Sakai Tips & Tricks (FAQ) and Features

1. Provisional Sakai Policies
2. Course Site Retention Policies
3. Sakai Account Change Service
4. Sakai Test Taking Guidelines
5. Sakai Managing Online Tests & Quizzes
6. Sakai File and Folder Naming Convention

1. After you load into Sakai but before you login, you can find the Welcome Page underneath the Message Of The Day
2. Click on the Faculty Guide, Student Guide, or Sakai Policies link, or click on their respective icons
3. Click on one of the buttons that displays to learn more about a specific tool or topic
4. Click on one the links that displays to open a more comprehensive guide to a tool or topic

Use the Merge feature in the Announcements tool, if you have more than one site and you would like to send a single announcement to the other sites you belong to. This will allow you to take all of the past and future announcements from one site and aggregate it into your designed sites:

1. Click on Merge on the top menu and you will see a list of all of the sites to which you belong
2. Select the sites you would like to share your announcements with, and click on the Save button to make the changes.

Note: Announcements that are merged from the original site cannot be edited or deleted in the merged sites. You can only merge your announcements to the sites in which you have an instructor role. You can also read further detailed information on this topic in the Help > Instructor Guide > Announcements > How do I merge announcements?

When adding peer review to your assignment, it is important to consider the dates:

1. The Open Date is when students can start submitting to the Assignments tool.
2. The Due Date is when the assignment is due, which means students are no longer allowed to submit their assignment unless late submissions are allowed.
3. The Accept Until Date is usually the same as the Due Date unless you do accept late submissions. If you accept late submissions, this date should be set to a later date than the Due Date. Any submissions sent after the Due Date and by the Accept Until Date will have a red Late flag.
4. Students may begin peer reviews on their classmates' submissions after the Accept Until Date passes.

Note: Do not make any changes to the assignment once the peer review period has begun. It might trigger unexpected results such as losing student work.

Therefore, you cannot grade until the peer review period has ended. If you click the Grade button during the peer review period, a warning will pop up with the words similar to "Instructor grading is disabled until after the review period: Jan 30, 2017 5:10 pm." However, you may observe peer evaluations through the Reviewed by column in the Grade view.

We recognize that using the keyboard to type in the open/due date and time is not entirely functional. We recommend that you use the data picker when choosing your date and time instead of the keyboard

The maximum size is 100mb. If you attempt to upload a zip file that is larger than 100mb, it will fail and you will be sent to a bug page.

Currently, blog entry titles are limited to 255 characters or less. If you input a title with more than 255 characters, you will receive an error message.

We are aware of a bug where if you set an assignment, assessment, discussion, etc to open in the future, no Bullhorn notification will be sent out when the time passes.

You can print your calendar using the Calendar tool in Home:

1. From your Home tab, click Calendar
2. Click the Printable Version link.

Note: Keep in mind that the Calendar tool contains all of the important dates from all of your sites.

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In the Calendar tool, go to the Publish tab (either public or private).

For public events,

1. Name the calendar.
2. Check Enable Subscription and Save.
3. Copy the URL for that site's .ics file.
4. Open the link on an iPad.

1. Click Generate.
2. Copy the URL for that site's .ics file.
3. Open the link on an iPad.

Note: A window should appear to add the events from the Sakai calendar to the iPad app.

Note: You must add the Calendar tool to the site before you create a meeting. If you add the Calendar tool later, you need to add each meeting to the calendar individually:

1. Click on Signup from the left hand menu.
2. Click on a meeting title and click the Modify button.
3. Click the Show other default settings link.
4. Check the Publish to Calendar checkbox.
5. Click the Publish Modification button.

More information - how to add meetings to the Calendar tool here

1. Click on the Calendar tool in the tool bar.
2. Click on the Import Events tab.
3. Use the radio buttons to select the type of calendar you want to import events from.
4. Click Continue
5. Click Choose File and select the file you want to upload.
6. Click Continue.

