Get Started with Sakai

How to get started with Sakai

1) Enter your Sakai course site

After you log in you will automatically enter your private site named “My Workspace”. To the right of the My Workspace tab you will see other tabs for your course or project sites. Click on the tab with the name or number of the course you wish to enter. If you only see the My Workspace tab, this means that you are currently not enrolled in any other sites. To request a site please submit an online help request for a Sakai site creation or call 919 962-HELP (919 962-4357 or 866-962-4457).

2) Customize your course site home page

The home page tool is the fist page the students see after they enter the course. Add an image and a brief course description to help the students to easily identify the course they are in. See video tutorial.

3) Organize your course menu

• Review the list of tools (links) on your course menu. You may wish to:
• Remove or add tools according to your needs (video tutorial)
• Reorder or rename tools, (video tutorial)
• Group tools by type or usage creating menu dividers (video tutorial)
• Create custom links to documents, html pages or folders in the Resources tool (video tutorial)

Note that:

• Some tools like Site Info and Site Stats cannot be removed
• You may hide tools from students view instead of removing tools
• You may hide the Resources tool and still deploy Resources content to students using custom links (video tutorial)

4) Make your syllabus available to students.

The syllabus is a good location to add course information such as:

• book and class materials
• course description
• course requirements
• grading scale
• instructors or TAs contact information
• office hours
• class schedule
• syllabus tool is a place to make the class syllabus available to students.

A syllabus can be presented as a web page by easily coping and pasting from Word (video tutorial)

In addition you may wish to add the syllabus as an attachment for the students to download.

You may also make available different versions of your course syllabus: one public syllabus for prospective students who are not enrolled in the course site. And another syllabus that only students enrolled in the your course can see.

Using the syllabus tool WYSIWYG editor you may link to class documents (located in the Resources tool) , class activities (like assignments, forums, quizzes, etc.) and web content.Thus, using the syllabus or class schedule to guide your students’ workflow within Sakai in a simple and clear manner.

Note that, at the moment to link to course activities you will need to go to the tool for the activity first in order to obtain the URL. Coming soon (mid-summer 2011) the University of Virginia will donate to the Sakai community the iSyllabus (Interactive Syllabus). This tool will allow an easier way to link to course activities as well as to copy these references form course to course.

5) Upload or create class documents.

In the Resources tool, you may:

• Create HTML pages by (1) typing in the WYSIWYG editor , (2) copying and pasting from Word using the the WYSIWYG editor paste from word icon (video tutorial) or (3) using templates by selecting a template under the WYSIWYG editor templates icon.
• Create a set of HTML pages that link to each other in a specific sequence allows for the development of learning modules.
• Create citations lists (video tutorial)
• Create external links to the web
• Upload one or more files at once by (1) using the upload function (video tutorial), (2) WebDav/drag and drop (video tutorial), or (3) moving or copping content from another Sakai site (video tutorial)
• Create folder structures to (1) organize your content or (2) assign group work areas.

Note that, each item in the Resources tool (HTML page, file, folder, etc.):

• May be published to: (1) all site members, (2) the public (video tutorial) or specific groups or sections of the course  (video tutorial)
• May be hidden from students view or published and retracted at a specific date and time
• Has a URL for sharing with users or for linking to it from other Sakai tools, like the syllabus, course schedule, calendar items, announcements, emails, etc. (video tutorial)
• May be reorder (video tutorial)

Also, each folder can be given different set of permissions based on the user’s role. Thus, you may wish to create a folder for students in section 1 of the course and adjust the permission of that folder so only section 1 students can create, upload or remove content. (video tutorial)