Contrib. Tools

Sakai's "Contrib" tools

Sakai is an extremely flexible platform with a wide variety of tools. The trial versions you can download or try online represent the most commonly used tools in the Sakai community. Even so, most Sakai installations include a number of tools that aren't reflected in the demonstration versions above. These additional tools are called contrib tools. Many of these tools may become part of the standard release soon. Others are provided by groups that prefer to keep their own development schedules instead of synchronizing with Sakai's release proccess. Either way, we encourage you to explore this world. If you don't see what you want in the demonstations above you likely can find what you need in one of the contrib tools.

Contributed or "contrib" tools provide additional functionality not included in Sakai official releases.

Administration

Config Viewer

The Config Viewer is a tool designed to help administrators make sense of the configuration options that can be set in the configuration file sakai.properties. It displays a list of available properties along with a host of value added data. The list of properties is based on a careful review of the source code and existing documentation for Sakai 2.2.x and higher, and is typically updated immediately after each new release.

I10n-Stats

l10n-Stats analyzes the status of Sakai translations in the source repository. The tool looks at all the .properties files in the source repository and compares the source files with the files of a given translation (eg. access.properties - access_nl.properties). The tool can be configured to output the results to a HTML page. The report provides translated, missing translation and extra translation key statistics, lists of .properties files without a corresponding file with the specified language and a list of resource bundles excluded from the analysis.

Iconservice

The iconservice provides a way to define sets of icons (aka theme packs) to be used in Sakai and in Sakai related tools. Icon theme packs provide a consistent URL for application developers to use when adding icons to their instance of Sakai.

SiteStats

Site Stats is a tool for Sakai 2.1 or higher that provides site statistics by user, event or resource. The tool provides an overview page with summary information about site visits and activity, an events page listing site events, a resources page listing site resource activity, a preferences page and a site list view for administrators.

Skin Manager

The Skin Manager allows site administrators to install and manage skins in a Sakai instance. Skins are uploaded in the portal as .zip archives that contain graphics and style sheets. The tool displays all the skins in use throughout the Sakai instance and indicates which sites use a particular skin. Skins may be revised by uploading a new archive and it is possible to revert to earlier versions of a skin. This strongly simplifies the skin installation process: access to the file system of the sakai instance is no longer required.

Blogging

BlogWOW

Blog Wow is a blogging tool that is integrated with Sakai. It allows viewing of blog entries and RSS feeds using external human readable URLs. Entries can be private, shared with a site/group, or public.

Collaboration

Agora

Agora is an online meeting tool that includes video conferencing, moviecasting, instant messaging, shared whiteboard, shared desktop and recording capabilities.

Breeze Link

Breeze Link allows a Sakai installation to seamlessly connect to a Breeze server and permits users to connect to Breeze meetings with a single click. No additional sign on is required and users will appear in the meeting with their display name from Sakai.

JForum

JForum Discussion & Private Messages is an easy-to-use, yet robust tool that offers industry-standard functionality to users. Instructors can set up unlimited categories and forums, moderate topics (move, edit, delete, lock, or unlock), read recent topics and mark them as read, watch and bookmark topics, and much more. JForum comes with built-in private messaging that allows site members to communicate privately while discussing issues or collaborating on projects. JForum has a familiar (popular phpBB) graphical user interface.

Converters

Word-2-QTI Converter

Converts lightly formatted text quizzes/tests into IMS QTI-standard XML, which can then be imported into the Quiz and Test tools as an assessment or question pool.

Digital Content Viewers

Gallery Tool

The Gallery Tool will allow a user to select a collection of images (a gallery) and view the images in a specified order. The tool is focused on selecting, sequencing, and viewing - not creation or editing. The plan is to leverage the editing capabilities of the Resource Tool to create and maintain the galleries under a well known root folder.

Resources Viewer

The Resources Viewer is a simple tool which displays the contents of selected folders from Sakai's content repository in a simpler, more user-friendly manner. In particular, it fulfills the requirements of displaying a list of resources together with their descriptions and creating links to Resources content in the left-hand navigation (tool) menu.

Sakaibrary

Sakaibrary tools provide access to licensed digital content held in university library systems.

