Quick Start for Students and other Site Members

NOTE: The "back" button or icon doesn't always work in Sakai. Please use the items in the left margin, and the tabs, to move around in Sakai.

Sakai is organized into sites. A site is a collection of information and communications tools intended for a specific set of people. Sites are often used for courses or sections of courses, for departments, or for project teams.

There are three ways to become a member of a site:

• The site owner can add you to the site.
• Faculty can set up a site based on course membership.
• The site owner can set up a site so that you can join it.

Your Personal Workspace

In addition to sites, every user has a personal Workspace , selected by the "My Workspace" tab. This contains

• A Profile, which lets you make information about yourself available to other users of the Sakai system, and look at other users' information.
• Membership, which shows you the sites in which you are currently a member, and lets you join sites whose owner have set them up to permit you to join them.
• Schedule, which summarizes schedules from the sites in which you are a member, and also lets you add your own appointments, events, etc.
• Resources, which lets you keep documents, web pages, and other information, and share them with others.
• Announcements, which summarizes announcements from the sites in which you are a member.
• Worksite setup, which lets you create your own sites. See Quick Start for Faculty and other Content Authors for more information about creating sites.
• Preferences, which lets you choose how you want to be notified in various circumstances, and also lets you customize the tabs.
• Account, which lets you change your name and email address (only for guests).

Using Sakai

Once you have logged in, you will see a tab near the top of the screen for each site in which you are a member.

To use a site, click on its tab. Initially, this will take you to the home page of the site. Certain information such as recent announcements will be summarized there.

Once you are in the site, the left margin will link you to all of the content and tools in the site.

For more information about the tools, see the built in help system. Many sites will have a "Help" link in the left margin. In addition, there is a help icon (a question mark) at the upper right of most windows in Sakai.

If a tab doesn't show up when you think it should

Sometimes you think you should be a site member, but a tab for that site doesn't show up.

First, see if there's a pull-down menu at the right end of the tabs labeled "My Active Sites-". This is used if there are too many tabs to fit on the page. Pull down the menu to find the additional sites. You can also rearrange the order of your tabs through the Preferences tool in My Workspace

If you still do not find the tab

• For many sites, the site owner adds members manually. Make sure that the site owner knows your NetID (if you are a Rutgers faculty, staff or student) or your Guest ID.
• If the site is setup so that members join it,choose "My Workspace", then "Membership", then "Joinable Sites".

If the site is set to add all members of a course automatically, make sure that University records show you as a member of the course. If you are not properly registered, you won't be in the site. When you register for a course, Sakai doesn't find out until the next morning. If you are deregistered, you will disappear from all Sakai sites that add members automatically.

Note that faculty can add you to a site manually, if the automatic method doesn't work. Please contact your faculty member.