UF will begin the gradual process of switching from Sakai to the new course management system Canvas this summer.
UF Information Technology announced last week that the transition is scheduled to be complete by Summer 2016.
However, UF may be sacrificing a few things in the switch, said Douglas Johnson, the assistant director for learning services at UFIT.
Students who were annoyed with the Sakai’s two separate grading tabs can breathe easy, Canvas will only have one. But because Sakai is open-source software and Canvas is not entirely open-source, UF will have to go through the course management company to fix any bugs. The company can choose to make these changes based on its business needs.
“This is a huge experiment to see what Canvas brings out,” Johnson said, “but many people are convinced the benefits of Canvas will outweigh the benefits of Sakai.”
Bahar Pourshariati, a 21-year-old recent UF psychology alumna, said that it’s tough to know if Canvas will be better than Sakai.
“They are constantly trying to improve their technology and stay on top of the trends,” Pourshariati said, “but newer isn’t always better.
[A version of this story ran on page 1 on 5/29/2014 under the headline "UF Information Technology to fully replace Sakai with Canvas"]
