About the Tool
The Duke LMS Data Transfer tool extracts course content from a Sakai site and transfers it into a Canvas site.
Background
During Duke’s LMS transition (Sakai to Canvas), our team was not satisfied with available commercial or open-source options in transferring data between platforms. As such Duke built the LMS Data Transfer tool to migrate content from Sakai to our new Canvas environment.
Limitations
Duke determined certain tools, settings and data were not appropriate for migration. This was due to certain tools, settings or data not having equivalent items between platforms, are primarily composed of student user data and/or are contextual to only the course they occurred in. As such not all content is eligible for migration with this tool. A full breakdown of what will and won’t be migrated can be found in our Migration Compass & Map guide.
Requirements
Sakai
- Full Sakai admin account
- Read-only database access
The migration tool makes use of Sakai API endpoints and MySQL database values. If your Sakai environment is hosted by a vendor, you may need to request read-only access to the database. Certain database queries are written in mySQL for a Sakai v21 environment. You may adjust or replace these queries if you are running a different version of Sakai or non-mySQL database.
Canvas
- Full Canvas admin account
Data extracted from Sakai will be inserted into Canvas sites via Canvas API endpoints.
Getting Access
Currently the tool’s code is stored in a Duke Gitlab project. For schools and universities interested in reviewing the code and potentially using it for their LMS transition, Duke can provide access to code at no cost. Yes, it really is free! Interested institutions can have their LMS admins email canvas@duke.edu to request access.
Users / Collaborators
- Pomona College
- Pitzer College
- University of Dayton
- Pepperdine