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Sakai

Sakai

Overview

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…

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Recent Reviews

Sakai = Success

10 out of 10
September 15, 2015
Incentivized
We use Sakai as our LMS for the university. It is used for the entire university. It helps guide the day to day student/ instructor …
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Popular Features

View all 11 features
  • Learning content (5)
    8.0
    80%
  • Course authoring (5)
    8.0
    80%
  • Progress tracking & certifications (5)
    8.0
    80%
  • Mobile friendly (5)
    7.0
    70%
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Pricing

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N/A
Unavailable

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…

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

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Product Demos

DEMO 002 Download Course Materials from Sakai LMS

YouTube

DEMO 001 Submitting Assignments on Sakai LMS

YouTube

Demo Suku Sakai di Depan Kantor Gubernur Riau

YouTube

pompa dc sakai demo produk

YouTube

Sakai (2006): IMS Common Cartridge Demonstration

YouTube

Richmond Sakai White #2 Deba 180mm Quick Look 30P

YouTube
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Features

Learning Management

Features of LMS and LCMS systems, related to designing, administering, and consuming learning content in an educational, corporate, or on-the-job context.

7.9
Avg 8.2
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Product Details

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.

Sakai Video

Introducing Sakai 11

Sakai Integrations

Sakai Technical Details

Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationNo
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(22)

Community Insights

TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!

Users recommend exploring Sakai thoroughly and spending time on it to discover its useful functions. They suggest attending Sakai community events and talking to other institutions using the platform to learn more about its pros and cons.

Users advise knowing the customization limitations of Sakai and coming up with creative solutions to make it suit your class or project's needs. They recommend testing Sakai with real courses and faculty before switching to ensure it meets user requirements.

Users suggest integrating Sakai with other tools like Piazza for additional functionality and comparing Sakai to other services with better support. They recommend considering alternatives and choosing the system that best suits your needs.

Overall, users emphasize the need for thorough exploration, customization, testing, and consideration of alternatives when using Sakai.

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-3 of 3)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
February 05, 2016

