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What is the Sakai Project?
The Sakai Project is a software development effort, bringing together over one hundred educational institutions who have collaboratively constructed created a sophisticated, easy-to-use, extendable set of course management tools known collectively as a Collaborative Learning Environment (CLE).
What's in it for me?
Sakai has tools for everyone. What can you do with them?
- Instructors: Provide You can provide a collaborative learning environment for students that is accessible on and off campus, encourage collaborative learning by allowing students to build publicly editable wikis, encourage critical discourse on discussion boards, organize your lessons, and host virtual office hours from any location with highspeed Internet access.
- Researchers: Network You can network with colleagues, organize data, collaborate on projects, chat in real time, brainstorm solutions on discussion boards, host video conferences, and stream PowerPoint presentations, just to name of a few of the possibilities.
- Students: Host You can host Web sites, plan events, share files, form social networks, organize student groups, host study sessions, collaborate on creative projects, create research groups, and more.
Best of all, this stable and easy to use system is open-source, which allows universities to both improve the existing code and add additional features as they become needed. With over 85 educational institutions across the country such a dedicated group of institutions now contributing to the creation of the Sakai course management system, faculty, staff, students, and researchers will undoubtedly appreciate the unyielding focus afforded to their unique needs , as the system evolves alongside our rapidly changing technological environment.
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Sakai Project Background
Sakai has its origins at the University of Indiana and the University of Michigan, where both universities independently began open source efforts to enhance their course management systems. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford soon joined in, along with the Open Knowledge Initiative and the uPortal consortium.
The Reasons for Change
Many faculty and students have voiced concern about the slowness and instability of MyUCDavis. We understand these concerns and recognize that it is imperative that UC Davis' learning information systems keep pace with the ever- increasing demands and expectations of students, instructors, and researchers. Adopting the Sakai course management tools will allow UCDavis to enhance the tools already provided within MyUCDavis, while leveraging the work, dedication, and support of the international community that aids in Sakai's development.
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- Announcements: Inform site participants of current items of interest
- Assignments: Create, distribute, collect , and grade online assignments
- Chat room: Carry on real-time, online conversations with worksite participants
- Discussion: Hold structured conversations organized into categories
- Drop Box: Share documents within private folders between instructors and students
- Email Archive: Keep track of course or project site email correspondence
- Gradebook: Manage grades and submit as final grades
- Message Center: Communicate through discussion forum topics and private messaging
- Modules: Create ordered content, such as study guides, for student review
- News: Include up-to-date news feeds to your worksite
- Preferences: Control how often you are notified of course or project site activity
- Project Sites: Use Sakai for other purposes besides teaching (e.g., research collaboration)
- Quiz and survey: Create online assessments
- Resources: Make any kind of material available online
- Schedule: Organize and post items in a calendar format
- Section/Group: Info Manage sections of a class (lectures, labs, discussions, studio work, recitations, or any combination thereof)
- Site Info: Maintain course or project site settings
- Syllabus: Post and maintain your official course outline
- Web Content: Maintain course or project site settings
- Wiki: Create/contribute to a collaborative, editable Web site
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The following is a list of Frequently Asked Questions that we have collected from the faculty, staff, and students who tested the Sakai system in the 2006 Winter and Spring quarters. If you are unable to find an answer for to your question, please contact IT Express, the campus computing help desk, at:
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