DEC. 22 UPDATE: SmartSite transition completed; restart planned Dec. 23

by Dave Jones
December 18, 2009

The SmartSite course management and project collaboration system is back online following the transition of computer hosting duties from the university to a vendor.

(Informational and Education Technology planned a SmartSite restart at 9 p.m. Dec. 23, for firewall maintenance. The system should be down for approximately one hour.)

Informational and Education Technology launched SmartSite four years ago and has been hosting it all along. Now, a company named rSmart has taken over many of the system’s technical aspects.

The SmartSite name remains in place, and IET officials said the site looks and behaves the same, with faculty, students and staff still controlling the content.

IET still manages SmartSite, IT Express is still the first place to go for help and IET still offers training.

But rSmart is taking care of many of the system’s back-end workings; for example, during the transition, rSmart installed an upgrade to version 2.6 of the Sakai open-source software on which SmartSite is based.

“This move to a vendor-hosted service marks an important milestone for UC Davis,” IET Vice Provost Pete Siegel, the campus’s chief information officer, said in a Dec. 16 letter to the campus community.

“I want to recognize the significant cost savings and cost avoidance this approach makes possible, and the important precedent we’re establishing with this calculated and studied departure—where appropriate—from traditional ways of delivering services to the campus community.”

The transition to rSmart began the evening of Dec. 17. As predicted, the job took only a few days—and the new vendor-hosted and improved version of SmartSite (Sakai 2.6, new tools and better support materials) was up and running in time for faculty to create their course sites for the winter quarter.

Siegel said the transition came after “a successful 11-week pilot with a group of faculty and staff, along with a comprehensive awareness-building campaign, and extensive consultation over the last six months with the Campus Council for Information Technology, the Academic Senate and other key campus groups.”

On Dec. 14, the IT council voted unanimously to endorse the transition, and forwarded the recommendation to Siegel and Provost Enrique Lavernia.

Siegel described rSmart as a well-established and recognized commercial partner to the Sakai and similar “community source” communities.

RSmart’s selection followed “a careful request for proposals and review process to ensure campus requirements would be met, and consultation with other institutions that have already partnered with the company,” Siegel said.

Commenting further on “the important precedent we’re establishing with this calculated and studied departure,” Siegel said: “In the new year, I will share with the Council of Deans and Vice Chancellors more information on the value (and risks) of such innovative approaches like this vendor-hosted solution, while also ensuring we maintain the intellectual and technical resources needed to support critical services should we need to modify or terminate our partnership with a particular vendor.”

For more information, contact SmartSite Program Manager Kirk Alexander at kdalex@ucdavis.edu.