Sakai Question of the Week

Q. How can I backup my course in Sakai?

A. Backing up your course is a three-part process; there are separate procedures for saving a local copy of your course files, your tests and quizzes, and your gradebook.

Backup Sakai Course Content - Download content from your Sakai course by individual item or multiple items simultaneously.

Backup Tests and Quizzes‌ - How to create a local copy of your tests and quizzes from Sakai as a zip file backup.

Backing up Grades in Sakai‌ - How to create a local copy of your gradebook.

Q. In Adobe Connect breakout sessions, students are able to enter text into their individual group document, but are not able to bring them back into the main session to report to the entire class. What do I need to do to save these breakout report documents?

A. After ending a breakout session and returning all attendees to the main room, hosts can share the contents of any breakout room with everyone in the main room.

1. In the main room, click Pods > Breakout Pods.
2. Select an individual breakout room name and then select Attendee List, Chat, Share, or Whiteboard.  The selected content appears in a new floating pod. The contents are View Only and cannot be changed or edited.
3. (Optional) Make the new pod larger by clicking Full Screen or dragging the boundaries of the pod.
4. To remove the pod, click the Pod Options menu in the upper right corner of the pod and then “Hide”.

Q. I am trying to create a quiz in Sakai that requires images.  How can I add images to my questions?

A. The text box for test questions has a rich text editor in which you can insert an image.

1. Upload your images into a folder in Resources in the course – you can find step-by-step instructions for that at Adding/Removing Content in Resources.
2. In your test, when creating or editing a question, in the Text Editor box, click on the image icon in the menu to open the Image Properties box.
3. In the Image Properties box you will need to specify a URL for the image: Click on the Browse Server button and Sakai will list all the courses you are teaching.
4. Choose the course in which you are creating the test and navigate in the Resources folder to the location of the image.
5. Select the image file, adjust the sizing, and click on OK.

Q. I want to import Articulate lectures from some of the lessons I used last semester. I do not want to import all materials, just some of the narrated lectures. How can I do this?

A. You can copy individual items or folders from one course to another; in the case of Articulate, you will have a folder with the appropriate files and will need to copy the whole folder.

To copy Articulate files from Resources in one course to Resources in another, follow instructions in Editing Resources and select the entire Articulate folder. Note that to copy your folder to other sites, you will need to scroll down the page and click on Show other sites – your other courses are listed here.

Or if you still have the Articulate .ZIP file in Resources, you can copy that file into Resources in your new course and use the Actions menu to”Expand  ZIP archive.” You will still need to link to the player.html file from a Lesson, or tell your students to go to Resources, expand the Articulate folder and click on player.html.

Q. I noticed that every forum post in my Sakai course is forwarded to my email. Is there a way to stop the forum discussions from going to my email?

A. You can control whether/how to receive emailed posts from Forums by following these steps.

1. From your site’s Tools menu, click Forums.
2. At the top, click Watch. You will see options for:
   - having an email sent whenever a new message is posted
   - having an email sent when a conversation you have contributed to receives a new message
   - no notification
3. Select your preferred option.
4. Click Save.

Q. Is it possible for either instructors or students to post pictures in the Blog entries in Sakai?

A. Yes, they can post pictures using the image icon in the text box menu. They have to choose a source location where the picture has already been uploaded. There are two ways to do this:

• Students can upload their pictures to the Resources tool in their My Workspaces and make the folder with the photos “publicly viewable” using the Edit Details link in the Actions menu. Then they can use the Link option in the blog’s text box menu and “Browse server” to browse to their My Workspace > Resources and the appropriate folder, and pick the photo from that source. If they don’t make the folder with the photo(s) “publicly viewable” then no one else will be able to view the photos.
• You could create a folder in Resources giving students permission to upload files to that folder only. They could upload the photos and then link to them in the blog from that Resources folder.

Q. I am trying to change some settings in the Gradebook and I cannot do so unless the grades are released to the students. But I do not want to release grades right now – I want to make changes to the Gradebook first. How can I do that?

A. The quickest way to hide grades until you are ready to release them is to hide the entire Gradebook.

To hide the entire Gradebook, go to Site Info in your course menu, choose Edit Tools, click on the Light Bulb icon to the right of the Gradebook (it will turn grey), and click on Save Changes.

Q. How do I invite somebody that is not affiliated with Loyola into an Adobe Connect meeting in Sakai?

A. To invite a guest who is not affiliated with Loyola, open the meeting and click Meeting > Manage Access and Entry > Invite Participants. You will see the URL for the meeting there and have the option to bring up your email and send the URL directly to your guest. That email will have a link she should use to prepare her computer for the meeting.

When she clicks on the URL, she should log in as “guest” and enter her name. At that point, you will see a little black rectangle in the lower right corner of your screen, saying she would like to join the meeting – you will just click on Accept.

Q. I issued several tests in Sakai, and a few students did not complete the work before the due date. I would like to record their grade as zero – how can I do that?

A. Follow these steps to adjust a test score:

1. Click on the Tests & Quizzes link in the left tool list.
2. Click on the Published Copies tab.
3. Drop down the Select Actions list for the test and select “Scores.”
4. Find the student whose score you want to adjust and enter in the Adjustments box a negative value that will bring the score to 0;  for example, if the score is showing as 60, type -60 in the Adjustments box.
5. Scroll down and click the Update button at the bottom of the page. You should see the student’s Final Score (last column on that page) change to 0.

Q. How do I delete a slide in a VoiceThread?

A. Follow these steps to delete a VoiceThread slide:

1. Log into your course in Sakai.
2. Click on the VoiceThread tool link.
3. Click on the VoiceThread with the slide you want to delete.
4. Click “menu” in the upper left corner of the VoiceThread and select Edit.
5. Click on the slide you want to delete.
6. Click the little trashcan icon in the lower right corner on the image under the Upload, Comment, and Share buttons.
7. Click “yes” to delete the slide.

Follow these steps to delete an entire VoiceThread:

1. Log into your course in Sakai.
2. Click on the VoiceThread tool link.
3. Scroll down and click on the MyVoice link at the bottom right corner of the page.
4. Click on the the little gear icon (menu) in the lower right-hand corner for the VoiceThread you want to delete.
5. Click the Delete button to confirm that you want to delete the VoiceThread.