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Product Name Sakai 2.3
Developer Name Sakai
URL Sakai
Review Date November 02, 2006
Forums Sakai 2.3 Discussions
Reviewer Vivie Sinou    email    bio
Communication Tools
Discussion Forum
  • Students can enable or disable posts to be sent to their email.
  • Students can receive posts by email as daily digests of subject lines or whole posts.
  • A spell-checker is available for student and instructor responses.
Reviewer Comments
There are three discussion forum tools that adopters of Sakai can choose to deploy:
  1. Discussion (U of Michigan);

  2. JForum Discussion & Private Messaging (Foothill College); or,

  3. Message Center (Indiana University)


Discuss
Discussion Management
  • Instructors can set up moderated discussions where all posts are screened.
Reviewer Comments
JForum Discussion and Private Messaging:
Development Led by Foothill College

  • Forums can become visible on a certain date.

  • Forums can become locked on a certain date (can read but not post).

  • Forums and categories can be sorted.

  • Unlimited forums and categories.

  • Supports sticky and announcement topics.

  • Users control email notification and profile options.

  • Bookmark functionality for favorite topics.

  • Search functionality across a site's forums.

  • "Watch" functionality for hot topics.

  • Mark discussion as read functionality.

  • Forums or categories can be accessible to certain groups as defined in
    JForum.

  • Ability to move, delete, lock, and unlock topics.

  • Ability to lock a topic, allowing users to read topic postings, but not
    respond.

  • Ability to restrict a forum and/or topic to a specific group or section.

  • Ability to grant fine grained permissions on a role or group basis.
    • Permissions include:

    • Category access

    • Forum access

    • Ability to post Sticky, Announcements, or Task topics

    • Read only Forums

    • Enable Karma

    • Enable Bookmarks

    • Enable Attachments

    • Allow Download of existing attachments

    • Ability to set number of allowed attachments, file upload size, and types of
      allowable attachment extensions.

    • Set users as moderators

    • Disallow moderation in specific forums

    • Ability for roles edit, delete, move, lock and unlock topics



  • Supports 12 foreign languages.



Message Center

MC Development Led by Indiana University

The following discussion management features are currently available with Message Center:

  • Ability to create a template for permissions at the forum level and use that
    template for related topics.

  • Ability to lock a topic, allowing users to read topic postings, but not respond.

  • Ability to restrict a forum and/or topic to a specific group or section.

  • Ability to grant fine grained permissions on a role, group or section basis. Permissions include:

    • New forum

    • New topic

    • New response

    • Response to response

    • Change settings

    • Read

    • Post to gradebook

    • Mark as read

    • Revise none, own or all postings

    • Ability to set a default gradebook assignment for a topic

    • Ability to save a draft of a forum and its topics





Discuss
File Exchange
  • Students can submit assignments using drop boxes.
Reviewer Comments
  • Sakai optionally allows students to create their own project sites and add fellow students to their sites. This effectively puts all of the Sakai tools (chat, threaded discussion, calendar, file sharing, etc) in the hands ofstudent groups to use as they see fit in pursuing group activities.

  • Students can submit assignments (inline or attachments) using the Assignments tool. Two versions of this tool are available - with grading or no grading capabilities, based on the needs of the adopting institution.

  • Students can submit assignments in the JForum Discussion & Private Messages tool, including attachments and media. This allows for peer reviews of the submitted work.

  • Students can submit materials in the Resources tool, if permissions for adding new resources is enabled by the instructor, allowing students to gather and share resources on a topic in a common location of the course site.


Discuss
Internal Email
  • Students can use the built-in email functionality to email individuals or groups.
  • Instructors can email the entire class at once at a single address or alias.
Reviewer Comments
There are a number of tools that support internal email:
  • Private Messaging in JForum

  • Message Center

  • MailTool

The functionality of each varies slightly; they all meet the core internal email needs of users.

Additionally, the Announcements tool allows instructors to broadcast messages to the whole class. Announcements are posted in the Announcements tool and are displayed in the home page of a site, and they can (selectively) be sent to the students' personal email that is provided in the system.

Students can specify (user preference)whether or not they want to be notified via email about low-priority announcements. They can also choose to receive a daily digest of class announcements. These settings can be overwritten by instructors for high-priority, critical announcements.

Discuss
Online Journal/Notes Reviewer Comments
Students can create a private "Notes" folder (and sub-folders) for their classes in the Resources tool of their MyWorkspace and attach documents or create and publish notes.

Discuss
Real-time Chat
  • The chat tool supports a limited number of simultaneous rooms.
  • The system creates archive logs for all chat rooms.
Reviewer Comments
  • Instructors can create new chat rooms. Only one chat room may be set as
    the default at any given time.

  • The system clearly displays who is in the chat (a dot by the user's name
    in Users Present*), alerting site participants that others are in the chat
    with whom they can talk in real-time.

