Transitions and Extensions:

What Schools Have Learned from Sakai Migrations

Jerry Callesonjerry_calleson@unc.edu

Andrew Ochsandrew_ochs@unc.edu

Rob Moorerobmoore@unc.edu

Brian Moynihanmoynihan@med.unc.edu

FIRST STEPS WITH SAKAI

Jerry Calleson, jerry_calleson@unc.edu Andrew Ochs, andrew_ochs@unc.eduSchool of Public Health Information Technology Division

Transitions and Extensions

Fully Online Courses - Goals

• Replicate Blackboard functionality• Ease of navigation• Balance clean design with ability for faculty to

maintain and update

Content Migration and Organization

• Did not use Migrate Content Toolo Resulting structure can be difficult to navigate

• Created HTML template for lesson contento Preserve lesson structure in Blackboardo Lesson elements displayed ona single pageo Copy/Paste from Blackboard

• Assignments and tests no longer linked directly from the lesson page

Blackboard Navigation

Sakai Navigation

Blackboard Lesson

Sakai Lesson

Transition Web Reference

How Has it Worked?

• In short – very well• Minor issues:

oWYSIWYG editor can be difficult to use• Small window• Pasting from Word

o Not easy for instructors to upload documents on the fly and link them from the html lesson page

o Anticipate some problems with broken links when courses are copied

THE ANATOMY OF TRANSITION STRATEGY

Rob Moore, Instructional Technology Developer, robmoore@unc.edu School of Government Information Technology Division

Transitions and Extensions

It’s Time to Make a Move

• 2 Year MPA Program• Needed to move from

Blackboard to Sakai Fall 2011 so that students would have one LMS through entire program

Migrating from Blackboard to Sakai

1. Instructors can export documents and external links from Blackboard to zip file2. ITS created a Sakai tool that allowed for the import of exported document zip file into Sakai Resources folder

Consistency Across MPA Courses

Typical instructor was using Blackboard for content organization and some were using Assignments

Consistency Across MPA Courses

Support and Training

1. Created modules to introduce faculty to Sakai and what changes were made2. Created a tutorials page for each faculty which had the module videos as well as general Sakai tutorials3. Added all faculty members that were migrated to Sakai project Site to aid in communication and posting of new tutorials

EXTENDING SAKAI BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

Brian Moynihan, Project Manager, moynihan@med.unc.edu School of Medicine, Office of Medical Education

Transitions and Extensions

Overview

• Use of Project Sites• Website and File Hosting• Extending the Calendar• Repurposing Data• Future Directions

Project Sites

• Potentially a replacement for Sharepointo Allows for guest userso Document storage

• Using the browser• Drag and Drop (using WebDav)

o Communication toolso Calendaro HTML pages/wiki easy to create & modify

• Exampleso Admissions Committees, branch campuses, research

groups, reading groups, steering committees…

Website and File Hosting

• Hosting full websites (including site archives)• Hosting files that are open to the world, open

a set group, or private• Better than a flash drive!

Sakai Calendar (List View)

Calendar Export (ical/webcal)

Viewing/Overlaying Calendars

Repurposing Exported Calendar Data

Using Export Data for External Applications

Future Directions

• LMS as a potential gold mine of datao Student usageo Grade analyticso Recommendation Engineo Search

• Hoping for access to new exports of data

Contact Information

Rob Moorerobmoore@unc.edu

Jerry Callesonjerry_calleson@unc.edu

Andrew Ochsandrew_ochs@unc.edu

Brian Moynihanmoynihan@med.unc.edu