Sakai 11 Tips

Known Issues/Solutions

Gradebook: Uncategorized items can cause incorrect category averages to display to students

• Issue: If an instructor is using the new Gradebook with categories and weights, a student will see incorrect category averages when all of the following conditions are true:
  • The Gradebook contains an uncategorized item that was generated by Tests & Quizzes or by the Assignments tool
  • The uncategorized item is set to "include in course grade calculations" (it will be set this way by default but should not be!)
  • The uncategorized item has a grade in it for the student
• To see the issue: In the new Gradebook, click on a student's name and notice the category averages. Click the "Student Review Mode" tab at the top -- if the category averages are different in student view, you have this problem, and your students will see incorrect averages. Thankfully, the overall course grade (if set to display to students) is correct, just the category averages are incorrect.
• Solution: Once you assign the items to categories, the problem goes away. If you prefer to leave the items uncategorized, you can solve the issue this way:
  • For the uncategorized item, select "Edit Item Details" (by clicking the triangle in the item's column heading)
  • Assign the item to a category -- this is temporary, so you can choose any category, even if it's wrong
  • Un-check the box to "include item in course grade calculations"
  • Set the item back to uncategorized
  • Click Save

Lessons: YouTube videos are wide

• Issue: YouTube videos embedded in Lessons using "Add Multimedia" under Sakai 2.9 now appear very wide across the screen.
• Solution: To the right of the embedded video, click the edit icon. Change the "Width" to something smaller, such as 40%. (Height can remain as is, or be removed and left blank.) Click Update Item to save the change.

HTML notice

• Issue: A few instructors have reported a notice in a yellow box (as shown below) popping up in their sites. The notice may appear on the course home page, or after copying/pasting content into a text editor box somewhere in Sakai.
  
• Solution: The notice indicates that content that you've entered into Sakai (most likely, content that you copied from somewhere else and pasted in) contains some behind-the-scenes code that is problematic. In some situations, the boxes appear once and then go away forever, and all is fine. However, in some cases, they may pop up every time you visit the page. In the latter case, please contact sakaihelp@durhamtech.edu and let us know which site and where in the site the notices are appearing, and we should be able to clean things up for you.

Tips

Clear web browser cache

When using dynamic web sites like Sakai, web browsers might show you an outdated version of a page (what is called a "cached" version of the page). By default, browsers keep previous versions of a page to improve response time. But this behavior might prevent you from displaying the latest information.

• Here are the instructions for clearing your web browser cache for Firefox, Chrome or Internet Explorer

Lessons: Displays "Download file" when linking to a document

In Lessons, after adding a link to a document (such as a Word, PowerPoint or text file), a "download file" link and "message" appear, as shown below:
Why is this happening? If you click Add Content or on a "plus" sign (+), then click on:

• Add Content Links, a link will be created to your document or presentation, as desired.
• But if you click on Embed content on page, you are trying to display or show your document, like you would a video or image. Microsoft Word and PowerPoint files can't be displayed in a web browser; therefore, a download file link and "instructions" are provided.

What are the steps to add a link to a document? Watch this one minute video and/or do the following:

• In Lessons, at the top, click on Add Content or click on a "plus" sign (+) to the right or below your content
• Click on Add Content Links NOT Embed content on page
• Click on the Choose or Browse button to select a document or click on "Or select existing files from Resources"
• After selecting your file, either click Save or Continue, then Save. Your link to your document will now display correctly.

Importing content

The process for importing content from another course has some new time-saving features:

• You no longer have to add tools before importing; the import process will automatically add them for you, based on what you choose to import.
• There is now an option to import content from the "home page" (aka "Site Information Display"). Any images on the home page will import and be visible to students (assuming the images were set up properly and visible to students in the course you are importing from!)

For details, see our updated instructions for importing course content (PDF).

Roster

• When you access the Roster, only the first 10 students display. If you scroll all the way down, more students will appear as you scroll.
• Students' email addresses are no longer listed in the Roster. Click Export at the top to download a spreadsheet that contains student email addresses.

