New to Sakai?
Welcome to Sakai!
New to Sakai? Here are some Frequently-Asked Questions
What is Sakai?
Sakai is an Open Source Collaboration and Learning Environment which is in Enterprise use at 200 Universities around the world with over a million users who use Sakai daily in their teaching and learning.
Michael Korcuska, Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation, suggests you think about Sakai in four ways. Listen to Michael at Sakai Overview
Can I try Sakai?
You can download a demo version or try out a hosted trial of Sakai.
I'm interested. How do I get started?
Read on. You will find information about how to get started contributing to Sakai and using Sakai, and how to become involved in many other ways.
Building Sakai
How can a Programmer get started?
The Sakai Programmer's Cafe Work Group writes development documentation, provides sample code, and presents day-long workshops at Sakai conferences to help developers get started working with Sakai. The Sakai development list sakai-dev@collab.sakaiproject.org is the best place to ask developers questions.
How can I get access to Sakai Foundation servers and services?
This page on the Sakai development infrastructure describes the servers and services that are available to anyone in the community upon request. This includes things like the source repository, wiki, and issue tracker.
What about the User experience?
You can send email to the Sakai User Experience forum sakai-ui-dg@collab.sakaiproject.org and read the User Experience FAQ
What is the UX Improvement Initiative?
This was an initiative to improve the user experience of Sakai, spearheaded by the Sakai Foundation. The latest work is showing up in Sakai 3
What is the Flexible User Interface Design (FLUID) project?
FLUID is a Mellon-funded project to improve the user experience of open source software, including Sakai.
Is there a Sakai Project Roadmap?
The Sakai Roadmap is a timeline of estimated completion dates for various development efforts in Sakai.
Is there Documentation?
You'll find release, end-user support, system administration, and other documentation in Confluence and distributed with the Sakai source code documentation.
What efforts are made to assure that contributed code is of high quality?
- Programmers are encouraged to follow Programming Best Practices
- Issues are tracked in Jira as described in Issue Management and Tracking
- There is a dedicated Quality Assurance program. Answers to questions about the Sakai QA effort are found in the QA FAQ
- The Alan Berg Award will be given to developers who resolve the greatest number of issues in the software.
How does the Community encourage contribution and innovation?
- The Sakai Foundation seeks nominations for extraordinary individuals to be recognized as Sakai Fellows.
- The Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award is sponsored by the IBM Corporation.
- What is a Sakaiger? The Sakaiger is the Sakai project mascot. It has its own site Sakaiger
- How do I get a Sakaiger? Sakaigers are awarded for exceptional work in Quality Assurance (e.g., http://www.marist.edu/publicaffairs/sakaiger.html).
(People can also join Sakaigers groups on Facebook and on Linked In.)
Deploying Sakai
What should a system administrator know about Sakai?
See the Sakai System Administrator's Guide (which includes the complete Sakai Properties Reference)
How do I configure Sakai?
All is explained in Configuring Sakai
What tools should I include?
Sakai tools fall into one of three categories:
- Core - Tools that the community has extensive experience with, and has a great deal of confidence in their robustness, stability, and scalability. Core tools are enabled by default in the release.
- Provisional - Tools that the community has less experience with, and which are disabled by default in the release.
- Contrib - Tools with which the community has little experience. These are often still in early stages of development, and are not recommended
for broad usage in a production environment. (Contrib tools are available separate from the release, in the Contrib area of Sakai's
source repository.)
A tool may be promoted to a new category when the Community becomes more familiar with it. Criteria for provisional tool status are found here Provisional Tools
Where can I send questions about installing and configuring Sakai?
Send these questions to production@collab.sakaiproject.org
How is Sakai integrated into the Enterprise?
Discussion of how Sakai is integrated can be found at Enterprise Integration and IMS Enterprise Services
Can I brand Sakai for my institution?
Yes, your institution may customize the appearance of Sakai. Here are some screenshots
Refer to these guides when customizing the appearance of Sakai.
Does the Educational Community License limit use?
Sakai uses the Educational Community License version 2.0. Here are answers to frequently asked licensing questions.
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Using Sakai
Who is using Sakai?
Here is a map of Sakai around the world.
How is Sakai being used?
Sakai is used in Teaching and Learning and collaboration of all kinds.
What is the Open Source Portfolio (OSP)?
OSP is a part of the Sakai Open Source Collaboration and Learning Environment. There is documentation for setting up and customizing OSP at
Questions about OSP can be sent to portfolio@collab.sakaiproject.org
Is help with end-user support available?
Yes, at End-User Support Resources
Where can I send questions about using Sakai and user support?
Send email to sakai-user@collab.sakaiproject.org
How can I get involved?
Sakai Wiki
There are a number of activities under way in Sakai. The Confluence Dashboard shows the span of Sakai activity. You will see that activities are organized into Projects, Provisional tools, Contrib tools, Discussion Groups (DG), Work Groups (WG), and Conferences. Each has a leader you can contact.
Email Lists
One way to start is by joining email discussions. To join an email group, go to http://collab.sakaiproject.org to see a list of all the available mail lists.
You may also use Nabble to get access to more nicely formatted list archives. These Nabble links may be used to browse a sample of the email lists:
- Sakai Announcements
- Sakai Development
- Sakai Migration
- Sakai Pedagogy
- Sakai Portfolio
- Sakai User Interface
Sakai Foundation Website
The URL for the Sakai Foundation is http://sakaiproject.org. The Sakai Foundation coordinates the activities of the Sakai open source community and provides shared resources to support the Sakai community activities. The Sakai Foundation also helps connect community members with similar interests and needs.
Home page for Sakai Project Coordination
The home page for Sakai Project Coordination is Sakai Project Coordination
Sakai Community Practices
Sakai Community Practices are outlined in the Group Management Process
Sakai Contributor Infrastructure
Sakai uses a variety of tools to coordinate development. You can find out more on Sakai Development Infrastructure page.
Other information
Sakai Newsletter
To receive the Sakai Newsletter and other announcement emails, open http://collab.sakaiproject.org. Sign on (you can create a new account
using the "New Account" link in the left-hand menubar.) After you have signed on, click "Membership" in the left-hand menubar. Click the "Joinable Sites" link near the top of the window that opens. Find the Announcements site in the list and click "join" under it.
Knowledge Base
Enter search terms for Sakai Knowledge Base Search at Knowledge Base
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