Onboarding

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There are many ways to participate in the Sakai community.

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"How the Sakai Community Works":

http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/MGT/How+the+Sakai+Community+Works

"How Sakai Development Works":

http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/MGT/How+Sakai+Development+Works

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Onboarding Activities - Action Items

For new production deployments

we need to gather some basic information about the institution,

IT configuration, contacts, etc.

This information is maintained in Jira in the *Production/Pilot Deployments Project*and those institutions are listed on the Sakai Foundation website at: Home>Installations. A worksheet to collect the information needed to fill in the Jira fields is located online.

The Sakai Foundation should prepare a "Welcome Wagon" packet

for new deployments (both pilot and production).

• opportunity for a press release
  • get notable quotes
  • note if new to LMS or conversion from other system
• case study write up
• Announcements post introduction to institution and key staff to rest of the community
• Newsletter recognition
• Blog post
• Welcome letter from Exec. Dir. with
  • invitation to participate in the community (see opportunities below)
  • invitation to become Foundation members
• hat/tee shirt/buttons for key support/admin staff
• add to deployment lists
• special recognition at regional/annual conference

Onboarding Planning

This is the process of elegantly engaging interested people to begin participating in the Sakai community.
Initially someone comes to the project seeking information:

• what is Sakai?
• what does it do?
• who uses it?
• and for what?
• are there any testimonials from people I know and respect?
• would it be useful for me?
• is it right for me?
• what does it cost? (I know it's free and open source, but set my expectations on what resources in implementation takes, and what about ongoing maintenance)?
• where do I go to get more information?
  • can I "kick the tiers" - can I see examples of the product in use?
  • can I take it for a "test ride" - can I try it out for free (and without too much trouble)?
    Once they have consumed the general information on Sakai, they may have questions about their specific use case. So they will need to be able to ask specific questions and get appropriate responses back in a timely fashion. Where do they go to do this?

• Maillists?

• • Is it unreasonable to expect someone at this stage to find the maillist list, choose the appropriate one, signup for the list, post a question? - I think so.
  • What's the alternative?
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• Ask Sakai inquiry form?
  • Do we respond by email?
  • Should we sanitize the inquiries and keep a public archive of these FAQs in order to leverage these inquiries and responses?
    If they download a demo and need configuration or useage help, where do they go?

Here's where we may want to breakdown

Onboarding strategies by role:

• Faculty
• IT manger
• Institution administrator
• IT support (developer)How do they communicate with their peers?

• who is like me in the Sakai community?
• where are the appropriate peer discussions taking place?
• If I'm a developer and want to get my feet wet, where can I get a list of projects that I can help?
• how do I get accounts to participate in maillist discussions, Confluence pages, SVN access, etc?

(under construction, Not Done Yet...)

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