To send a message in a chat room, follow these steps:

1. Enter your message into the text box below Enter Chat Message
2. Click Add Message or hit the enter or return key on your keyboard to send the message.

1. Click on the Commons tool in the tool bar
2. Enter text in the text box
3. Click Post.

Sometimes while reordering widgets, they may disappear or duplicate. For ones that disappear, they can be found again under the Add a Widget button, and for ones that duplicate a current quick fix is to simply delete the unwanted version of it.

Currently, the site dashboard’s calendar does not reflect the Calendar tool from your site. You will not be able to view events from the site Calendar on the dashboard.

Note: You MUST first add the Gradebook tool into your site and then add your gradebook item (e.g. Discussion 1) into your gradebook.

There are several different ways to get to the grading screen:

1. View overall statistics by student or topic. Use this method, if you want to give students a global forum grade:
   1. Select Statistics & Grading at the top of the Discussions page
   2. Click either Statistics & Grading by User or Statistics & Grading by Topic.
2. Grade an individual topic:
   1. Click the title of a topic
   2. Select Display Message Content to view a student's submitted post
   3. Select Grade, and enter a grade with your comments
   4. When finished, click Submit Grade
   5. OR, use the More drop-down next to a topic on the front page of Discussions
   6. Select Grade.

You can use the Pending Messages tab to see all pending messages from all topics in the site, but currently, it will only update when you approve/deny a message.

Use the drag and drop function when adding files in Sakai Resources or Drop Box from your computer. This allows multiple files to be uploaded. You can also browse and add multiple files individually.

Note: Make sure you have at least one file stored in your resources folder for your site.

If the student cannot reply to emails sent with the Email tool, please report this as an issue with your college's Sakai support team.

If this is the first time using Email Archive in your course site, type something into the searchbar and press Search. Then, press Clear Search and the emails should show up. If this doesn't fix the issue, then please ask for assistance from your college's Sakai support team.

There is no print function in both Gradebook tool. However, you can use the Export function to save the file and print it from the saved files as follows:

1. From your site, click Gradebook
2. At the top, click Import/Export
3. Select either Export Gradebook or Custom Export
4. It will download a file that you can print from your device.

Note: The browser print function does not work very well, but you can also do that as follows:

1. Internet Explorer: Click the Gear Icon in the top right corner and choose Print from the drop down menu, or click the File menu and choose Print.
2. Mozilla Firefox: Click the Three Lines Icon in the right top corner (or click the File menu) and then choose Print.
3. Google Chrome: Click the Three Lines Icon in the right top corner (or click the File menu) and then choose Print.

You can hide unused sites from your tab bar, without deleting or unjoining them, using Preferences in Home.

To hide tabs

1. From your Home tab, click Preferences
2. Click Sites
3. Use the checkboxes to select the sites you want to hide
4. When finished click Update Preferences.

To reorder tabs

1. Click on the grid icon in the top right corner to see the Sites.
2. Favorite the sites you would like to show up on your bar by clicking the empty star icon
3. Click Organize Favorites
4. Drag and drop the sites in the order you would like.

Embedding an .mp4 video file in a lesson page is currently only supported in Google Chrome, Firefox and Microsoft Edge (Windows 10). If you want to embed an .mp4 video file into your page, please use one of those browsers.

1. Click on the Lessons tool
2. Click Add Content +
   1. Click Embed Content on the Page
   2. Either upload the file, paste the URL, or use embed the file code
   3. Click Save.

1. Click Add Content +
2. Then Add Content Links
3. Upload your selected files
4. Click on the Save button to finish uploading your files

Please note that if you use the Choose Files option on the Add Content Links page, please be careful when using the Remove button. You may unintentionally delete all of your uploaded files.

