Columbia and U Hawaii Moving Forward with Sakai

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 08/25/08
Two universities are moving forward in their work with Sakai. The University of Hawaii System has adopted Sakai as its official learning and collaboration service, effective this fall, and Columbia University has recently upgraded to a new version of the open source learning management system as part of a pilot program in several schools and departments. At the beginning of August, the New York institution upgraded its Sakai pilot from version 2.4 to 2.5.

At the University of Hawaii, each of the 8,000-plus course sections will have a Sakai group created through real-time integration with the university's Sungard Banner Student information system. The system serves about 50,000 students at 10 campuses and five education centers on six islands, as well as distance learners around the world.

Hawaii's Sakai implementation is referred to locally as "Laulima," which translates literally from Hawaiian as "many hands" and refers to cooperation, joint action, or a group of people working together. Laulima is replacing Blackboard's WebCT, which was originally licensed about 10 years ago. WebCT course content is migrated to the Sakai platform on request by faculty. Laulima will also replace use of the Sungard Luminis portal MyCourse group tools. In addition to being used for distance and campus-based courses, Laulima also supports over 200 collaboration groups and will be the platform for several e-portfolio projects around the university system.

Hawaii joined the Sakai Educational Partnership Program in spring 2004.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

Featured

  • college student sitting at a laptop writing a college essay

    How Can Schools Manage AI in Admissions?

    Many questions remain around the role of artificial intelligence in admissions as schools navigate the balance between innovation and integrity.  

  • a hobbyist in casual clothes holds a hammer and a toolbox, building a DIY structure that symbolizes an AI model

    Ditch the DIY Approach to AI on Campus

    Institutions that do not adopt AI will quickly fall behind. The question is, how can colleges and universities do this systematically, securely, cost-effectively, and efficiently?

  • person signing a bill at a desk with a faint glow around the document. A tablet and laptop are subtly visible in the background, with soft colors and minimal digital elements

    California Governor Signs AI Content Safeguards into Law

    California Governor Gavin Newsom has officially signed off on a series of landmark artificial intelligence bills, signaling the state’s latest efforts to regulate the burgeoning technology, particularly in response to the misuse of sexually explicit deepfakes. The legislation is aimed at mitigating the risks posed by AI-generated content, as concerns grow over the technology's potential to manipulate images, videos, and voices in ways that could cause significant harm.

  • laptop screen showing Coursera course

    Coursera Introduces New Gen AI Skills Training and Credentials

    Learning platform Coursera is expanding its Generative AI Academy training portfolio with an offering for teams, as well as adding new generative AI courses, specializations, and certificates.