Future of Sakai @St. Lawrence

Good afternoon,

I’d like to take a moment to update campus about our new Learning Management System planning/discussions shared earlier this academic year.  Senior staff has approved the costs associated with adopting and transitioning to a new LMS.  To ensure the transition process is as smooth as possible, Sakai will remain available in parallel during Fall 2022, but only the new LMS in Spring 2023.  Please visit this web page for the timeline, ongoing updates and detail on the evaluation and adoption process.

Thank you to the Educational Technologies Committee (ETC), Faculty Development and EdTech staff for their efforts the last year evaluating the landscape of LMS options and identifying two leading contenders: Brightspace by Desire 2 Learn (D2L) and Canvas by Infrastructure.

Sakai has served St. Lawrence well since it replaced ANGEL in 2011.  At this point, nearly 99% of our faculty use Sakai to manage their courses.  Many faculty responded to the pandemic and the pedagogical challenges by broadening and deepening how they’ve leveraged the platform.  Sakai is a community-sourced platform, and that community has been shrinking in recent years to the point where development and support is lagging.  Even more significantly, Sakai is not an integration priority for many third-party platforms used by our faculty.  

I am sure it is a relief to not move to a different LMS this summer or next academic year! No matter the time, our IT team will be with you all every step of the way!  Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you have questions.

Smiles and laughter,
R
René M. Thatcher
Executive Director of Services and Outreach
Information Technology
St. Lawrence University
Pronouns: She, her, hers
WOO & Includer