Sakai makes URI debut

10/02/09 - As of this fall, the University of Rhode Island has ended its subscription with online course management system WebCT and is now using the Sakai network due to the increasing renewal cost of WebCT.According to the URI's Information Technology Services' Web site (ITS), if the university continued using WebCT, the annual cost associated with the Web site's license renewal would have jumped from $30,000 to $85,000.

Unlike WebCT, Sakai is a free online course management system, therefore decreasing any stress on budget constraints under the use of WebCT.

Designed to help students, instructors and researchers work together, Sakai allows people to communicate both on campus and as a global network system, according to the ITS Web site.

Because URI is part of an open-source program, it is able to access the Sakai network, according to Mary Jane Palm, manager of instructional technology and media services at URI.

URI has 1,004 courses and 14,000 users registered to the Sakai Web site.

"Sakai has had up to 1,700 users connected at the same time," Palm said.

The Web site is not limited to the URI campus however. More than 125 organizations and universities worldwide connect to it.

One of the aspects of Sakai is the ability to communicate and share data projects with people across the world, Palm said.

These data projects, also known as collaborative spaces, are features that do not include URI's e-Campus courses and are not affiliated with courses having rosters. Currently only faculty can create projects, but both students and faculty can view them.

"They can be used as a way to share files and communicate with people at different universities," Palm said.

The URI ITS Web page for Sakai boasts that the program currently has more than 800 project sites posted on it.

Aside from sharing projects on Sakai, such as grant proposals, instructors can also create a course Web page. These Web pages are similar to URI's e-Campus Web site in that they include course descriptions.

Associate Professor of Marine Affairs, Tracey Dalton, is one URI instructor who uses Sakai as a teaching tool for her marine affairs 100 course.

Although she is still in the process of familiarizing herself with Sakai's layout, Dalton said there seems to be more options for page layout structures on Sakai than there were on WebCT.

"It seems pretty easy for students to hand in work on Sakai; I'm looking forward to using that feature," Dalton said.

Dalton, who uploads reading material and Web site links on her course's Sakai page, said the ability to use these features is tedious.

"One thing that seems cumbersome on Sakai is uploading files; on WebCT it was easier," Dalton said.

Some students, such as sophomore Caleb Heikes, said Sakai would be more helpful if professors made their individual Web pages more organized.

"I believe it's a good educational tool, but I believe professors should have been trained to use it properly before it was introduced to URI," Heikes said.