UCT's active participation in the Sakai Community has paid dividends, as two staff members have won Sakai Foundation Fellowships for 2008.

Stephen Marquard, co-ordinator of learning technologies at the Centre for Educational Technology, and David Horwitz, OLE developer in the same unit, were among the six people worldwide selected for 2008 fellowships.

They were the only Africans chosen, and the only two to come from the same institution.

The Sakai Community Foundation is an international open-source software platform made up of volunteer resources from many organisations around the world.

Six fellowships are awarded annually to acknowledge, celebrate and reward the recipients' contributions. Each was awarded $2 500 (R30 000) to be used in Sakai-related activities.

Marquard says UCT became involved with Sakai in 2005 when it was chosen to power Vula, the university's online learning environment.

He added that the award reflects the university's contribution, "in particular, our strategy of contributing local improvements that we make to Vula so that our work is also of benefit to other universities around the world".

Some of the improvements made by UCT include a polls tool, performance improvements, and participation in the Sakai Quality Assurance programme, which included hosting a QA server for testing new releases.