Turnitin

• In the prior version of Sakai, Turnitin would check only one attachment per student per assignment. Therefore, instructors were advised to choose "Single file upload" when setting up Turnitin-enabled Assignments, to prevent a student from uploading more than one document. If desired, you can now allow students to submit multiple attachments on a single assignment, and all attachments will be checked by Turnitin.
• On the Assignment grading screen in Sakai, instructors will see a Turnitin column which presents information a bit differently than in the prior version. Each document submitted will show an icon. Point to the icon to see additional information.
  • For example, a yellow triangle icon can mean a couple of different things:
    1. the attachment has been submitted and is pending review (wait 15-30 minutes for results to be returned) OR
    2. an error occurred and Turnitin could not process the document (contact sakaihelp@durhamtech.edu for assistance).
• When setting up a Turnitin-enabled Assignment, if you choose an option (e.g. "Inline and Attachments") that allows students to enter comments along with their attachment(s), those comments will be checked by Turnitin -- but only if the comment text exceeds 20 words. (This is a general rule for Turnitin: any documents or text containing fewer than 20 words are not checked, and will return an "error" stating that the content could not be processed. This error is represented by a yellow triangle.)
  
   
  

New Gradebook

• Instructors can choose to use the old Gradebook (now called "Gradebook Classic") or the new, redesigned one (called simply "Gradebook"). Learn more about the two gradebooks in Sakai 11
• The new Gradebook requires horizontal scrolling to see all items. Inconveniently, the horizontal scrollbar is at the bottom, which means you have to scroll all the way down before you can scroll left to right! An easier method may be to use the right and left arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate around in the new Gradebook.

Favorite, Hide and Organize Course Sites and Categories

• You can now "favorite" sites that you want to display at the top of your Sakai page. View this short video or follow the instructions below:
  • In Sakai in the upper right corner, click on Sites, then click on the "gray" star to the left of a site you want displayed at the top of your Sakai page; the star will display "yellow"
  • After you click on the "X" in the upper right corner of the Sites drop-down box, in the top middle of your page, you can click on a link to "reload" your page, to see your favorites listed across the top of your page
  • Also, in Sites, at the top right of your Sakai page, you can also "un-favorite" sites, by clicking on the yellow star to the left of the course site(s)
• Previously you could hide sites from your "Sites" area that you no longer wanted to see. You still can, but there's more!
  • Now you can also hide categories of course sites (such as 2016FA or 2016CE3):
    • In Sakai at the top left, click on the Home button:
      • On the menu on the left, click on Preferences
      • Click on the Sites tab. Click in the checkbox beside a category and/or sites
      • At the bottom, click Update Preferences.

Resolved Issues

Lessons - Student Content/Pages and Comments: Can Now Enter Zero Grade for Students without Submissions

• This issue has been resolved:
• Issue: In Lessons, after you added Student Content, if you choose to make it a graded assignment, there wasn't a way to enter a zero grade for students who did not submit the assignment.
• Solution: The Sakai Community fixed this issue. As soon as you make your Student Pages a graded assignment, you'll see in the Student Pages area two new features: 1) "Missing Pages", a list of student's who haven't submitted their student page 2) A button titled: "Set grades to zero for students without submissions"
• Previous Solution: Instructors had to create a separate Gradebook column to record student grades, so they could assign zeroes to student who did not submit the assignment.

Assignments: Peer Reviewer Receives an Error When Attaching File

• This issue has been resolved:
• Issue: When a student completing a peer review clicked Reviewer Attachment to attach a file, he received an error.
• Solution: Students completing a peer review can click "Reviewer Attachment" and attach a file, with no errors. Attachments and/or text can now be submitted.
• Previous Solution: Students can still copy and paste content into the Reviewer Comments area, the "Peer Reviewer text box"; the Peer Review text can then be submitted.

Buttons fail to function

• This issue has been resolved: Some instructors reported instances of buttons not working in Sakai 11. For example, when adding or editing an Assignment, you click the "Post" or "Save" button and nothing happens. Or after editing home page content, you click "Continue" and nothing happens.
• Prior Solution: Clearing the cache resolves this issue. For a full clear of the cache, follow these steps:
  1. Log out of Sakai
  2. Clear your browser's cache - see instructions for clearing the cache in most any browser.
     • Note: Be sure to clear everything, including cache, cookies, history, etc.
  3. Close out of the browser completely
  4. Re-open the browser, log in again, and things should work correctly.

Note: This should solve the problem so that it does not recur. However, if you use another browser or computer, you may have to clear the cache there as well. If the problem occurs more than a few times on the same computer or browser, please contact sakaihelp@durhamtech.edu.