1. Open Google Drive
2. Find the video you want to embed
3. Set the share setting to Public on Web
4. Double click on the file so that it opens in iFrame
5. Click on the icon that shows three vertical dots
6. Click Open in new Window
7. Click on the icon that shows three vertical dots in the new window
8. Click Embed item...
9. Copy the code in the text box
10. Navigate to your Sakai site
11. Click on the Lessons tool from the tool bar
12. Click Add Content +
13. Click Embed Content on the Page
14. Paste the code into the text box
15. Click Save.

1. Click on the Lessons tool from the tool bar
2. Click Add Content +
3. Click Embed Calendar, Embed Announcements or Embed Forums Conversations depending on which widget you want to add
4. If you choose Embed Announcements or Embed Forums Conversations use the dropdown menu to select the number of announcements or conversations you want to add and click Save.

1. Create an assessment with Numeric Response question in Tests and Quizzes.
2. Click on the Lessons page that you wanted to embed your assessment into.
3. Click Add Content, and then select Link to a Test or Quiz.
4. Select the assessment from the list of Existing Quizzes.
5. Click Use Selected Item.
6. Students will be able to click the quiz link to take the quiz through Lessons page.

NOTE: Be cautious, as typing your answer will not trigger popups or warnings indicating invalid charactesr, you will only be warned when attempting to save your answer.

1. From your site, click Site Info
2. Click Manage Tools
3. Check the News box and then click Continue
4. Enter a title for the news feed in the appropriate field
5. Enter the URL for the RSS news feed in the appropriate field
6. When done, click Finish.

Note: Multiple feeds can be added; simply choose the number of additional feeds you want to add from the More News Tools dropdown menu.

Note: To change the title and URL of any RSS feed in the toolbar, use the Options at the top of the RSS feed page.

1. Login to Box with your user id and password
2. Select the folder or file you want to link and click Link
3. Copy and paste the link in the box
4. Login to Sakai and select the appropriate site
5. Select Site Info from the left side menu bar
6. Click Manage Tools, select Web Content, and click Continue to go to the Customize tool instances page
7. Enter a name in the Title field and paste the link in the Source field
8. Click Continue and Finish to add the Box link to the site tools
9. The Box link now displays as a tool in the left side menu.

1. Podcasts: Please note that modern browsers do not provide RSS readers anymore. They only load xml files rather than the webpage. You can subscribe to the RSS feed of your site's podcasts using a podcatcher such as iTunes:
   1. Copy the given URL
   2. Paste the URL into your podcatcher's settings.
2. Blogs, Wiki: You can subscribe to other contributors' blogs in order to get the new entries via an RSS feed:
   1. Click the RSS icon next to the blog you wish to subscribe to
   2. Copy the given URL
   3. Paste the URL using any RSS Feed subscription service or use your browser features

   Note: Comments on blogs are not displayed in the RSS Feed

1. Mozilla Firefox:
   1. Before going to the Podcasts tool, download the Feedbro add-on for Firefox
   2. Once the extension is installed, navigate to the Podcasts tool and click on the RSS icon . This will open a new tab that displays the RSS file
   3. While you are on the RSS file page, click on the Feedbro icon on the top-right of your browser. Then click Find Feeds in Current Tab. Finally click Subscribe
   4. You can now click on Feedbro again then click Open feed reader. Finally click on the podcast title on the left-hand side to view your podcast.
2. Google Chrome:
   1. Before going to Podcasts tool download RSS Subscription Extension (by Google) to your browser
   2. Once extension is added go to the Podcasts Tool and click the Subscribe Now button
   3. You will see the browser may be using Bloglines as the feed; if so, click subscribe. If this does not work, go back and change feed to Yahoo or other trusted feed reader websites that can be added
   4. Once you find a feed reader that works, you can add the page to your bookmarks by clicking the star in the top right of the browser.
3. Microsoft Edge:
   1. Before going to the Podcasts tool, download the Feedbro add-on for Edge
   2. Once the extension is installed, navigate to the Podcasts tool and click on the RSS icon . This will open a new tab that displays the RSS file
   3. While you are on the RSS file page, click on the Feedbro icon at the top-right of your browser. Then click Find Feeds in Current Tab. Finally click Subscribe
   4. You can now click on Feedbro again then click Open feed reader. Finally click on the podcast title on the left-hand side to view your podcast.

