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Public Sakai Web Site FAQ
The following is a list of Frequently Asked Questions that we have collected from 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 your question, please contact IT Express, the campus computing help desk, at:
Phone: 754-HELP
Email: ithelp@ucdavis.edu
In person: 182 Shields Library
Background
What is Sakai?
The Sakai Project is a software development effort, bringing together over eighty one hundred educational institutions who have collaboratively constructed a sophisticated, easy-to-use, extendable set of course management tools that can be tailored to the needs of whatever university is using it. When you switch to Sakai, you'll enjoy all the MyUCDavis features you are accustomed to, plus a whole host of new, intuitive, easy-to-use tools created by universities for universities. The Sakai project 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. UC Davis is proud to work alongside all the dedicated members of the Sakai consortium.
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A Collaborative Learning Environment (CLE) refers to new and revolutionary technologies that allow participants to share information, collaborate on research, organize clubs or meetings, and much more. A CLE includes any number of tools, including a wiki (an open, community maintained Web site), chat rooms, discussion boards, and more.
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The course management tools in MyUCDavis have become increasingly difficult to extend and scale. To address this issue, Sakai is being developed as an open-source project that lends itself well to evolving to meet the needs of its users. In factassociation with the Sakai Consortium, UC Davis will be is sharing resources and collaborating with universities around the country, including world, such as UC Berkely, Stanford, MIT, and Yale, to develop, test drive, and improve Sakai. Combining the resources, dedication, and expertise of the top universities in the country should ensure a smooth and successful transition to the next generation of course management tools, a constantly improving sets of utilities that universities can update and share.
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MyUCDavis is the portal by which faculty, students and staff access a number of informational documents, course management tools, and other campus informational systems. At present, there are no plans to eliminate the campus Web-portal system. Sakai is eventually expected to be a full replacement for (just) the course management tools.
Rest assured that the The current MyUCDavis course management tools you are accustomed to will still be available for at least a year while Sakai is perfected. In the meantime, to give you plenty of time to begin learning and transfering your class materials to the new system. During this year transition period, you can use either system you prefer . Nonetheless(or both!). That being said, we strongly encourage users to begin to play with Sakai, because getting your toes wet will make the transition easier when MyUCDavis course management tools are eventually retired.
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In the winter and spring of 2006, the Faculty Mentoring Faculty program hosted a Sakai pilot, where instructors from various departments tested Sakai and provided their feedback as well as feature requests. Intrigued by Sakai's features, various instructors have begun using Sakai both in and out of the classroom. As of now, programmers are working to enhance the QuizBuilder and GradeBook so they more accurately reflect the instructors needs'. In addition, the Sakai Community continues to enhance the core Sakai toolset. The timeline for these changes will allow UCD to make Sakai available for an extended pilot in the Fall 2006. Additional functionality in support of large courses with multiple sections and instructors should be available for testing by Winter Quarter 2007. More detailed information on these developments should be available mid summer 2006.
What's in it for me?
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Top 6 Questions about Sakai
- What is Sakai?
Sakai is a sophisticated, easy-to-use, extendable set of course management tools that make it easy for you to organize and collaborate with anyone (students, colleagues, research partners to name a few), from anywhere in the world where an internet connection is available. - Who created it?
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 and collaboration systems. The effective and successful collaboration between these two schools caught the attention of The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford, who soon joined the project, along with the Open Knowledge Initiative and the uPortal consortium. Today over 80 institutions of higher education have partnered together for one goal: Sakai. - Why did they create it?
The answer is simple: cooperation. Previously, institutions of higher education all worked separately, hiring programmers to develop to suit their specific course management and collaboration needs at any given time. These systems proved useful, though difficult to extend and scale. As a result, institutions found performing much of the same work and rebuilding from scratch. With Sakai, universities can join there efforts to create a single system that is easy to customize, and thus able to keep up with the fast pace of technology. - Why UC Davis is adopting it
The course management tools in MyUCDavis have become increasingly difficult to extend and scale. By combining the resources, dedication, and expertise of the top universities, our campus will have the opportunity to transition to the next generation of course management and collaboration tools. - What's in it for me?
o Instructors: 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, keep track of your courses, host virtual office hours from any location with high-speed Internet access.
o Researchers: 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 few of the possibilities.
o Students: 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.
Who should consider using Sakai this fall?
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