Kiskis

Software engineer and IT manager with a broad range of experience across the spectrum of system scales. At the small end, I have done research and software development on embedded real-time systems and wireless sensor networks. At the mid range I have developed and supported tools to support the software development process. At the large-scale end, I have managed an IT organization at the University of Michigan School of Medicine that deployed high performance computing clusters and high capacity storage systems. In all cases my goal is to make the most efficient use of resources (computer or human) possible. Specialties: Software development processes, requirements management and traceability, software project management, object-oriented software analysis and design, software development (C/C++, CORBA), mentoring staff, and developing and delivering training.

Eitel Lauria

Dr. Lauria has worked as an information systems and IT consultant for the last two decades, advising on such topics as decision support systems, business intelligence, client/server technology and Internet-based and e-commerce applications. As a partner with GLD Consultores in Argentina, he worked with a number of organizations, including Microsoft, IBM, Exxon, Reuters, Philip Morris, Hewlett Packard, STET France Telecom, Accenture and Ryder. Before coming to Marist, he was a Lecturer at the Dept. of Management Science and Information Systems, School of Business, University at Albany. In Argentina he was a faculty member and chair of the MIS Dept. at the School of Business, Universidad del Salvador. Interests: His areas of interest include Data Management, Information Decision Systems, Business Intelligence, Data Quality, Data Mining Statistical Machine Learning and probabilistic expert systems.

Steve Lonn

Steven Lonn, Ph.D., is an active researcher and participant in the Sakai community, having earned a Sakai Fellowship in 2010. His research focuses on the perceptions and use of information and learning technologies in higher education for collaborative teaching and learning. Steven's current research examines how instructors and students in higher education use learning management systems and how that use impacts pedagogy and learning outcomes. This longitudinal research program not only details how current users perceive and interact with the technology, but also informs future design for these ubiquitous systems. Website: http://www.umich.edu/~slonn/

Nicolaas Matthijs

If you mention a useful web tool within earshot of Nicolaas, he'll probably have it working within CamTools 2009 in an hour or so. Unless, of course, he had already built it in! Nicolaas has been involved with learning environments for some time, and first came to CARET as a summer student. Our director, John Norman, asked him to do some "cool stuff?" like a FaceBook application for CamTools, and since then Nicolaas has been at the forefront of CARET's innovative user interface work, developing new things at a prodigious rate, and sharing what he has built with the wider community. He is now the lead developer at CARET for CamTools and Sakai user interfaces. Nicolaas co-developed the new user interface for CamTools 2008, and after presenting his work at the Paris Sakai conference in July 2008 has been leading development on the next generation interfaces for CamTools 2009 and Sakai OAE. As well as developing himself, Nicolaas has been working on the vision for Sakai 3 and leading 5 developers around the world in front-end development for this exciting new system. Nicolaas has always been interested in language and speech processing, and tries to keep up his tennis and football when he?s not at work. He also relaxes by watching cycling on television, which has a pleasantly hypnotic effect when watched whilst working.

Maggie McVay Lynch

Dr. Maggie McVay Lynch's career has spanned over 30 years in education, with more than two decades of experience working specifically with the issues of online learning in both the academic and corporate venues. Her academic service includes K-12, community colleges, and research universities. Her private industry service included eight years where she worked for two transnational software firms. With degrees in psychology, counseling, instructional technology, and education her interests are wide. She has developed over 200 online courses for colleges and universities and has herself taught online courses in Counseling, Education, Business Administration, Management Information Systems, and Computer Science. She has published extensively in the field of distributed learning, including four textbooks still in use in graduate education programs and many articles and book chapters. Maggie has served on a number of community, academic, non-profit foundation, and corporate boards of directors. Her academic career includes both teaching and administration, with a focus on seamlessly integrating technology into the teaching and learning mission of higher education. Her last academic administrative post was as the Chief Technology Officer and Dean of Distance Education. She continues to teach as adjunct faculty whenever time allows, and is always interested in providing training and small group workshops to mentor future leaders in the use of technology in teaching and learning.

Milton Nielsen

A highly accomplished, multi-faceted technology professional with extensive experience in developing successful strategic information initiatives, managing the technology, teaching new users about technology and teaching with technology. Demonstrated ability to take on challenging projects and deliver successful results. With a broad background and experience in instructional design and instructional program management while leading and managing people, developing excellent problem solving, coordination, planning and implementation skills. Ability to perform well under pressure and against tight deadlines has resulted in successful management of major technology projects. Specialties: Soviet Government, Soviet Military, Military Theory and Force Analysis, Educational Technology, Educational Psychology, Curriculum Design, Education and Training, Software Development, Group Dynamics, Technology Integration, Strategic Planning, Resource Management

John Norman

John combines a passion for innovation and a commitment to open source software with his considerable industry knowledge to help facilitate University collaboration both internally and internationally. John has led CARET since 2003 following a career as an entrepreneur setting up medical devices companies in the US and across Europe. An engineer by training, John worked in the steel and oil industries (which included a stint in the Algerian Sahara) before moving into business start ups. The most successful of these was Summit Technology Inc which went public at $200 million after just 18 months and later sold to the Alcon division of Nestle for $900 million. As well as his like of gadgets and new technology (you should see the cappuccino machine in the office) he is a keen sailor and once competed in the prestigious Fastnet race.

Kim Thanos

Kim is founder and principal of Thanos Partners. As a senior executive, entrepreneur and consultant, she has formulated market entry strategies, led product development and marketing initiatives, and developed best-in-class customer relationship programs for companies across higher education. Prior to creating Thanos Partners, Kim was Vice President of Technical Services at Campus Pipeline (later acquired by SunGard Higher Education). Before entering the higher education industry, Kim held a variety of operations and finance management roles in the high tech sector. Kim holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Boston University, and an MBA.

Session: Birds of a Feather Discussion