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Sakai

Score8.7 out of 10

22 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Sakai?

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 and tested by community members and are then made available for others to use outside of the packaged Sakai product releases.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features Sakai has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 22 ratings of Sakai's features
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Top Performing Features

  • Assignments

    Users can assign courses/curricula to individuals or groups, with due dates.

    Category average: 7.9

  • Learning administration

    Administrators can manage the content and people (students/employees, course authors, instructors, etc.) on the platform.

    Category average: 7.6

  • Social learning

    Includes features for collaboration and knowledge sharing among peers.

    Category average: 7.6

Areas for Improvement

  • Mobile friendly

    Students or employees can access content from mobile devices. Course authors can develop responsive learning content.

    Category average: 7.7

  • Compliance management

    Users can identify potential risks and ensure that requirements are met and that certifications are up to date.

    Category average: 8.6

  • Learning reporting & analytics

    Provides insights into course completion, engagement with learning content, etc.

    Category average: 7.7

Reviews

What users are saying about Sakai.
View all reviews

A Solid CMS at a Great "Price"

Incentivized
Sarah DaggettView profile
Lecturer, Department of Communication & Theatre at Pacific Lutheran University (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Sakai is pretty flexible. Within its framework, you can create whatever kind of folder structure you want/need and can turn on or off options easily.
  • Sakai is fairly simple/straightforward in design. I haven't heard many issues from students in using it.
  • I would say Sakai is OK to navigate through. Depending on how many folders you have and how deep they go, it's nice to be able to click back on a root folder, but I also find their navigation a little clunky.

Cons

  • Sakai doesn't fully integrate with our SIS. Consequently, faculty will call us saying a student is still on their roster in Sakai when the student actually dropped. This means the faculty member needs to manage their own Sakai roster. Students will be added to the roster automatically, but not dropped.
  • This may not be a Sakai problem, but faculty seem to get really confused about how Sakai relates to our SIS. We've had faculty tell students their grades were "posted," only to find out they just meant they were updated in the Gradebook of Sakai. They hadn't actually posted the grades in our SIS. We've tried to explain this a variety of ways, but there's something about Sakai that makes them think that somehow it's part of our SIS - when they look totally different!
  • Sakai's navigation can be flat/clunky. They rely on a root navigation system like Windows Explorer that kind of works, but also can be frustrating, depending on how meandering the documents/files for a class goes. The menu on the left is straightforward, though, and can be customized, which is very nice.

Return on Investment

  • Sakai has supported the institution in providing a platform for offering more hybrid/blended and online course options.
  • Sakai has given students a "third space" where they can communicate with the instructor and their classmates about course content.

Alternatives Considered

Blackboard Learn

Other Software Used

Accruent EMS Software, Localist

Sakai LMS: real Open Source, configurable, reliable, and here for the long run

Incentivized
Jason Smith, DPA
Instructional Technologist in Information Technology at Pomona College (201-500 employees employees)

Pros

  • The Sakai product is "REAL" open source project that is part of the Apereo Foundation. It is the only LMS on the market where students, faculty, and staff can have a say on how Sakai evolves. It is a responsive and vibrant community based product.
  • Sakai is technically rock solid, scalable, and robust.
  • The possibilities of Sakai are endless with LTI (Learning Tools Integration).
  • Sakai is highly customizable, configurable, and can be automated easily where other LMS's can not, especially those hosted in the cloud.

Cons

  • Sakai has a bit of improvement to do in standardizing some of its tools.
  • There is the perception that Sakai is hard to install and administer, this needs to be worked on.
  • Built in video conference functionality would be excellent for Sakai.
  • Sakai needs to handle rich media types better.

Return on Investment

  • The ability to self host and customize Sakai has led to greater efficiencies and reliability.
  • In all Sakai's cost of ownership is much less than dealing with an ASP and/or cloud solution.
  • Sakai is continuing to improve over the years. Innovation is always happening.

