SmartSite

SmartSite is the new UC Davis collaboration and course management system powered by Sakai, an open-source software initiative originating at the University of Indiana and the University of Michigan. Now over 100 institutions of higher education are participating. SmartSite was extensively rolled out in Fall 2007 after a testing period during winter, spring and summer of 2006. It promises to be simpler and more powerful than the course management tools within the previous MyUCDavis system.

• More detailed information on Sakai can be found at SakaiProject.org.
  

• To learn more about SmartSite, see The SmartSite Web Site

SmartSite will eventually replace the more limited set of course management tools now available in the MyUCDavis portal (e.g., GradeBook and QuizBuilder), but for the first two years or so, both systems will be offered in tandem.

SmartSite was recently featured in IT Times Summer 2006, as well as Hypertext Summer 2006

SmartSite provides students, instructors, staff, and researchers with two distinct types of sites, "Class Sites" and "Project Sites." Anyone affiliated with the campus, including faculty, staff, and students, can establish a project site.

• Class Sites: Instructors can use class sites to distribute documents and assignments, create wikis for student group projects, keep track of courses, host discussion boards, etc. Course SmartSites are now populated with information from the BANNER Student Information System

• Project Sites: Students, instructors, staff, and researchers can use project sites to collaborate on group projects, organize dissertations, share files, form social networks, plan events, etc.

• Announcements
  

• Assignments
  

• Chat Room
  

• Discussion Board
  

• Drop Box
  

• E-mail Archive
  

• Modules
  

• News
  

• Project Sites
  

• Resources
  

• Schedule/Calendar
  

• Syllabus
  

• Web Content
  

• Wiki
  

• Gradebook
  

• Quiz Builder

Comments:

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2007-06-19 16:50:11   Anyone have any opinions on SmartSite, either from the professor perspective or the student perspective, as compared to MyUCDavis or in general? —CovertProfessor

2007-06-19 17:02:26   Seems like a much cleaner interface so far. Myucdavis has an issue with clutter, that hasn't strucken me as as much of an issue with SmartSite so far. —JoseBleckman

2007-07-06 21:59:11   I've used Smartsite once as a TA, twice as a prof, and a lab I'm in uses it to share and communicate. It is infinitely better than myucdavis. In particular, it loads quickly, has a good user interface, and has lots of options to explore. The one thing it needs is some personalized preferences. For instance, the grade sheets, by default, list only the first 20 people, and you have to click "show all" every frigging time you access a page. The chat room feature is nice because students can ask quick questions to each other rather than clogging your inbox. The wiki is a great place to answer student questions, and to edit your answers when you realize you forgot something. You can even reuse answers from the last time you taught a class. However, you really need to goad students to contribute to it, and frankly, students have better things to do. I had a 60 person class, and told them that if students contributed 50 questions on the wiki, I'd use a few on the exam. I think we got about 15. Oh, make sure not to overuse it— students won't come to class if you spoil them with electronic copies of assignments, notes, etc. —CraigBrozinsky

• Thanks for your comments — they are very helpful. I agree with you about not spoiling the students with too much info that they should be getting in class (although I tend to provide assignments electronically, but not notes), and it sounds like you are making good use of the other features. You said your lab uses it to share and communicate — have you tried co-writing with it, and if so, did that work out for you? —CovertProfessor
  

• To avoid spoiling students, SmartSite allows you to time the window of availability for content you post. For instance, you could post study notes and handouts that become available at the beginning of each week, and then disappear on Friday evening. This strategy strikes me as a bit overzealous, but it it a middle ground between requiring students to get materials in-class only versus allowing them to download it all and cram the night before the final.
  

2007-07-06 22:26:18   The first thing that stood out to me is the use of frames. Come on, it's 2007. Frames have been considered bad UI for a while now. —CharlesMcLaughlin

2008-06-20 12:24:12   Many settings in SmartSite must be set for each individual student - a very time consuming process when you have a large number of students. It also doesn't seem to provide statistics like my.ucdavis does. Also, it can be very difficult to find specific files, given the way that it is organized. This was a common complaint of students. —IDoNotExist

2008-06-20 12:58:41   The chat room function is a joke. You have to reload the page to check for new messages. Everything is logged, but you can only view either the entire log or just the past 3 days. Each class is cluttered with a bunch of links that often go unused, such as "Drop Box," or redundant links like "section info" and "site info." Gradebook has no statistics, and the main bar of classes doesn't display all current courses. These are just a few of the problems with the site. Overall, SmartSite uses a train wreck of a UI to offer little more than MyUCDavis. This might have been cool in 1990, but in 2008, there's no excuse. Somebody please hire some web 2.0 hotshots to fix this mess. —JonathanLawton

2008-06-20 13:00:58   My only complaint is that the gradebook feature of smartsite does not allowstudents to see data on averages, standard deviations, etc., etc. Since a good deal of classes are curved, some quite heavily, this information can be very important. —JoePomidor

2008-06-21 01:12:42   The interface is horribly inconsistent, and is a navigation nightmare. —IDoNotExist