Interoperability

IMSTI

IMSTI is an implementation of the IMS Tools Interoperability Guidelines (TI), version 1.0 (February 2006) . TI provides a framework for extending learning management systems to include third-party tools via web services. Sakai IMSTI comprises a collection of published APIs, component services, data definition language (DDL) files and a JavaServer Faces (JSF) tool implementation. IMSTI also includes a set of sample proxy tool XML deployment descriptors that can be used to test IMSTI proxy capabilities. IMSTI leverages common Sakai services as well as the Apache AXIS web services project to define proxy tools, construct SOAP messages and make web service calls across the Internet.

IMSTI proxy tool instances serve as facades for web applications external to the Sakai CLE. External applications are required to implement at a minimum the TI launch service and make available a deployment package comprising an XML deployment descriptor that provides basic tool configuration information that IMSTI utilizes to communicate with target tools.

Mashups

Sakai Maps

The Sakai Maps tool integrates Google Maps into Sakai and allows users to define and browse points of interest (POI) on the map. Each POI has a name, a short description, a type and optionally a url with more information.

Presentation

TransformAble

TransformAble is a set of open source Web services that are being developed by the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre as part of the CulturAll project. The services can be used by any Web site to transform the presentation of its user interface and content resources so that they are personalized to each individual user's needs. TransformAble enables Web sites to enhance and rearrange their appearance, layout, and structure in order to support such accommodations as large type and high contrast colour schemes, simplified site navigation, and accessible alternatives to audio or video content. The user's preferences are represented in the proposed ISO standard AccessForAll format, ensuring that accessibility transformations can be consistently applied to any site that uses the TransformAble services.

Teaching and Learning

Evaluation System

The Evaluation System is used to conduct formative and summative (end of term) evaluations and review the results. The Evaluation System allows colleges, departments, and instructors to manage their own body of questions which are part of a combined end of term evaluation. This allows colleges and departments within a larger institution to collect targeted information from their students, while preserving a consistent set of questions used throughout the institution. Results can easily be reviewed within a single course, across colleges or departments, or across the entire university. The Evaluation System contacts students to notify them of upcoming evaluations automatically, and to remind students to complete an ongoing evaluation. The Evaluation System runs under Sakai version 2.2 or higher.

Goal Management

Goal Management tools provide a "goal oriented" view of student progress toward institutional, program and personal outcomes for the purposes of curriculum mapping, program level assessment and student advising. It enable users to create a collection of defined goals that can be linked to various activities within Sakai (currently assignments, OSP wizard/matrix and data points). Support has been added for creating associations between worksites by permitting the tagging of an activity in a worksite to a goal in an associated worksite. A common scenario would be to have a program level worksite in which program goals are defined, and course sites that are associated to the program site. This setup allows for links to be made from activities within the course sites to the goals within the program site. Then, students' submissions for an activity can be rated based on performance toward linked goals.

The core assignment tool has been extended with workflow to link assignments to goals and to rate students' assignment submissions. A new tool, the data point tool, allows for creation of generic activities (data points). For each data point, ratable submission items are automatically generated (from a selection of roles). This serves as a way to enter data for activities that occur outside of Sakai, but need to be reported on. Users creating matrix cells and wizard pages can also link these to goals so that users submitting completed cells and/or pages for evaluation can be rated based on performance towards linked goals.

ImageQuiz

A responder- or clicker- type tool designed for synchronous, though not necessarily co-located, classroom settings. In addition to the typical responder functionality, an image can be displayed with an accompanying question or note. Students click on the image to indicate a response and the aggregate number of all student clicks is overlain on the image.

Melete Modules

Melete allows instructors to publish learning sequences that can be created by using a rich text editor, uploading learning objects, or pointing to existing URL resources. Instructors can design content that supports instructor facilitated learning or system managed self-study. Lessons can be released automatically based on start and stop dates. Melete supports IMS Content Packaging.

Mneme - Test Center

Mneme is a comprehensive assessment engine for Sakai that consists of an authoring module for creating questions and managing pools; a module for publishing assignments, tasks, tests and surveys; a grading module for evaluating assessments, optionally integrated with the Gradebook; and a delivery module for administering assessments to students. Additionally, a test-drive component allows instructors to take assessments as students.