  • Users Present is a feature of Sakai, that, if enabled, displays who is
    logged on into a project or course site.


Discuss
Whiteboard Reviewer Comments
Several organizations have integrated Elluminate, Breeze, and other commercial products in their Sakai implementations.

Discuss
Productivity Tools
Bookmarks Reviewer Comments
Bookmark functionality is available in the JForum Discussion & Private Messaging tool.

The WebContent tool can be used to add bookmarks as tool buttons to any course site.

The Resource tool allows bookmarks to be placed as resources.

Melete also supports bookmarks as part of any module.

Discuss
Calendar/Progress Review
  • Instructors and students can post events in the online course calendar.
  • Instructors can post announcements to a course announcement page.
  • Students have a personal home page that lists all courses in which the student is enrolled, new email and all course and system-wide events from their personal calendar.
  • Students can view their grades on completed assignments, total points possible, course grade, and compare their grades against the class performance.
  • Students can subscribe to RSS feeds to be notified of changes to materials.
Reviewer Comments
Calendar Summary Tool: A synoptic tool that presents a visual monthly view of schedule events in the Home page of My Workspace or other course/project site is now part of the Sakai 2.3 bundle. Users may add personal events in their MyWorkspace calendar.

The Calendar Summary Tool was developed by Universidade Fernando Pessoa (UFP), Portugal.

Discuss
Searching Within Course
  • Students can search all course content.
  • Students can search all discussion threads.
  • Students can search chat or virtual classroom session recordings.
Reviewer Comments
Searching capability is also available in:
  • Search Tool - A powerful tool that allows a Google like search all content in a Sakai instance. Anything that is a Sakai entity can be indexed and searched. This includes all Content placed in ContentHostingService which includes content in Resources, Attachments, OSP, Wiki, and all messages in Chat, Email, Announcements, UM Discussion tool. The search tool reads all Office types, PDF's, and extracts the first 2M of text from types that appear to be text based. (Developed by University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, for Sakai).

  • JForum Discussion & Private Messages includes search capability of topics and messages.

  • The Help Tool includes search functionality.


Discuss
Work Offline/Synchronize Reviewer Comments
  • Instructors can download the content of lessons (Melete Lesson Builder) into a format that can be printed, stored, or edited locally using a web publishing tool.

  • Instructors can download assignments with attachments in one simple click for off-line grading. A folder is created on the instructor's desktop with sub-folders for each student and their attachment submissions.


Discuss
Orientation/Help
  • Students can access context sensitive help for any tool.
  • The system includes online tutorials for students that help students learn how to use the system.
Reviewer Comments
  • The Help Tool includes context sensitive help the core tools of the Sakai bundle. Help is accessible by all users (students, instructors, Teaching Assistants, etc.) of the system via a question mark at the right corner of each tool's container.


Discuss
Student Involvement Tools
Groupwork
  • Instructors can assign students to groups.
  • Each group can be given group-specific assignments or activities.
  • Groups may be private or instructors can monitor groups.
Reviewer Comments
A number of tools are group and section-aware: Schedule, Assignments, and Resources, and to some extend, Tests & Quizzes.

Groups are also supported in the JForum Discussion tool, though its functionality is managed from Jforum rather than Sakai groups.

Sakai supports the ability to allow students and instructors to create project sites, enabling users to have a private site with a full set of site tools (email archive, forums, chat, resources, etc.) for group work and collaboration.

Discuss
Community Networking
  • Students can create online clubs, interest, and study groups at the system level.
Reviewer Comments
Sakai Wiki Tool: Enables users of Sakai to create, share, and manage content in a Wiki Environment. It uses simular markup and shared concepts with other open source Wikis (eg Wikipedia, TWiki, phpWiki etc). Sakai Wiki is now part of the Sakai 2.3 bundle.

Developed and maintained by University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, for Sakai.

Collaboration Sites: Course and project sites can be "joinable," allowing users to join interest groups and projects without the permission of a lead facilitator. Any user in the system with the right role (as chosen by the site owner) may become a member of a "joinable" site.

News/RSS - for viewing content from online sources (RSS feeds)


Discuss
Student Portfolios Reviewer Comments
OSP (Open Source Portfolio), a provisional tool in Sakai 2.2, offers rich portfolio functionality.

Discuss
Administration Tools
Authentication
  • Administrators can allow guest access to all courses.
  • The system can authenticate against an external LDAP server.
  • The system can authenticate using the Kerberos protocol.
  • The system supports Shibboleth.
  • The system supports the Central Authentication Service (CAS).
Reviewer Comments
-- Although these have never been done, the system can authenticate against IMAP, POP3 or secure NNTP.

-- The system can support multiple organizational units and virtual hosts within a server configuration. Typically, institutions run Sakai on multiple boxes; however, multiple Sakai instances can be run on a single box.