Sakai

Samantha J. Blevins | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Sakai was used as a the sole learning management system at our university for the purposes of managing learning and research projects. Currently, our university is transitioning away from Sakai toward Canvas.
  • Organization of content
  • Customization of course navigation and content
  • Small learning curve compared to other systems
  • Ease of use and customization of ePortfolio
  • Tests and Quizzes
  • ePortfolio
This system no longer meets the needs of the university and developers have been abandoning the project. Adopting it now could only lead to user frustration, as adoption of another LMS platform would be inevitable.
  • Ability to customize the system to meet the needs of faculty and learners
  • Greater cost to the university as a whole than a hosted platform
  • Ability to easily design courses based on pedagogy
I did not personally select Sakai. However, it is fairly easy to use and customize. That being said, this product is being abandoned by developers/universities and should not be adopted by an organization.
30000
These are faculty, staff and students at our university who are still using Sakai. Our campus is now transitioning to Canvas.
50
These employees were valuable in their ability to relate to the needs of faculty, staff, and students. In addition, employees almost always went above and beyond the call of duty to support client use of Sakai.
  • building community
  • facilitating learning experiences
  • collaborating on research
  • to create an ongoing community of learners within a subject area
  • N/A
We won't be renewing. We are transitioning to Canvas.
Yes
Blackboard was replaced due to their focus on k-12 and increasing cost.
  • Price
  • Product Usability
The most important factor was the ability to become a developer school for Sakai, having direct influence on the product and being able to incorporate the needs of faculty and staff.
I was not part of this process.
  • Implemented in-house
Yes
It was a very long transition, which helped get most faculty and staff on board.
No, I don't
Our university did in house support and did an excellent job.
Yes
Our developers and technical support were quick to remedy the issue or find a work around.
I don't know what Apereo is.
  • Tests/quizzes
  • posting material
  • discussion boards
  • ePortfolio
No
It was easy for me to use, and easy for most of our faculty to catch on.
Andi Sciacca | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 6 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
Sakai is being used as a customized learning platform for Marist College. When I was an instructor there, I utilized Sakai in teaching several courses on race, class, and gender in literature and basic composition. At the time of implementation, I found it to be an improvement over the previous LMS.
  • Transparency and ease of access for content - the modules were clearly labeled and easy to implement.
  • Grading features on assignments - the gradebook was very easy to access and in-assignment-grading was a time-saving and efficient feature.
  • Media-rich environment - compared to other LMS options at the time, Sakai was ahead of its competitors in terms of permitting media-rich assets.
  • The linear, scroll-of-death aspects of the early forums made it difficult to engage learners in peer-to-peer commentary.
  • The updates to the lessons tool provided no easy way to import material from old lessons, except through cut and paste.
  • The test and quizzes interface can be cumbersome.
When considering LMS options, there have been many steps forward in integrating open-source plug-ins that I don't see Sakai having in the version I've been using. While not as active on the learning forums as I could be, I find that platforms like Moodle or NovoEd provide value-added features that are critically important to today's assessment focused higher ed environment.
  • Easier student assignment submission
  • Better performance tracking
  • Better options for predictive analysis via the at-a-glance view of the gradebook
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 on customization issues.
Yes
Sakai replaced a product called eLearn that was custom built for the institution at which I taught. It was chosen due to its white label capabilities and the option of scaling the release over several years and in several phases. Ultimately, without the support of the ed tech team at that institution, I think a different out-of-the-box choice, like Blackboard, would have been made.
  • Product Usability
  • Existing Relationship with the Vendor
It was not my decision - but the input from the selection committee and design team was clear - Sakai met the needs of the organization while allowing for while labeling and branding for the various schools within the college on a scalable model for building content and delivering instruction in both blended and asynchronous learning environments.
If any LMS is being examined as a choice for instructional delivery in higher education right now, there needs to be a joint effort of exploration that is led (speaking strictly as a faculty member) by the faculty - but also incorporates non-faculty perspectives in areas including assessment, student success, disability / student support services, and the accreditation liaisons within the college.
  • Adding media-rich content
  • Using the gradebook
  • Sending messages / email blasts to students
  • Importing content from lessons on earlier versions of Sakai
  • Managing forums in a way that encourages peer-to-peer critique / collaboration
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.
Raymond J. Uzwyshyn | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 5 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
I have used Sakai now at two organizations, American Public University (APUS), an online for profit university and Texas State University, a large campus state university. At American Public University Sakai was the main online Learning Management system. It was utilized across the organization as the main tool and engine for students and faculty as the online learning system for the university. At Texas State, Sakai is used on a more selective and limited scale. Here, it is used for a smaller cohort of online classes but it is also used as a support (resource) system for hybrid courses. Sakai addresses the business problem of 'online classroom' management. Essentially, the system can build an infrastructure for faculty and students for learning. For faculty, it provides an infrastructure system for say a semester 'course' arcs and online learning infrastructures. For students, it is the main online system for receiving assignments, taking tests, dialoguing through forums with other students etc.
