What does Iron Chef Hiroyuki Sakai, who specializes in French cuisine, have to do with open-source online course-management software?
Give up? His namesake is a piece of such software, and it debuted as a pilot program at the University this year.
Sakai's creators were fans of the Japanese chef.
With Sakai, a professor can manage a syllabus, organize dissertation research, and facilitate international discussin among his or her students and those of universities abroad.
However, the program's open-source coding is not strong enough to prevent at least some bugs in the system, said one University technology director.
The program also allows professors to see photographs of their students even before classes begin.
Through the software, students can see the course material their professors post on the site.
The University used to use WebCT, a similar piece of software. The company that produced it was then bought by a company that makes a similar piece of software, Blackboard, and a new version of WebCT was developed that the Rutgers considered too expenseive, hense the switch to Sakai, said Charles Hedrick, University Director for the Office of Instructional and Research Technology.
WebCT is expected to be phased out of use in 2007.
"[Sakai] is a wonderful teaching tool," said Leslie Fishbein, associate professor of American studies.
That Sakai allows professors to post handouts online for students to see, Fishbein said, saves the department money it would otherwise have had to spend printing handouts.
Gayle Stein, associate director for Instructional Technology, said, "[A professor] could invite an expert in a particular field to join in a chat one evening or one day." She added, "Students can interact with a big name professor outside of class [using Sakai]."
The University has used three other programs before Sakai: WebCT, Blackboard and eCompanion.
eCompanion is part of a product family from eCollege and was first used for distance education by the Rutgers Division of Continuous Education and Outreach. Later, it was brought on campus for no additional charge. The University plans to keep eCompanion available for students and professors, Hedrick said.
"We expect that in a year or two there will be only two options: whatever replaces WebCT and assuming that Continuous Education continues to use the eCollege products, eCompanion," Hedrick said. "In the long term, we'd like to reduce it to one, but I think that's likely to be several years away."
Sakai was created in February 2004 by a consortium of the University of Michigan, Indiana University, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Since the official launch of Sakai, many universities nationwide, including Rutgers, have begun to pilot the program.
"We help contribute to the development of Sakai [and] tailor it to fit the needs for Rutgers," Stein said.
Stein said by the end of last semester approximately 10,000 people were using Sakai.
University departments such as economics, Spanish, Portuguese, mechanical engineering, American studies and chemistry have begun using Sakai.
Tamar K. Brill, assistant dean of Livingston College, uses Sakai in a course he teaches for first-year students called, "Building Community," in which almost 700 students are enrolled.
Brill said Sakai allows the organization of communication between instructors and students.
Brill said he hopes Sakai's flexibility will allow students an, "out of classroom connection," with their instructors.
Fishbein said she used Sakai last spring to facilitate a discussion between students in a course she teaches called, "Blacks and Jews in America," and students at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Despite positive reaction from professors, Sakai still has technical problems that could interfere with the pace of the course.
"Because Sakai is open source, the code is not as robust. We find bugs in the system, [but] we have to deal with it," Stein, the technology director, said.
Hedrick said he plans to integrate Sakai with myRutgers and the University's library databases.
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