[Using Sakai] Not sure where to start

[Clay Fenlason]

Welcome, jm :) Some (incomplete) responses below.

On Fri, Nov 5, 2010 at 4:30 PM, j m <just_for_forums at yahoo.com> wrote:

> I'm not sure where to start.  I have used Moodle several times for schools
> but Sakai is totally different (please don't see this as a complaint against
> Sakai.  I don't mean it that way.  Thank you for the software)  I know I'm
> new but I can't figure out how to do things like create a student or a
> course.


Yes. I think this is a partial consequence of the assumptions behind how
most people deploy Sakai, namely, integrated with systems that take on the
burden of course and user creation themselves, and not something an admin
has to try to create manually. This tends to make Sakai seem a little obtuse
if you're, say, a single instructor just trying to set something up for a
handful of courses. There are ways to do this, it's just that the interface
isn't tuned to make them easy and obvious.

>
> I logged in as admin, my workspace, worksite setup, new and saw courses
> already there but I have no idea how to create a course to begin with.  Same
> with students.  I saw students in there from the test data but have no idea
> how they got there.
>

OK, I'm not entirely sure which version of Sakai you're using, or even if
you're using a customized version from one of our commercial affiliates, but
I'll assume it's not too different from the 2.7 release, the latest. In
which case you should find in:

a) the 'Worksite Setup' tool a "New" link at the upper left of the tool
frame
b) the 'Users' tool a "New User" link at the upper left of the tool frame

These should take you to creation workflows for each. It might also be worth
pointing out that Sakai starts from a generic collaboration space
perspective (as opposed to Moodle's assumption of a course space), and a
course site is only one of the possibilities. To make a simple start I'd
recommend a 'project site' as your first site, which will avoid some of the
administrative overhead of setting up a course.

>
> Also, I was hoping someone could answer this, please.  Will Sakai allow me
> to add a new student and keep a transcript of that students career at the
> school?  They may take a class and not come back for a couple of years but
> will need to have their transcripts (class and grade).
>

Unless there's a tool I'm unaware of, the kind of thing you're talking about
is *possible,* but only by generating reports from the database. I'm not
aware of any user-facing functionality that knits together a presentation of
all grades across all courses in this way, but I won't pretend to know all
the tools out there in the wild. Someone who knows better may need to speak
up at this point.

>
> Thank you for any help.
>
>
Good luck :) It might also help people know how to respond if you provide
more detail about the particular Sakai installation you're dealing with, and
what you're trying to use it for.

~Clay
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