Cerritos College implemented the open source course management system Sakai in 2006 with the help of rSmart to replace its homegrown system. rSmart helped Cerritos structure its implementation plan and customize Sakai to meet faculty needs like copyright protection of electronic textbooks. rSmart continues to support Cerritos with Sakai through answering questions, testing software updates, and ensuring a smooth transition to new versions. Working with rSmart allowed Cerritos to meet deadlines and control costs, resulting in significant savings for the college.

1. DOING MORE WITH LESS.
A CLIENT SUCCESS STORY.
Times are tough, and everyone is feeling pressure to do more
with less. Community colleges have always had to be uniquely
sensitive to the changing economic climate and how it affects
CERRITOS COLLEGE
job opportunities for their students. Being capable of respond-
ing quickly to change to offer timely instruction that best
serves their students’ needs, while remaining cost effective,
is essential.
PARTNERS WITH rSMART
Cerritos College, a public comprehensive community college rSmart is a company dedicated to supporting higher
located in southeastern Los Angeles County, has a history of in- education institutions in their use of open source
novating to meet institutional needs. In 1993, Cerritos College software to achieve institutional strategies and
became one of the first colleges to offer online courses to goals. To do so, rSmart partners with institutions to
students. To support ongoing innovation, Cerritos built a solid efficiently implement and effectively support open
technology infrastructure, including a homegrown course man- source solutions.
agement system. Building its CMS allowed Cerritos a high level
of flexibility and customization, and for a time, the CMS served Mr. Bettino admits that initially, he was not in favor
them well. As Cerritos started to outgrow its homegrown CMS, of working with a commercial partner, but he learned
however, M.L. Bettino, Dean of Academic Affairs at Cerritos the benefits of working with rSmart early in the
College, began researching CMS options. Key selection criteria process of implementation. As he explains, “rSmart
for the new CMS included stability and scalability, as well as a was invaluable as we began to structure our plans
flexible and customizable platform. for implementation. rSmart provided us with a list
of tasks that would need to be completed. Then,
CERRITOS COLLEGE we reviewed the list, matched skill sets to tasks,
and allocated responsibilities between our staff at
AND SAKAI Cerritos and the rSmart team. rSmart’s ability to
clearly delineate our path gave us a strong sense of
Mr. Bettino reviewed both vended and open source solutions and security that we were headed on the right path from
attended an open source conference where he learned about the outset. This experience gave me a level of trust
Sakai, a course management system that is community built and in our relationship with rSmart that I have rarely
supported. Inspired by what he had learned, Mr. Bettino educated experienced with a vendor or commercial partner.”
Cerritos College’s board and faculty senate on Sakai, and they
supported moving forward. The IT staff, however, had reservations. Working with rSmart, Cerritos College implemented
Despite their solid technology support structure and mindset Sakai, known on campus as TalonNet, in 2006. Shortly
towards innovation, the IT staff asked how they could be confident thereafter, a significant customization need arose.
that they could successfully implement and support Sakai. When the homegrown CMS was built, a mechanism
for protecting faculty copyrights was designed into
the software so that electronic textbooks developed
They found their answer in rSmart. by faculty and the Multimedia Production staff were
protected. The new CMS would have to do the same

2. to continue to receive faculty endorsement. Mr. Bettino explains, “It was essential that we customize Sakai
to offer continued copyright protection. Working with rSmart, we were able to build a solution that met
faculty and institutional requirements.”
rSmart Sakai CLE
rSmart continues to support Cerritos College in a number of ways. For example, rSmart is on hand to answer
production, technical and functional questions and to address any issues that might arise. Additionally,
before every update and major release of the Sakai software, rSmart completes full regression testing to
confirm that no major issues will arise when Cerritos College implements the latest version of Sakai.
“Our partnership with rSmart,” Mr. Bettino explains, “allowed us to meet deadlines and control costs. The
efficiencies of working with rSmart have resulted in significant cost-savings to our campus.” Mr. Bettino
sees this as an opportunity for other community colleges: “What we have done here, any community college
can do. One important piece of the equation is having someone who has a vision for what Sakai can mean
to the college and who has the ability to identify the individuals within the institution who will share that
vision. The other important piece is partnering with rSmart for peace of mind.
Any community college can do this too.”
ENGAGING THE CAMPUS
In an effort to highlight the attributes of Sakai and encourage faculty to
adopt Sakai, Mr. Bettino and his staff created cartoon characters, TalonMan and Dr. Oldskool.
TalonMan, a superhero whose mission is to educate the campus, is played out in comic strips
shown in the school paper and around campus on posters. Dr. Oldskool is the villain,
ignorant of Sakai and the opportunities it affords to him and his students.
WHAT SAKAI MEANS TO FACULTY
Faculty members have achieved significant success through Sakai. Kimberley
J. Duff, PhD, is an associate professor in the Psychology Department at Cerritos
College. With Sakai, Dr. Duff found she could manage all her course content
easily in one place. Additionally, Dr. Duff values the efficiency of Sakai. For ex-
ample, the new calendar system automatically posts content to several locations,
whereas outside of Sakai, information has to be manually posted numerous times
to reach its intended recipients. As Dr. Duff explains, “The time savings that
Sakai affords me is significant. As my time is freed from course logistics, I am
able to allocate more time and effort to teaching the course content.”
Angela Hoppe-Nagao is a professor of Speech Communication at Cerritos Col-
lege, and she also values the “one stop shopping” of Sakai. Students can ac-
cess grades, assignments and announcements, post questions and comments,
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and “even engage in hot debate,” Ms. Hoppe-Nagao explains. Additionally, Ms.
WWW.RSMART.COM Hoppe-Nagao is able to provide her students with substantive feedback on their
OR CALL TOLL FREE work via the course site, creating a collaborative dialogue that supports student
success.
866.874.4338
Sakai’s ease of use is also of significant value to her. She explains, “I am not a
technology savvy individual, but I find Sakai easy to use. When I introduce stu-
dents to Sakai, I promise them that they can learn how to navigate my course site
in 5 minutes, and that has consistently proved true.”