Discuss
Course Authorization
  • The system supports restricting access based on roles and roles can also be customizedby the service provider.
  • Administrators can create an unlimited number of custom organizational units and roles with specific access privileges to course content and tools.
  • Administrators can distribute the permissions and roles across multiple institutions or departments hosted in the server environment.
  • Instructors or students may be assigned different roles in different courses.


Discuss
Registration Integration
  • Instructors can add students to their courses manually or allow students to self-register.
  • Administrators can batch add students to the system using a delimited text file.
Reviewer Comments
Roster Tool: Provides a list of all users in the site, a link to an individual user's profile, a picture the user has made available to all users and an official photo ID for use by the administrative users of the site. The Roster tool now uses a new API to manage privacy.

Profile Tool: The profile tool is a place (listed under MyWorkspace) where a user can enter or choose to display public and personal information, including a university ID picture if available. The profile tool can have university provided or individually provided information about any user in the system. It can be edited, restricted/opened and include personal images or institutionally provided images.

The user may choose whether this information is public or private. Users who have logged in to the application may search for another user's profile using this tool to obtain any information that a user has made public.

Both developed and maintained by Indiana University.

Discuss
Hosted Services Reviewer Comments
Hosting and support services for Sakai are provided from Sakai Commercial Affiliates and other organizations:

rSmart Sakai CLE - Learn about rSmart's customized Sakai bundle, add-on tools, and hosting services.

IBM Open Education Service: Collaborative Learning Edition - Learn more about IBM's hosted Sakai-based offering.

Unicon's Academus Open Campus - Learn about Unicon's Sakai bundle, hosting, and test-drive Sakai services.

Optimized Learning Inc - hosts native Sakai, Academus Open Campus, and customized Sakai instances for schools of all sizes.

Longsight Group - provides a broad range of hosting and support services to the higher education and non-profit communities.

ETUDES Consortium Project - A non-profit operation that focuses on development and centralized hosting and support for its members.

Discuss
Course Delivery Tools
Test Types
  • Multiple choice
  • Multiple answer
  • Matching
  • Calculated
  • Fill-in the blank
  • Short answer
  • Survey questions
  • Essay
  • Questions can contain other media elements (images, videos, audio)


Discuss
Automated Testing Management
  • The system can randomize the questions and answers.
  • Instructors can create self-assessments.
  • Instructors can set a time limit on a test.
  • Instructors can permit multiple attempts.
  • The students are allowed to review past attempts of a quiz.
  • Instructors can specify whether correct results are shown as feedback
  • The system supports proctored tests.


Discuss
Automated Testing Support
  • Instructors can create personal test banks.
  • Instructors can create system wide test banks.
  • Questions can be imported from external test banks that support QTI.
  • The system provides test analysis data.
Reviewer Comments
Instructors can import an assessment as a test or as a question pool.



Discuss
Online Marking Tools
  • Instructors can choose to mark each student on all questions or to mark each question on all students.
  • Instructors can choose to evaluate student responses anonymously.


Discuss
Online Gradebook
  • When an instructor adds an assignment to the course, the software automatically adds it to the gradebook.
  • Instructors can add grades for offline assignments.
  • Instructors can export the scores in the gradebook to an external spreadsheet.
  • Instructors can create a course grading scale that can employ either percents, letter grades, or pass/fail metrics.


Discuss
Course Management
  • Instructors can selectively release assignments, assessments, and announcements based on specific start and stop dates.
  • Instructors can personalize access to specific course materials based on group membership.
Reviewer Comments
Instructors can release learning sequences or materials based on start dates (Melete Lesson Builder AND Resources tool).

Discuss
Student Tracking Reviewer Comments
A Site Statistics tool is being developed for Sakai by Universidade Fernando Pessoa (UFP), Portugal. It is currently in pilot at several universities. The Site Statistics tool collects and displays statistical data about the class as a whole or on each student - where they've gone and what they've accessed.

Discuss
Content Development Tools
Accessibility Compliance
  • The product provider self-reports that the software complies with Section 508 of the US Rehabilitation Act.
  • The product provider self-reports that the software complies with the WAI WCAG 1.0 Level A guidelines.


Sakai's Current Accessibility

Discuss
Content Sharing/Reuse Reviewer Comments
Materials can be imported or copied from one course site to another. Each user has n area called "My WorkSpace" which can contain materials that are global across the entire system. The materials from My Workspace can be imported into any course site. This allows each instructor and student to maintain their own local space which is only readible to themselves which can be copied into various project and course sites as needed.


Discuss
Course Templates
  • The software provides support for template-based course creation.
  • Course content may be uploaded through WebDAV.
  • The system allows administrators to use an existing course or a pre-defined template as a basis for a new course.


