Open LMS (formerly Moodlerooms) is an open source learning management system for educational institutions, formerly supported by Blackboard, and now part of the Learning Technologies Group.
$999
per year
Sakai
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
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…
I was not part of the selection committee, but I believe the ability to white label Sakai was very significant to the choice being made. In another institution I taught (not the one in which I used Sakai) the decision was made to go with MoodleRooms due to the need for support …
I currently use, talk about and promote all educators using Moodlerooms. The functionality that Moodlerooms provides is unmatched in most software. It is well suited in all educational realms. Teachers that teach all online electronic courses could use this to post assignments online, separate the classes and post a variety of assignments, tasks, and activities. Additionally, in blended situations where some students are face to face and sometimes working at home, the Moodlerooms makes it easy to education and be a hands-on teacher and a hands-on learner. Less appropriately, I find using Moodlerooms in some of the private sector industries could be tougher. Moodlerooms provides people and content management, and to use it in advertising or marketing and accounting, it could be difficult to find an easy use and function for it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I would select Moodlerooms over many competitors as a result of what it offers in terms of functionality and control. Google classrooms has a definite place in education; however, Moodlerooms provides significantly more control for authors. As the owner and manager of the content, and as someone familiar with technology, I can incorporate a lot more functions and create different layouts with functionality boxes
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.
Moodlerooms has given classes of mine a positive ROI because it improves the educational experience for all students. It has helped all of our students, and with this, we can even help students who can not get to the classroom for some reason.
It helps to improve student scores, GPAs, and college attendance.
The positive impact can be directly correlated with the improvement of grades for students. Being able to access work in person and via Moodlerooms helps students to learn anywhere and any time. Grades have improved, and that is due to Moodlerooms.
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.