1. Go to Roster on the left hand menu
2. Click on Permissions at the top menu
3. Select permissions for each role using the checkboxes
4. Click Save.

1. Go to Roster from the left hand menu
2. Click the dropdown menu in Group and select the group you would like to view.

Please note that you need to create groups first in order to view groups in Roster.

1. For adding different times and dates for a meeting,
   1. From your site, click Sign Up and click Add
   2. Enter the meeting information
   3. Select Meeting Frequency
      1. Note: Specify weekly for reoccurring events
   4. Select the Multiple Slots meeting type, and enter the desired number of slots
   5. Click Advanced User-Defined Timeslots
   6. Click Create Timeslots.
2. For extending the time range of meeting,
   1. From your site, click Sign Up
   2. Select the meeting you wish to change under Meeting Title
   3. Click Modify at the top of the menu bar, and make any necessary option changes now
   4. Click View or Edit Timeslots
   5. Add a new timeslot, and enter the time either by clicking the calendar or manually typing it
      1. Note: It will be marked new at the bottom
      2. Note: Be careful to follow the correct formation (e.g. 05:30 PM)
   6. Click Continue
   7. When done, select Publish Modification
      1. Note: Previously signed users remain intact under this modification.

You cannot change Available To after posting a meeting. However, you can copy the existing meeting and make it available to other groups or sites.

1. Go to Sign Up on the left hand menu
2. Click on a meeting
3. Click the LINK button at the right top corner
4. You can see the Short URL, and use this link in order to access the signup.

Note: Do not copy the URL in the address bar to share the link. Based on our testing, only the URL provided by the LINK button will work for all participants.

You can add participants to a Sakai site by using the Site Info tool in your site.

1. From your site, click Site Info
2. Click Add Participants to add a participant.

Note: Use the top box for users who already have a Sakai account at the Claremont Colleges.
* If you don't know a user's Sakai username, please call your college's IT Help Desk and they will be able to assist you.
Note: Use the bottom box for guests who don't have a Sakai account.
* Their email address will be their username and Sakai will send them an email with an activate account link. Sakai will only send the email with the activate account link once so if you add the same guest to another site they will not get another activate account email. Please inform the guest user to choose Guest Login rather than Login when logging in.

The automatic Add/Drop scripts update the Sakai course site rosters three times a day during each semester. Students who add a course are automatically added to the course site. Students who drop a course will be inactivated in the site automatically.

If you still wish to add a student before they have officially added the course at the Registrar's Office, you MUST do so by adding the student with the Auditor role:

1. From your site, click Site Info
2. Click Add Participants to add a student as an auditor.

Note: The student will be automatically inactivated in the site by the nightly Add/Drop script if they are not listed as an auditor.

You can reorder or rename the tools in your site's tool bar using the Site Info tool:

1. From your site, click Site Info
2. Click Tool Order
   1. To reorder tools, simply drag and drop the tools into the desired order
   2. To rename tools, click the Settings icon next to the appropriate tool, and click Edit Title.

1. Go to Site Info on the left hand menu
2. Click on the Manage Groups button
3. Click the Create New Group button beneath the title bar
4. Enter the Group Title and Description for the group
5. Highlight the names of the site members you wish to add in the Site Member List on the left and click the > button
6. You may also remove members from the group by clicking on the members' names before clicking the < button
7. Click on the Add button once you are finished deciding on the members of the group.

Elizabeth Hodas from Harvey Mudd has compiled a comprehensive tutorial on how to accomplish this.

View or Download the tutorial.

