Sakai @ Seminole State College

Wilma Hodges Manager, Distance Learning Services [email protected]

Migration in Process

      Currently an ANGEL customer –We are in our last year of a multi-year contract ending July 31, 2010.

Sakai pilot is currently underway:  Approx. 50 + faculty using Sakai in production this term  Approx. 150 + sections running in Sakai We are self-hosted We are running Sakai 2.6

Contracted with the Longsight Group for implementation assistance and tier 2 support So far, so good! Pilot is going well.

Why Open Source?

      Dissatisfaction with customer support and quality assurance offered by Blackboard, and distaste for Bb business practices ANGEL product line to be discontinued after 8.0

Lack of confidence that a new Bb/ANGEL hybrid product would live up to the hype or be delivered in a timely manner Fear of climbing prices and vendor lock-in Worry that any commercial vendor would follow the same fate of WebCT and ANGEL.

Desire to have more control over our destiny and to be part of growing, active and collaborative user community

Why Pick Sakai Over Moodle?

 The Sakai Foundation is a member-based, non-profit 501(c)(3) corporation which coordinates software development, quality assurance and distribution. The Sakai Foundation is supported by voluntary partner contributions and run by a member-elected ten-member Board of Directors.

  This type of organization allows for a well-developed product roadmap for future versions of Sakai, and a comprehensive and established process for product development and QA.

Unlike Moodle, which is owned and directed by a single individual, Sakai is not vulnerable to “corporate buyout” such as we have seen with vendors like WebCT and ANGEL.

Why Pick Sakai Over Moodle? (cont.)

  Asthetics/Personal Preference   For our users, we found the interface in Sakai to be cleaner and more intuitive than the Moodle interface. Some features of Sakai, such as WebDAV, the look and feel of certain navigation menus, etc., seemed reminiscent of earlier versions of WebCT, which many of our users found familiar and this made for an easier learning curve on those items.

Code base  Sakai code is based primarily on Java whereas Moodle is based on PHP. Java is generally considered to be more robust and enterprise-ready than PHP.

Do I Like Sakai Better than ANGEL?

   I get this question a lot, and I think it is a little like being asked, “Which one of your children do you love most?” I’d have to say I like them both about the same, but for different reasons. They are different, so there are some trade-offs. There are some things I definitely miss about ANGEL, and some things I like better in Sakai.  Sakai has all of the “must have” features.

 Most of the things I miss in ANGEL are more advanced features or bells and whistles that many of our faculty don’t really use anyway.

5 Things I Miss from ANGEL…

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

No ANGEL agents  (Conditional Release is in the works for Sakai 2.7, but it is not available yet in 2.6.) Gradebook doesn’t allow you to drop the lowest item in a category automatically. (This is also coming in 2.7.) Some of the more advanced options (i.e. post-first permissions, rubrics, color-coding instructor posts) in Discussion Forums are not currently available in Sakai.

The Melete Module Tool allows you to link to items like forums, assessments, etc. from within content modules, but it is not as easy to drop these items in line with content as it is in ANGEL.

The ANGEL Admin SQL Query Manager Tool

3.

4.

5.

5 Things I like Better in Sakai

1.

2.

The Citation Manager allows you to quickly and easily incorporate references to resource material and it will automatically search for the item and show the user which libraries have it available.

Turnitin.com integration is much more seamless – there is only one dropbox and the review service is an option within the dropbox settings.

“Honor Pledge” option in dropboxes.

Audio recording question type in tests and quizzes.

TOC in Modules is very linear and sequential – this makes it easy to see the structure of the content, and it is easier for faculty to recognize poor or inconsistent design.

5 Reasons I’m Excited about Sakai

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

No software license fees!

If we aren’t happy with the support we are getting from our current support vendor, we can change vendors without having to migrate to another system.

Highly customizable. Also, if we really want something that isn’t there, we can build it – or maybe someone else will.

We really like being part of such a vibrant user community.

Sakai 3.0 is in development, and the previews I have seen show some very exciting and innovative features.