Alternatives Considered

Canvas, Blackboard and Moodle

Other Software Used

Slack, Workday Financial Management, iMovie, Ubuntu Linux, MySQL

Sakai is Simple and Supportive

Incentivized
Chani LoebView profile
Administrative Assistant in Customer Service at Bais HaMedrash & Mesivta of Baltimore (11-50 employees employees)

Pros

  • Sakai allows teachers to send messages to students and a checkbox, when checked, will forward the message to students so that they will get the message even if they don't check Sakai.
  • Students can use Sakai to find students that they may wish to contact through each course's messages tab. There is an option to email every student or you can search through a list of the student's name in each course tab if you can't remember their name, but you don't want to email the entire class.
  • Sakai makes it easy for students to keep track of when assignments that teachers have uploaded are due in the assignments tab, as well as keep track of their grades in the grades tab and the progress of the course in the syllabus tab.

Cons

  • While the check box to send an email when you send a message is helpful, there have been times that teachers forgot to check that box, so students didn't get important assignments/announcements.
  • Discussion forums can be fun, but it's annoying to read other people's comments since you have to click into each person's comment, & it always marks the comments as new, even if you've read them.
  • I think it would be helpful if Sakai warned you before submitting an assignment how many submissions or when the assignment is due, before hitting submit.

Return on Investment

  • 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.

Alternatives Considered

Blackboard Learn

Other Software Used

Prezi, Adobe Illustrator CC, Rise Vision

A flexible LMS that fit our needs and wants

Dave EvelandView profile
Instructional Designer/Technologist in Information Technology at Johnson University (501-1000 employees employees)

Pros

  • 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."

Cons

  • Sakai's assessment feature could be improved, streamlining and making the assessment function much more simplified. Assessment in any electronic format is complex, but the workflows dealing with assessment import, creation and management of assessment data could be improved or made to be more consistent. It is confusing, for example, that assessments are split between a "working" state and a "published" state.
  • The gradebook or grade reporting feature in Sakai is somewhat clunky to use. While it does boast a spreadsheet look, feel and function, doing so in a browser window with multiple items and hundreds of students makes grading even for TAs difficult. Some of our instructors leverage the Classic gradebook instead of the newer interface because the view or function is more to their liking.
  • Discussion forums or how conversations are managed can be a bit confusing with Sakai. Sakai provides multiple ways in which discussions can be organized - some of which are for large groups of students and some which are more confusing. The discussions area doesn't allow students to share images easily, to up 'vote' or 'recommend' certain posts or sections to peers. There's no way to badge or otherwise highlight certain levels of 'attainment' for students in discussions. It's also difficult to assign grades to discussions.

Return on Investment

  • Sakai provided an alternative to other platforms that would have delayed the delivery of courses and full programs. Specific directives and initiatives were brought to bear from C level executives requiring delivery on an extremely tight budget. We have since been able to launch multiple programs, expand campuses and offer courses on a global scale.
  • Using Sakai has meant students familiar with other platforms have had to learn how interacting with Sakai while similar, is different. We have needed to invest in creating instructional materials about the platform, provide training and instructional opportunities on best use and practice of not only Sakai but of how Sakai can be used with other tools and technologies. In some cases for instructors we've had to help them unlearn how processes work in other LMSs to recognize how they are different in Sakai.
  • Sakai has provided greater ROI, where prior to using Sakai about half of our constituents were using an LMS, now more than 80% are doing so. Some of this has come about because of how Sakai works with our SIS, providing a consistent and available course site to every instructor for every course and section offered. It has also allowed us to contract with subject matter experts to create, manage, polish and reuse course structures, designs and content term over term.
  • With the cost-effective storage of 1000s of course sites, we have yet to figure out how to keep tight reign on which courses contain the most up to date content, accessibility modifications and instructor-specific content. Sakai doesn't provide an over-the-top way to manage versions of a course, except by way of term to term or special name designation on course site creation.

Alternatives Considered

Canvas, Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS), Blackboard Collaborate and Moodle

Other Software Used

Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS), Microsoft Office 2016, Camtasia

Sakai -- The Mighty Have Fallen

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee in Information Technology (1001-5000 employees employees)

Pros

  • Open-source community.
  • Flexible.
  • As customizable as you can afford.

Cons

  • No mobile app.
  • Confusing and unintuitive layout and buried settings.
  • Lacking full 3rd-party integrations.

Return on Investment

  • Sakai continues to serve the university, and faculty and students are mostly satisfied with it.
  • The cost to support has been good in the past.
  • As the market share slows, it's often the last to be developed by popular third-party integrations.

Alternatives Considered

Canvas