Discuss
Customized Look and Feel
  • The system provides default course look and feel templates.
  • Instructors can change the navigation icons and color schemes for a course.
  • Institutions can create their own look and feel templates across the entire system, including their own institutional logos, headers, and footers.
Reviewer Comments
-- Users (instructors and students) can change the order courses are listed, including hiding old term sites from their active list.

-- Instructors can change the skin and color schemes for a course, provided that more skins have been installed in the system. Many custom course skins have been developed by the Sakai community and are available as a free download.





Discuss
Instructional Design Tools
  • Instructors can organize learning objects, course tools, and content into learning sequences that are reusable.
  • Instructors can create linear learning sequences organized hierarchically by course, lesson, and topic.
  • Instructors can reuse courses as templates for future lessons.
Reviewer Comments
The Melete Lesson Builder is a Sakai tool that allows users to create learning sequences. Lessons can be released automatically based on start and stop dates. Melete supports IMS Content Packaging.

Melete Lesson Builder for Sakai

Discuss
Instructional Standards Compliance
  • IMS Content Packaging 1.1.4
  • IMS QTI 1.2.1
  • SCORM 1.2
Reviewer Comments
  • IMS Common Cartridge - Sakai supports import of Common Cartridge materials.

  • IMS Tool Interoperability - Sakai has a contributed tool (University of Michigan) supporting the IMS Tool Interoperability Specification.

  • Sakai supports SCORM 1.2 using a SCORM loader and SCORM player from the contributed library. (UC Davis)

  • The Melete Lesson Builder supports IMS CP.

  • The Tests & Quizzes tool supports IMS QTI.


Discuss
Hardware/Software
Client Browser Required Reviewer Comments
The software supports Internet Explorer 5.5+, Netscape 7.1+, and Mozilla Firefox for Windows, and Netscape 7.1+ or Mozilla Firefox on the Apple OS. Some functions in Sakai will not work well or will not work at all in Safari or Internet Explorer for the Mac. Javascript must be enabled.

Discuss
Database Requirements
  • The system supports Oracle.
  • The system supports MySQL.
  • The application requires only one database and can coexist with tables from other applications.


Discuss
UNIX Server
  • A Unix version is available.


Discuss
Windows Server
  • A Windows version is available.


Discuss
Company Details/Licensing
Company Profile Reviewer Comments
The Sakai Foundation is a non-profit organization that is dedicated to coordinating activities around Sakai and the Sakai community to insure Sakai's long-term viability.

The Sakai Foundation has a number of staff focused on coordinating activities, including a full-time Executive Director who manages the daily operation of the foundation. Sakai staff provides coordination across a number of activities including: project management, quality assurance, release management and conference planning.

The Sakai Foundation is supported by voluntary partner contributions. The Sakai Partners elect the Sakai Foundation Board of Directors, which provide the strategic leadership for the Sakai Foundation.

Sakai

Discuss
Costs / Licensing Reviewer Comments
The Sakai Project Software is FREE. It is licensed under the Educational Community License.

Educational Community License

Discuss
Open Source
  • The software is distributed under one of the OSI-approved licenses.


Discuss
Optional Extras Reviewer Comments
New Provisional Tools

LinkTool: for calling external applications in Sakai (e.g. those written in PHP). Led by Rutgers University.

Blog: for collaborative blogging among members of a particular site. This tool has been developed by Miguel Gonzalez Losa and Adrian Fish who are members of Centre for e-Science, Lancaster University, United Kingdom.

Podcasts: a podcasting tool which takes advantage of the Resources tool for storage, but displays podcasts in a user friendly way and provides an RSS feed for access through one's favorite podcatcher. Developed by Indiana University.

Sakai tools not in the bundle yet:
  • Melete Lesson Builder

  • JForum Discussion & Private Messaging

Led by the ETUDES Project, Foothill College.

Under development:

Goal Management Tool: Enables an administrator or faculty-member to create goal sets within worksites. A goal set is a collection of defined goals; goals are hierarchically defined program or course objectives that students are expected to perform, and can be linked with various activities within Sakai (currently assignments and data points).

Led by Syracuse University.

Polls: The tool allows the simple and quick polling of users on an issue.

Led by University of Cape Town, South Africa.

User Membership: Allows one to search for site and group membership for a specified user. It is available as a contrib/ project. Currently waiting for resolution of SAK-6792, SAK-6793, SAK-6794 in order to get provisional status.

Led by Universidade Fernando Pessoa (UFP), Portugal.

Survey Tool: In early days of development (starting). The Survey tool will allow the creation, submission and reporting of questionnaires at group, site and sakai level.

Led by Universidade Fernando Pessoa (UFP), Portugal.




Discuss
Reference Citation: EduTools. (2010). CMS: Product Comparison System. Retrieved September 08, 2010 from http://www.edutools.org/compare.jsp?pj=4&i=557