CANS is designed to work with any network-based application capable of generating or receiving XML. It is currently being used with the online Learning and Collaboration environment called Sakai at the University of Missouri-Columbia and is supported through funding from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) .

CANS is licensed under the Educational Community License (1.0) version of the open-source license.

User Experience UPDATED

Visit the User Experience page to see the most recent changes as well as prototypes for the Activity Monitor tool.

CANS Help Documents Now Available

Two new resources for installing, configuring and using CANS with Sakai are now available thanks to the team at the University of Missouri - Columbia.

CANS Installation Guide

This resource offers comprehensive instructions for System Administrators on installing the CANS Server and setting it up to work with your Sakai instance.

CANS Activity Monitor User Guide

This resource, written for Sakai Faculty and user Experience Researchers, explains how to use the CANS Activity Monitor in a Sakai course.

Enjoy!
-Chris

CANS Activity Monitor Now Available

The CANS Activity Monitor Tool and Services is an all-in-one solution for Sakai 2.5.x. It contains all the code required to setup and run your Sakai instance with the CANS Server.

For more information about the CANS Activity Monitor, please visit the Sakai Tools and Services page.

-Chris

CANS 2.0.1 Now Available

This version of CANS contains several important fixes and upgrades over the 2.0 version. Some of the changes include the resizing of various database fields, enhanced configuration capabilities and improved installation/setup instructions.

Current users of CANS, who wish to preserve existing database data and are not sure how to do this on their own, should contact me before upgrading. I currently don't have an upgrade script available but could provide one upon request.

Get CANS 2.0.1 now.

-Chris

2008 - Sakai Regional Conference - Blacksburg, VA: conference presentation

Activity Awareness: Improving the Social Nature of Learning

On Tuesday, November 11, 2008 at 1:10 PM, Jim Laffey and Ran-Young Hong will demonstrate how the CANS tools work within Sakai and discuss how instructors have been using the notifiers, as well as what we have learned about the value and potential of activity awareness for supporting instruction. The presentation will also be an opportunity to discuss how to support and improve the social experience of online learning. The research and development of CANS and activity awareness in learning management systems is supported by a grant from FIPSE (U.S. Department of Education) and we are looking for partners who would like to try out CANS.

CANS in SVN

CANS 2.0 is now available as a SVN download at https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/cans/cans_server/trunk/. In addition, you may checkout our progress on our latest Sakai front-end tool for CANS at https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/cans/cans_AM/trunk/. This tool, known as the Activity Monitor tool, allows Sakai's site owners to setup notification preferences for Sakai sites and view notifications using our new Flex-based activity notifiers.

Enjoy.
-Chris

CANS 2.0 Now Available

2.0 is the third public release of the Context-aware Activity Notification System (CANS). This version offers several new administrative features and drastically improves the configuration requirements of CANS.

CANS 2.0 Server

In addition, a set of Sakai Tools and Services are also available. These tools and services include the CANS Administrator Tool and the CANS WatchDogService and the new CANS Reporter Tool.

The CANS Administrator Tool is a Sakai Tool for starting and monitoring the CANS WatchDogService.

The WatchDogService is a Sakai Service that uses a Java event listener to monitor Sakai events and send those events, with needed parameters, to the CANS Server.

The CANS Reporter tool is a brand new tool that allows site owners to configure the CANS notification preferences for their Sakai Site.

Sakai Tools and Services

Foliotek & CANS Partner to Provide Integrated eLearning & Social Awareness

Columbia, October 11 -- LANIT Consulting Inc. announced their intentions to integrate CANS into LANIT’s industry leading electronic portfolio product, Foliotek. The integration of CANS will provide Foliotek customers with awareness capabilities that have been shown to boost online collaboration.

“Portfolios are dynamic, so it makes sense to allow Foliotek students to promote awareness of their accomplishments among a chosen network of peers and collaborators. CANS enables students to push portfolio notifications to anyone, and also allows authorized faculty to pull portfolio notifications for students they review”, said Chris Miller, President of LANIT. “The integration of CANS with Foliotek promises to increase the sense of connection between a student and their portfolio. Since CANS is also integrated with popular course management systems, the option of obtaining a single notification for course activity and portfolio activity will be powerful – It brings the portfolio closer to the action”.