  • Easy to Use Basic Online Learning System: Sakai does the basics for learning online well. Outlining course lecture material uploading, linking for faculty, forums for students
  • Pragmatic Text Based System: Sakai is solid for text based assignments, both student entry and faculty presentation and overview.
  • Familiar Interface: The Interface for Sakai will be more immediately familiar to both faculty teachers and students as the model is well established in interface design.
  • Lack of Multimedia Features: Sakai is not great for video integration, either uploading or chat based video or integrating new video features into the interface and shell. It is not particularly good for say recording audio or more sophisticated multimedia integration.
  • Lack of Web 2.0 features. Sakai is not great as a Web 2.0 social media learning application. It is definitely from an early but still present model of learning management systems and has remnants of its first generation architecture.
  • Lack of User Experience Design: Sakai is basic in its user interface design. In this way it is approximately a generation back with regards to web 2.0 interface design or higher attention to 'learning' design aesthetics and integrating with online 'learning methodologies.
Sakai is a fair standard learning management system. It is very well suited to standard 'text' based asynchronous online learning modalities. It is less appropriate for 'live' online learning classes. It is not overly suitable for scenarios where the learning requires a lot of 'collaborative' group work or large classroom 'MOOC' like environments. In this way, it is more of a first generation learning management system.
  • For American Public University System, Sakai seemed an effective tool. As with any technology though, times change and with changing times comes new technological possibilities. At its implementation stage, Sakai had a positive effect in adding to the ROI and is built as a desktop online learning system. Currently, there are many competitors in the market probably worth looking at further if one wishes to push the leading edge with regards to mobile possibilities, multimedia etc.
  • Sakai was useful as a resource system in tying online library resources to the university online curriculum. It allowed for library/university curriculum connections that otherwise would not be possible. We actually won several awards with our Sakai/Online Library/Libguides online curriculum integration.
  • For an online for-profit university in the early days of online learning Sakai was a great tool. For land based universities transitioning to online learning modalities, Sakai is still a fair option in terms of hybrid learning possibilities and enabling an online resource folder for every physical class. Sakai is definitely not leading edge but more proven system stability undergoing versioning processes.
Sakai is a fair competitor to other online learning systems (i.e. Blackboard, Canvas, Desire-to-Learn). Essentially, Sakai is simply a different flavor of similar models for online learning management systems. It is more different from Moodle and Moodle's social networking possibilities but not quantitatively better or worse. Having said that Sakai does not present a new 'paradigm' for online learning but essentially presents a standard 'learning management system' with a few different bells and whistles. There are areas from a newer generation of LMS systems, say EdX, Coursera, Udemy models that shine brighter in certain respects (collaboration, Web 2.0 possibilities, incorporation of video) and there are areas that other systems do better. It would be beneficial when doing a learning management system comparison to look at the pragmatic goals of your institution and learning program infrastructure and conduct a cost benefit analysis. The other larger point that should be made is that Sakai is an open source application compared to say other vendor hosted or purchased applications with the associated possibilities and challenges therein.
1800
At my previous institution, American Public University, most of the infrastructure staff used Sakai. At that time, this was approximately 1800 faculty, a department of instructional technology designers, a media department, an online library of 22 librarians, all students at the university (at that time, 125,000, circa 2013). Other business areas represented, university marketing, business analytics and core IT.
Because American Public University System was based around Sakai, there were a large amount of staff devoted to the program. These were divided into core IT and backend systems, multimedia designers, instructional designers, online librarians, technical support staff, various staff connected to backend server and database operations, system security and other IT functions required for LMS management. A smaller online program at a physical university would require decidedly less.
  • Online Learning: Teaching Classes (Main Framework)
  • Archiving Classes: Main Framework
  • Courses and Larger Undergraduate and Graduate Degree Programs
  • Sakai was used as a framework for a larger faculty MOOC (APUS)
  • Sakai was used as a shell for resources for hybrid physical/online classes (Texas State)
  • Sakai was used for large section introductory university classes (introduction to Research, Freshman experience etc)
  • Expansion of physical classes into online modalities
  • Non traditional workshops
  • Frameworks for learning symposia
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.
  • Adding Forum Comments
  • Setting up Textual Assignments
  • Submitting assignments
  • Multimedia is challenging in Sakai
  • Web 2.0 collaborative functions are challenging in Sakai
  • Mobile Learning possibilities are challenging in the Sakai interface
Sakai possesses a standard user interface. It is generally usable but not great in terms of innovation or user experience. There are opportunities for customization but the experience from the user standpoint does not provide a 'next generation' learning platform but rather one that is a little more than what one expects regarding 'distance' ed on the web. Forums are really threaded discussions not say multimedia voice threads. Sakai is a good tool for say the next level of correspondence course online. It is also good in terms of ease of use. It's clunkinesss is something one gets used to as one works with the application from student, faculty and designer levels. Having said that, Sakai cannot be considered an amazing experience in terms of 'user' experience by any stretch of the imagination. Basic standard tool.
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