Migrating from Sakai*
NOTE: The LMS Transition Team and OIT will migrate your Sakai content for you. To receive assistance, contact them by completing the form at https://sites.nd.edu/lmstransition/contact-us/.
If you have a Sakai course and prefer to move or migrate it to Canvas on your own, use the following procedure. Keep in mind that this is not perfect, Sakai and Canvas do not have the same features, and you will need to make several revisions once everything is copied over to Canvas. Pay particular attention to the “Problems” noted below.
The transfer of material may be less than satisfactory. For a complex or very interactive course site, you may be better served by skipping it and starting from scratch in Canvas to better leverage the Canvas tools. For instance, despite the extra work you may greatly prefer to copy and paste your content from Sakai into the Canvas “Pages” area. At most, the automated transfer of material from Sakai to Canvas is just a time-saver to get you started.
There are three methods you may use:
Entire Site will copy almost everything from your Sakai site to Canvas, including resources, assignments, quiz questions, lessons, etc.
Resources Only copies only the files in the Sakai Resources section.
Manual transfer (copy and paste content or download and upload individual files).
To Copy an Entire Sakai Site to Canvas
This will copy Resources, Assignments, Discussion topics, Quiz questions, Lessons pages, etc.
Step 1: Export your course from Sakai
If your course does not have a “Lessons” tool, start by adding “Lessons” to your site (go to “Site Info” --> “Add Tools” and check “Lessons” then click “Continue”).
Go to the “Lessons” tool in your Sakai site (note that you may have renamed the “Lessons” tool to something else, that won't matter as long as you can find it).
Click “More Tools”.
Choose “Export CC”.
Select the “Use newest version (1.3) Better for Canvas” option.
Optionally choose to add your question pools (this will include all the questions that you have added to “Pools” from all your courses)
Wait. The process may take some time, especially for large course sites.
Look in your “Downloads” folder on your own computer, you should see a file named something like “Sakai-export.imscc”
Step 2: Import your course into Canvas
In Canvas, go to your course and click “Settings”
Click “Import Content into this course” (in the right-hand column of options)
For “Content Type”, choose “Common Cartridge 1.x Package”
Choose the file that you exported from the Sakai lessons tool, it should have a name similar to “Sakai-export.imscc”
Click “Select Question Bank” and either create a new question bank, or choose an existing one (this is where Canvas will store quiz questions from Sakai “Pools”)
Click either “All Content” or “Select specific content” depending on whether you want to import everything or pick and choose.
You may click the option to “Adjust Events and due dates” if you like. This will attempt to automatically shift dates, but it may not work satisfactorily.
Click “Import”
Wait. This may take a long time depending on the size of your course and how many files.
Under “Current Jobs” canvas will either indicate “Completed” or “Waiting for Select” (depending on whether you chose to import all content or select specific content).
If you see “Waiting for Select” click “Select Content”, then place check marks next to the items you want to import.
If you see “Completed” Canvas may also show an “Issues” link. You can click “Issues” to see what problems Canvas ran into.
Once Canvas indicates the “Common Cartridge” job is “Completed” you can now go to the individual areas of Canvas to make final adjustments and changes.
Be sure to review the list of potential problems and things to check, below. You may want to continue with the instructions in the next section to make sure you include all your Resources.
To Copy Only Sakai Resources to Canvas Files
Use this method if you only want to copy the files in the “Resources” section of Sakai into Canvas and skip everything else (however some resources - specifically web links and citation lists - will not transfer since these are not real files). You can also do this as a final step in the above process - the “entire site” method above may miss some resources and doing this will guarantee that all your resource files come across.
Step 1: Export resources from Sakai
Go to the “Resources” tool in your Sakai site.
The top item in the list of resources will have the name of your site. Click the “Actions” menu to the right of that top item.
Select “Compress to Zip Archive”
Wait. This may take a while depending on how many resources you have and how large they are.
Eventually you will see a new resource with a long name that is a random series of letters and numbers (it's actually your Sakai SiteID)
Click directly on the name of the new file.
Check the “Downloads” folder on your own computer, you should now have a copy of the file.
Step 2: Import the files in Canvas
Click “Files” in Canvas
Click “Upload” (in the upper-right corner)
Choose the “zip” file that you downloaded from Sakai Resources (it should have a long name of random numbers and letters).
Choose to “Expand it” when Canvas asks what to do.
Wait. This may take a while, depending on the number and size of the files.
When done, you'll see all your files in Canvas, minus any web links.
Problems and Things to Check
If you renamed resources in Sakai, they will revert to the original names. You need to rename the files again in Canvas.
If you copy the entire site, Sakai may fail to include some Resources when exporting. You may need to upload individual files or follow the instructions for copying resources from Sakai.
Canvas does not allow you to re-order files, they will always be in alphabetical order. You need to use either the Pages or Modules tool to control the display order.
Canvas does not allow you to edit “Files” in place (you can download and edit them off-line, then upload again). The ability to edit in Canvas is in the “Pages” tool, but all material that is copied from Sakai will be placed in “Files” where it cannot be edited.
You will need to check the individual items in Canvas to make sure the dates are appropriate (do this even if you chose to “shift dates” - many dates simply will not come through the transition).
The Sakai “Syllabus” tool will not copy over to Canvas (this only applies to the tool, i.e., many faculty add a syllabus file to the resources tool, and that will copy correctly). If needed, you can click the “Print View” in the Sakai Syllabus tool, then copy and paste the text into the Canvas “Pages” tool.
Certain types of Sakai Resources will not copy over (web links, citation lists). You will need to recreate these in Canvas.
Sakai Lessons and Canvas Modules are not exactly comparable. Lessons will be converted into a series of links in Canvas Modules, and the content itself will end up in the Canvas Files (in a folder name “attachments”). To create an experience that is more similar to Sakai Lessons, you may want to copy your content into Canvas “Pages”.
Sakai discussion forums must have an added topic. Forums with no topics will not copy into Canvas.
The Canvas “Files” section may still be invisible to students (it will be light gray). If this happens, go to Canvas Settings, click “Navigation” then click the menu next to “Files” and choose “Enable”. You may also need to drag the “Files” item into the upper box (out of the “hidden from students” section).
If you copy question pools and your questions have images or attached files, you will need to re-attach those images or files again in Canvas.
*This page was adapted from Rutgers University at https://ctaar.rutgers.edu/technology/sakaiToCanvas.html
Need Assistance?
If you would like assistance with this process or general advice on using Canvas for teaching your course you can contact CSLC Instructional Designer mhogan22@nd.edu, or for technical assistance contact oithelp@nd.edu.