The rSmart Group Begins Implementations of Sakai 2.0 Throughout United States.

PHOENIX -- The rSmart Group Inc. (rSmart) announced they have entered into three new license agreements to provide subscription support services and ongoing maintenance for Sakai 2.0. Sakai 2.0 is a Collaborative Learning Environment (CLE) and Course Management System (CMS) solution, with leading institutions of higher education across the United States. rSmart has begun the implementation services -- installation, integration, technical support, customization, user training, and hosting -- for Hebrew Union College, Portland State University, and the Alliance for Equity in Higher Education.

"The community source development model works. These three Sakai implementations clearly demonstrate the ability of higher education to develop community source applications that meet a broad spectrum of needs," said Chris Coppola, president of rSmart.

Multi-Campus Implementation

Hebrew Union College -- Jewish Institute of Religion (Los Angeles, Cincinnati, New York, Jerusalem) is using Sakai 2.0 this fall in two separate pilot programs. The first program is focused on the CLE for courses on its three stateside campuses, while the second is for its Mechinah (Preparing Oneself) Program. This unique online program provides curriculum for individual learning and group-based study. Gregg Alpert, national director of distance education for HUC-JIR, said, "rSmart was a key factor in our selection of the Sakai solution. With rSmart's subscription support we feel we have entered into a partnership that allows us to focus on Sakai's educational potential."

Course Management Pilot

Portland State University -- Portland, Oregon, is piloting Sakai 2.0 for its students this fall after having piloted a pre-release of OSP 2.0 in the spring and rSmart's OSP ePortfolio over the summer. "Our experience with rSmart and the OSP ePortfolio product gave us confidence in their ability to design, deliver and support solutions that meet our needs. Sakai is a natural extension of ePortfolio. We are excited to have rSmart as a partner in this process," said Nate Angell, assistant director for Web communications, Office of Marketing & Communications.

Collaborative Work Environment

Alliance for Equity in Higher Education -- Washington is a policy-based coalition comprised of the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC), the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities (HACU), and the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO). Through the BEAMS (Building Engagement and Attainment of Minority Students) project, the Alliance recently convened a special summer academy and trained educators from 35 institutions to use Sakai as a primary collaboration tool to improve higher education opportunities for minority students. "The Alliance promotes collaboration and cooperation among colleges and universities that serve large numbers of students of color in order to enhance the nation's economic competitiveness, social stability and cultural richness. With rSmart and Sakai technology, we can readily achieve this goal," said Jamie Merisotis, president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, which facilitates Alliance programs.

About The rSmart Group

The rSmart Group is the leading open source application software company serving the higher education market. rSmart packages, certifies, deploys, and supports a suite of enterprise financial and collaborative learning applications for colleges and universities. As an active member of open source projects like OSPI, Kuali and Sakai, rSmart is able to provide its clients with software applications specifically designed to meet the unique needs of institutions of higher education. This collaborative approach allows rSmart to offer colleges and universities open source applications that break their dependence on traditional proprietary software vendors.

Please visit www.rsmart.com for more information.

About Sakai

The Sakai Project is a community source software development effort to design, build and deploy a new Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE) for higher education. It was founded in January 2004 by the University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT and Stanford University to develop a framework and tools to support teaching, learning, collaboration and research. The project was also co-founded by the Open Knowledge Initiative (OKI) and JA-SIG/uPortal with a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation. More than 90 colleges and universities from five continents have joined the Sakai Educational Partners Program.

For more information, please visit the Sakai Project on the Web at http://www.sakaiproject.org.