Sakai for 2019 was released on Thursday, March 21, 2019, with many new features and upgrades developed in direct response to faculty and student needs. Sakai for 2019, released exactly one year since Sakai’s last major version, delivers on the Sakai Community’s commitment to innovative support for teaching and learning.
Most notable in this release is the introduction of native, flexible grading rubrics. Faculty can easily create rubrics for use in Assignments, Tests & Quizzes, Forums, and the Gradebook. This is a huge step forward for Sakai, and it eliminates the need for third party rubric services that are in use by many clients. Further enhancements to rubrics are planned for release in 2020.
Here are some other improvements that are part of Sakai for 2019.
In Assignments: New options for reminder emails to students; user interface improvements for selecting groups and sections.
In Gradebook: Grading workflow improvements; grading analytics and visualizations; improved import from Gradebook Classic.
In Roster: New layout cards.
In Tests & Quizzes: Simplified, more responsive landing page interface; user interface improvements for selecting groups and sections.
For more information about what’s new in Sakai for 2019, please view the release notes.
Big thanks to Longsight’s Earle Nietzel, who served as the release manager for this major release; Duke University’s Jolie Tingen, who led the all-important QA efforts; and Wilma Hodges, our Community Coordinator who provided so much of the thought leadership behind this release. Of course, because Sakai is a community effort, there were lots and lots of people who contributed in so many ways. This truly has been a group effort of which the entire community can be proud.