The Spring 2012 term starts in just a few days – and even though Blackboard will still be available until June 2012, it’s a great time to start using Sakai. All Duke faculty can now create Sakai course sites for their Spring 2012 courses. CIT is kicking off the semester by offering workshops, drop-in office hours, and more.
Even if you’re not planning on using Sakai this Spring, we encourage all faculty to consider doing the following:
1. Check Sakai for your migrated Blackboard content
Compare the content in Blackboard to content in Sakai. Not all content migrates, but the content that does will show up in the “Resources” area and/or the Tests&Quizzes area of each Sakai course. Login to sakai.duke.edu and check for your Sakai courses found under the My Active Courses tab. Most of your course content from Fall 2007 and on has been migrated from Blackboard to Sakai (and Fall 2011 Blackboard courses are coming soon!). Student content (wikis, blogs, discussion boards, grades, etc.) cannot be migrated – which brings us to…
2. Download other Blackboard content you want to save
If there is other content you need from Blackboard that did not migrate, then download and save the content directly from Blackboard. If there are older courses that you want to archive, login to the Blackboard course, then archive and download the content. Again – the migration process DOES NOT move over student data: information posted by students in discussion boards, previous student assignments, and grades.
3. Create your Sakai course today!
Sakai offers instructors the opportunity to create Sakai sites for any course they’re teaching in a given semester. Instructors can also create course sites that combine enrollments (or sections, if available). For example, you can create a lecture course site and add all of the lab enrollments to the same site. Even if you’re not planning on switching to Sakai until Summer or Fall 2012, you can still create a Sakai course now to start planning for future courses.
4. Learn more about Sakai
The Sakai Support Site at https://support.sakai.duke.edu is the best place to start for guides, FAQs, and help. Those who want to receive periodic updates, news and announcements about Sakai can also subscribe to sakai-news@duke.edu.