What is Sakai ?
Sakai is a free, community source, educational software platform
distributed under the Educational Community License (a type of open source
license).
Sakai
is basically a community of academic institutions, commercial organizations
and individuals who work together to develop a common Collaboration and
Learning Environment.
It
is used for teaching, research and collaboration. Systems of this type are also
known as Course Management Systems (CMS), Learning Management Systems (LMS), or
Virtual Learning Environments (VLE).
The
Sakai Project's software version 1.0 was released on march 2005. Based on Java
, sakai is a service-oriented application suite that is designed to be
scalable, reliable, interoperable and extensible.
Latest Version
Current
version of sakai is 2.9 .It refines and stabilizes the 2.x feature set. Dozens
of new features have been implemented in the area of portal and
navigation , social networking , gradebook , test , quizzes , forums ,
messages, accessibility , internationalization , performance and security .
Software Features
The
Sakai software includes many of the features common to course management
systems, including document distribution, a grade book, discussion, live chat,
assignment uploads, and online testing.
In
addition to the course management features, Sakai is intended as a
collaborative tool for research and group projects. To support this function,
Sakai includes the ability to change the settings of all the tools based on
roles, changing what the system permits different users to do with each tool.
It also includes a wiki, mailing list distribution and archiving, and an RSS
reader.
Tools of Sakai
Some
of the tools of sakai are listed below.
1) My Workspace tools
·
Preferences - allows setting of preferences.
·
Profile 2 – Allows user to create profile and
connect with others on social networking model.
2) Generic collaboration tools
·
Announcements - used to inform site participants
about current items of interest.
·
Drop Box - allows instructors and students to share
documents within a private folder for each participant.
·
Email Archive - all messages sent to a site's
email address are stored in the Email Archive.
·
Resources - share many kinds of material securely
with members of your site,or make them available to the public.
·
Chat Room - for real-time, unstructured
conversations among site participants who are signed on to the site at
the same time.
·
Forums - communication tool that instructors or
site leaders can use to create an unlimited number of discussion forums.
·
Message Center - a communication tool that allows
site participants to communicate using internal course mail.
·
News / RSS - uses RSS to bring dynamic news to your
worksite.
·
Poll tool - allows users to set up an online vote
for site participants.
·
Presentation - allows you to present a set of
slides to many viewers.
·
Profile / Roster - view the names, photos, and
profiles of site participants.
·
Repository Search - search content created by tools
within a worksite or course.
·
Schedule - allows instructors or site organizers to
post items in a calendar format.
3) Teaching tools
·
Assignments
- Creates online and offline
assignments.
·
Grade book - Calculates and stores the grades of
students.
·
Permissions - set public or private
permission to see portfolio and contents of portfolio.
·
Section Management - Manages multiple sections of
same course.
·
Lesson - Organizes all the resources of a
lesson like media ,text , images, graphics to fit on a single page.
4) Portfolio tools
·
Forms - create forms that collect information
to be used in matrices, portfolio , wizards.
·
Evaluations - assess the contents provided for review
and also provides ratings and/or comments.
·
Glossary - Provides contextual information for terms
used in course or site.
·
Matrices - Defines the area and criteria for
which an individual provides evidence of
learning , skills in portfolio.
·
Layouts - Add portfolio layout options that
determines how portfolio content is arranged.
·
Templates - Creates portfolio that presents
collections of contents created by profile owner and set permissions for
sharing profile with others.
·
Reports - Generate aggregate reports about
portfolio usage , statistics , grades etc.
·
Search - Search for artifacts based on owners or type.
·
Feedback - Provide feedback on matrices and/or
evidence in students e-portfolio.
·
Web DAV - Upload , download or remove multiple files
from course or work site.
·
Web content - Display external web pages.
·
Wiki - Create , share , edit web content collaboratively.
·
Site Manage – Manage/update course , work site
information such as updation of site participation and/or rosters , adding or
removinf tools , adjusting how tool works
and changing basic site options.
For
more info visit : http://sakaiproject.org
thanks for the info..
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