1. Click on the Manage Groups tab in the Site Info tool
2. Click on the Bulk Creation tab
3. Either use the Choose File button to upload a CSV file, or use the text box
4. To use the text box, type the title of the group followed by a comma, and then type the usernames for the users you want to add to the group with each name separated by a comma
5. To create more than one group, press enter or return on your keyboard and complete step 4 on a new line in the text box
6. Click Continue
7. Click Bulk Create Groups.

Note: If a group is associated with any tool in Sakai (an assignment is released to that group for example), you cannot edit or remove the group.

You can redirect the Syllabus tool in your site to point to a document anywhere on the web.

1. From your site, click Syllabus
2. Click Redirect to link your syllabus to your Sakai site.

You can add your syllabus to the calendar by following these steps:

1. From your site, click Syllabus
2. Click Edit
3. Check the boxes under the Calendar column for the items you want to add
4. Click Update

Sakai can automatically submit any student's work which has been saved by the student, but which has not yet been submitted, after the latest acceptance date passes. In order to enable the auto-submit feature, faculty must navigate to the assessment settings and select the checkbox next to the Autosubmit saved student work after latest acceptance date, unless student has previously submitted text under Availability and Submissions.

Note: If you reuse old exams which contain an old retract date, please reset/change the retract date so that it is later than or equal to the due date. If this is not done, auto-submit will not be triggered due to the date discrepancy.

Note: To reset/change the retract date, Yes, until needs to be checked. If it is not checked, the system will not allow you to change or save the date. Once the new date is saved, you may go back and select No, not after due date.

1. Navigate to Settings for the assessment in question
2. Click on the Exceptions to Time Limit and Delivery Date menu
3. Use the Select User and Select Group dropdown menus to determine who the exception is for
4. Use the date pickers to choose a new available date, due date, and late submissions allowed date
5. Use the time limit menus to add a time limit
6. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save or Save Settings and Publish.

1. Click on the Tests & Quizzes tool from the tool bar
2. Click on the Actions dropdown menu for the assessment you want to view
3. Click Scores
4. Click on the dropdown menu to the right of the View header
5. Select All Submissions.

Note: If an assessment has already been published, it cannot be edited by adding more parts. Only draft assessments can have parts added to them. This is because adding parts to a published assessment could result in different students having different assessment experiences, depending on when they access the exam.

Sakai will not allow you to add parts to published assessments, but will allow you to modify them. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Go to Tests & Quizzes from the Tool Menu in your site.
2. Click Edit from the dropdown menu next to a published assessment.

You can add a part to a draft assessment as follows:

1. Go to Tests & Quizzes from the Tool Menu in your site
2. Click Edit from the dropdown menu next to a draft assessment.
3. Click Add Part in the overhead bar.
4. Add a Title into the text box provided.
5. Add Information (Optional).
6. Add attachment (Optional).
7. Select an option for Part Type.
8. Click Save.

Note: While it is possible to edit a published assessment by retracting it's published state and republishing, it is not recommmended as it may cause errors and unwanted changes to your test.

Instead, we recommend you to edit the draft assessment. To do so, follow these steps:

1. Go to Tests & Quizzes from the Tool Menu in your site
2. Click Edit from the dropdown menu next to a draft assessment.
3. Make your necessary changes
4. Click Save.

