Sakai is an open source learning
management system provided by the Apero Foundation. The LMS provides what it
calls Core and Expanded Features. The Core Features encompass an integrated
tool set that is tested by the Sakai community members and is then included
with each new release. The tool set can be configured by: instructors,
students, research investigators and project leaders. The other set of tools, known as “Contrib
Tools” are specific to Sakai tools and innovations that are developed…
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Teachable
Score 7.6 out of 10
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Teachable in New York offers what they describe as a powerful, easy-to-use online course creation platform, designed to provide course creators everything needed to create, market, and sell their course online. Teachable's platform includes unlimited courses and unlimited students, to site customization and personal branding.
I've used Sakai to supplement my Public Speaking class. Public Speaking is very much a F2F type course, so I didn't use Sakai much for course content delivery. However, I did use it to post my syllabus, post my lecture slides, communicate any class announcements, and to conduct a final exam for the class. Building the final exam was very simple and I was easily able to swap out questions to vary it from term to term. Before I was a staff member and lecturer, I used Sakai as a student. My instructor used Sakai to varying degrees. I really appreciated it being the one-stop-receptacle for all-things class related. If I somehow lost an assignment instruction sheet, I could rely on it being posted there. For multimedia work it was lacking, at that time, but I know Sakai has been updated over time and I hope that part of it has improved. If I was ever frustrated by Sakai, it was because faculty used it in a piecemeal way. It's fine not to want to use the gradebook, but don't enter some grades and not others. It's wonderful to upload class documents to it; but don't do some and not others. Whatever way you're going to use Sakai, commit to it and use it well. Your students will thank you.
Gets the job done and is easy to use. We've definitely made serious revenue with it, and it's worked well enough with our other systems to enable some handy automations. I'd say if you've got a course or courses you're looking to launch and they are fairly straightforward with up-front payments, Teachable can definitely get the job done. However, if you're running more of a membership model for access to your courses, Teachable by itself may not be the ideal solution, or you may want to use a different platform for the payments and just use Teachable for the actual courses.
Sakai is flexible, providing a way for our customers (instructors) to customize their courses while staying in line with consistency and continuity of course design. This has allowed our courses to be far less cookie-cutter and stale. This is mostly accomplished through Sakai's LTI functionality and it's Lessons tool. This is particularly notable because not every course is the same, nor should it be. Our faculty and course developers can draw from OER resources, course text publisher assessment quiz banks and pull in content from sources from our library databases and services like YouTube.
Sakai is customizable, allowing us to pair it with our student information system to automatically create and track with student registration data - including adding new students and removing students who have elected to drop a course. The customization features also include being able to create course templates for individual schools or courses using specific tools or sequences of tools as well as a way to personalize content for students when they engage with each lesson.
Sakai is stable in the market. We have been using Sakai for almost 10 years and continue to see it improve; responding to changing trends in browser technologies, mobile platforms and accessibility requirements. Multiple programs offered over the years have been recognized by outside organizations like BestColleges.com for our programs and given high marks by students taking the courses offered in Sakai.
Sakai allows our faculty to inform it's continued evolution. We work closely with the developers, having a front seat to how things can work and function for our faculty. There have been multiple occasions where faculty ask, "Can Sakai do this?" and the answer is never "No."
Sakai is a good general learning management system - it is not leading edge but rather a stable system with standard learning management system features. It can be fairly easily customized and is fairly easy to learn from both student learning and faculty administrative vantage points. New paradigms for online learning though are emergent so the current field should also be investigated with competitors.
Because we haven't had any major issues with it. The platform is really simple to use and the content can be uploaded and modified very easily. It has a drag and drop feature that makes everything fast and easy. Their support has always answered our questions or concerns and the cost is affodable. We will keep using it in the future.
When faculty are preparing courses from term to term, a portion of the content is static within a specific discipline. The time it takes to import past lessons into new versions of Sakai can be an inefficient use of my time. When I want to add new content and edit from the old content, it's reliant upon me to cut and paste the content from term to term rather than simply import and edit from a backup.
Because it's easier to use both as administrators and both as user. We have never heard of any users having issues login in or going through the lectures or completing the course
Since Sakai is open-source their documentation is often lacking and support is absolutely needed onsite. Internal documentation is more important with Sakai than other services. The Sakai community is fun, passionate, engaged, and absolutely doing their best, but it's an uphill battle against the current market and trends.
Their support is good overal. There are a couple of things that I would change, like answering faster. Sometimes they take a day to answer a concern and that's kind of annoying considering sometimes there are urgent issues we have to deal with. But the support has been good, they have answered properly.
I'd say: learn the system first, try it out and then publish the content with customers. There are a couple of features that will cause issues with customers (especially lazy ones) but I'd say it's easy to implement and modify if needed. People don't need to train much to use Teachable, but they should take their time to know it.
As an adjunct professor, I didn't pick Sakai for the university. I have experience with Moodle, Blackboard, eCollege, iBoard and now Sakai. I would have to say that Sakai is one of my all time favorite LMSs to use as it is very easy to navigate.
It's honestly just worked really well for us in terms of serving the actual course content. Plus, our customers can maintain one profile and use that to access all of the courses and bonuses that they've acquired from us. And the cost of Teachable has been very reasonable in terms of our budget.
We haven't had any issues with it. Their maintanance hours are always at times when we don't have students there, and even then, they still can access the platform
Sakai makes it easy for students to monitor grades which puts their minds at ease.
Sakai makes it easy for teachers to assign and receive assignments from students.
Communication is one of the most important and one of the most taxing parts of an educational system. Sakai makes this process just a little bit easier.
