Rutgers WebCT Transition

Moving from WebCT to Sakai

• If you have uploaded files or used online quizzes in WebCT:
  1. Use the WebCT to Sakai Conversion Tool at <http://sakai.rutgers.edu/webct.jsp>. Staff is available to do this for you if you prefer, see the instruction page for contact information.
  2. Log in at the link above, choose your course and wait for the tool to finish.
  3. The tool will copy all the files in WebCT to Sakai (including some you don't want), and copy the quiz database to Sakai.
  4. The tool will not copy links to WebCT tools (discussion, course packs, etc) or your WebCT organization.
  5. Proceed with the reorganization of your course materials as outlined below. At the very least you must delete files that students are not meant to see! Unlike WebCT, files in a Sakai site are all visible to students by default. You must also add your roster and "publish" the site (a simple step that allows students to see the site).
  6. Your original WebCT course remains active and unchanged on WebCT. You may continue to use it until August 7, 2007.
• If you used other tools in WebCT but not quizzes or file uploads, or if you prefer to start fresh in Sakai:
  1. Log in to Sakai at https://sakai.rutgers.edu/
  2. Click "Worksite Setup"
  3. Click "New" and follow the instructions on the page.

Since Sakai is fundamentally different from WebCT you will need to take some time to revise your course site after the migration. This will take anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours, depending on how much material you transfer from WebCT. For most people the following should take well under an hour:

• Choose which tools in Sakai (discussion, chat, etc.) you want to use (this will take 2-3 minutes). Click your course site tab, click "Site Info," then "Edit Tools" and choose the tools from the list.
• Click "Resources" to review the files that are transferred automatically. Some of the files transferred from WebCT will contain private student data, these need to be removed from the Sakai course site before you can allow students in to the course site. You can either delete these files or move them to the private "My Workspace" area in Sakai.
• Rearrange the course material, if desired. You can keep documents in "Resources" and rearrange the order or further organize into new folders. For a more structured presentation you can uploaded the "zip" file (provided for you during the migration from WebCT) into the "Modules" tool.
• If you used the WebCT quiz tool, all your questions will be in a Sakai "Question Pool". You need to create a new quiz and select the desired questions from the pool. Grading and presentation options differ between the two systems, so you should review the questions to make sure that the correct answer is indicated and has an appropriate number of points. "Short Answer" questions will not have a correct answer because of a flaw in WebCT, you must edit these in Sakai. Please contact sakai@badmail.rutgers.edu rutgers.edu for assistance with the "Tests & Quizzes" tool.
• Add your roster to the Sakai site (takes less than a minute, provided you have access to your rosters through REGIS). Click "Site Info" then "Manage Rosters".
• "Publish" the Sakai site so that students can access it (takes less than a minute). Click "Site Info" then "Manage Access".
• Please call the Center for Teaching Advancement and Assessment Research at 932-7466 if you want information on how to do something in Sakai that you used to do in WebCT. In most cases we can quickly provide you with the answer you need. General help for using Sakai is available by writing to sakai@replace.badmail.rutgers.edu with just rutgers.edu

Moving from WebCT to eCompanion

• Contact the Office of Continuous Education and Outreach to establish an eCompanion account and discuss the migration process and training.
• Within WebCT, do the following:
  1. Go to your course web page, and click "Control Panel"
  2. Click "Manage Course" then "Add Designer"
  3. Type in "wct_ecompanion" as the username and click "Add".
  4. This gives the eCollege corporate staff full access to your course, as if they are the instructors. They are bound by confidientiality agreements with Rutgers University, however if this is a problem for you you may want to give them access to a copy of the course site or delete the student information in the current site.
  5. If you have problems in WebCT, contact jpd@badmail.rutgers.edu replace badmail with ctaar.rutgers.edu for assistance.
• Inform Continous Education that you need the WebCT site copied to eCompanion, they will handle the rest.
• As with Sakai, eCompanion is different enough that you will need to spend some time reorganizing and revising your course site materials. This may take anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours, depending on the amount of material you have.

Why Discontinue WebCT?

The university had no choice. The WebCT corporation announced that they would discontinue development and support of "WebCT Campus Edition 4.1"; this is the version in use at Rutgers.

Their new product, "WebCT Vista," is not a simple replacement for WebCT 4.1, so moving to Vista would have been as much of a change as a move to any other competing product. Furthermore, WebCT merged with Blackboard Inc, in 2006 and announced that within two years they would have another new product that would itself succeed Vista and Blackboard's own system. Choosing either Vista or Blackboard at this point would likely have resulted in needing to move to a second new product within a few years. The 2006 budget cuts affected the decision as well.