1. As of April 8, 2024, the section in Help is incorrect for creating a multiple choice question.
2. Select Multiple Choice from the Add Question menu.
3. Set the point value for the question.
4. Choose to display point value while students are taking the exam or not.
5. Add a minimum point value (Optional)
1. This option is available for the following types of multiple choice questions:
1. Single Correct, when Partial Credit is NOT enabled
2. Multiple Correct, Single Selection
6. Choose the answer configuration (Single Correct is selected by default)
1. Single Correct answer options:
1. Enable Negative Marking - If you enable negative marking and enter any value other than 0 in the Points deducted for incorrect answer box, students who select any incorrect answer for the question will have those points deducted from their total assessment score
2. Enable Partial Credit - Partial credit allows a percentage of the question's points to be award for selecting an incorrect but still partially accepted answer.
2. Multiple Correct, Single Selection answer options:
1. Enable Negative Marking - same as the negative marking explained above
3. Multiple Correct, Multiple Selection answer options:
1. Correct minus Incorrect (selected by default) - selecting any correct answer will add points up to the total points possible and selecting an incorrect answer will deduct points
2. All or Nothing - grants points for a fully correct answer only; any other combination of selected and empty check boxes earns no points
7. Enter the question text
8. Add attachments(s) (Optional)
9. Create the answers
1. To included fewer than four choices, leave the corresponding editor(s) blank or select the Remove link under the answer letter
2. To add more choices, use the Insert Additional Answers menu to indicate the number of additional choices needed.
10. Select the correct answer.
11. Add Partial Credit Percentage(s) for Single Correct Question (Optional)
12. Choose whether or not to randomize answer (default is no)
13. Choose whether or not to require rationale (default is no) (Optional)
14. Assign to a part (Optional)
15. Assign to a question pool (Optional)
16. Provide answer feedback (Optional)
17. Select Save

1. If you cannot select the minimum point value option, it may be because your type of multiple choice question does not support it.
2. Ensure that you are using the following types of multiple choice questions:
1. Single Correct, when Partial Credit is NOT enabled
2. Multiple Correct, Single Selection

1. In the assessment Settings page, click Availability and Submissions
2. The Availability and Submissions section will expand to show the following options.
3. Choose who can access this assessment from the options below
   1. Each member of the site (default) - everyone that is a member of the site will have access to the assessment
   2. Anyone with the link (Anonymous survey) - anyone with the link, including site members, will have access to the site. Also, it will provide no information identifying who submitted the assessment associated with submission
   3. Each member of the selected group - when selecting this option, there will be a new dropdown where you can select group(s). The members of those selected groups will have access to the assessment
4. Choose how many submissions are allowed from the options below
   1. Unlimited (default)
   2. Only __ submission(s) allowed - determine how many submissions are allowed by putting a number in the textbox
5. Choose when will the assessment be available
   1. Use the date picker (calendar icon) to select a date and time
      1. Available Date - start date of the exam window. Students will not be able to see the assessment before this date. Publishing an assessment with a blank available date will make it available immediately upon publishing
      2. Due Date - end date for the exam window. Students will not be able to submit after this date unless you accept late submissions. If late submissions are allowed, any submission after the due date will be marked as late
6. Choose what is the final submission deadline
   1. The Due Date (No late submissions allowed)
   2. Accept late submissions - use the date picker (calendar icon) to determine a date and time for the late submission deadline
7. Choose is it timed
   1. If you would like your assessment to be timed, select Yes and select a time limit in hours (hrs) and minutes (min) from their respective drop-down menus
8. Choose whether to enable Auto-submit
   1. Check the box to Automatically submit any saved student work after the Due Date or Late Submission Deadline if you would like to enable auto-submit
9. Choose submission notification email options
   1. Send a notification email for each student submission
   2. Send one email per day summarizing notifications for student submissions
   3. Do not send notification emails for any student submissions (default)

1. If you are translating your page using Google Chrome's translation feature, ensure that you check the Honor Pledge box first, then translate.

LaTeX markup may conflict with notation required for numeric questions, so try to avoid using the same character delimiter used for numeric questions in your LaTeX code.

During our testing, we noticed that when exporting an assessment containing questions with attached files, importing it later does not include these attachments. If you want the imported assessment to include the attached files, you'll need to edit it and manually add the necessary attachments.

1. Find the URL in Resources
2. Click on the Actions drop down menu for the file you want to add to Web Content
3. Click Make Web Content Link
4. Write a title and click Add
5. A tool with the title you gave will appear left-hand menu with all of your other tools.