10 reasons to use the new collaboration and learning system
10 reasons to use the new collaboration and learning system
1. Features you won't find elsewhere
When you choose to use Sakai, you'll enjoy most of the MyUCDavis CM features you are accustomed to, plus a whole host of new intuitive, easy-to-use tools created by universities for universities. Below, find a mere handful of the tools designed to help you streamline and enrich your courses.
Quiz Builder: Create a wide array of online quizzes and surveys to assess student progress and gauge comprehension.
Grade Book: Manage and submit all class grades.
Wiki: Create and allow students to contribute to a collaborative, editable Web site that can grow across quarters.
Web Content: Incorporate your favorite Web sites and other Web content into your class. Even design your own Web sites from scratch!
Chat: Using this real-time messaging tool, encourage students to collaborate and discuss class material outside of class, or help students or holding off-campus office hours.
Project Sites: Manage and organize the data for all of your research projects in one convenient location. Even allow for collaboration with other experts in your field from the university or abroad.
Many more!
Using Sakai worksites, the unilateral dissemination of knowledge branches into an evolving, collaborative work environment, where students can share their expertise, assist their fellow students, and engage in constructive and critical discourse.
2. It works!
With its vast array of tools, Sakai can prove useful for staff, students, and researches. The system stable, easy to use, expandable, and can evolve alongside our rapidly changing technological environment.
With over 85 educational institutions across the country contributing to the creation of the Sakai course management system, faculty will undoubtedly appreciate the unyielding focus afforded their teaching needs and pedagogical concerns.
Many universities have already tested and proven the efficacy of Sakai, including Indiana University which has successfully deployed and tested the system with over 90,000 users, as well as University of Michigan, which is currently supporting 35,000 users.
3. Easy, secure access
Your class data and personal files will still be protected in the same, user-friendly fashion. Simply continue to log-in using your existing UC Davis Login ID and Kerberos password to access your personal Sakai worksite. You can expect the same level of privacy and security as MyUCDavis and should exercise the same precautions.
4. Battle tested by colleagues and peers
To ensure that Sakai will meet our faculty's needs, professors from various departments across campus participated in a collaborative pilot project this winter. With personal one-on-one technology training and support provided by ET Partners, instructors got hands on experience by experimenting with Sakai's tools. They dove in head first, shared their experiences with developers, identified and requested missing capabilities, and devised innovative applications for their classes.
As a result of the pilots success and our participants own dedication and excitement about the Sakai, the faculty participants agreed to form the Faculty Mentoring Faculty Program, a group that hopes to inspire and support Sakai's adoption and promote collaboration among interested instructors.
5. The tools and information you need, when you need them; runs anywhere at any time
Sakai tools should be available for your use 24x7. You can access, build, organize, and maintain your classes from any PC or Mac with Internet access, as well as keep personal worksites dedicated to your research projects or personal needs. Should the hardware or system crash, our tech support teams will work hard to fix the issue in a reasonable timeframe.
6. Easily customizable and extensible; continually improving
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 fact, UC Davis will be collaborating with universities around the country, including Stanford, MIT, Yale, and others. Combining the resources, dedication, and expertise of the top universities in the country will ensure a smooth and successful transition to the next generation of course management tools, as well as constantly improving sets of tools that can be shared from university to university. Examples of improvements already included and donated by the community include the Wiki, e-Portfolio, Learning Modules and an enhanced Discussion Board.
7. Integrated with major campus systems and databases
You should enjoy seamless integration with all the major campus systems and databases that you rely from day to day. (eg. BANNER, SisWeb).Your class worksites should populate automatically and require little This will be true at a later date. Courses will be populated with Rosters by fall; full section integration will be in pilot phase in Winter Quarter 06-07
8. Extensive support
Should you need help acclimatizing to the new system or have general technical support questions, rest assured. IT Express, IET-Mediaworks and the TRC will be working together to provide numerous methods of support, including:
Face-to-face meetings
Phone
Email
FAQs
Online tutorials
Demos
Tips
How-tos
Training sessions
Project support from ET Partners.