Skip to main content

Synchronize Sakai content with an Android device


The Sakai CLE offers a WebDAV service to connect from your computer to the contents of a Sakai site as if they were folders in your computer. Normally all WebDAV clients can edit directly files and folders.
  
Today, mobile devices like smartphones, tablets or ultrabooks allow us to work directly with these files everywhere, although working always on-line maybe is not the best. We must keep in mind that it's easy to lose the network connection so will make it impossible to work on these documents. You must look for a tool that allows you to work directly with documents in your device and synchronize with the server to avoid having to download, edit and reload the document manually each time.
 
There is a free tool called WebDAV File Manager for Android, developed by Shigadroid, that allows to work with WebDAV services letting you to synchronize with a folder of your mobile device.
 
On this post, I will explain how to set it up in order to access and synchronize content of a Sakai site.

First of all, install the app in your device. You can find it at Google Play Store. Once installed, open the app and press the Android menu button. Now, press 'Server Add'.
 

 
Type a server name (you can choose whatever you want), the "http/s" URL where the content is offered (Sakai offers the content under  'https://yoursakaiserverdomain.com/dav/your-site-id/), and finally provide your Sakai username and password. Press 'Registration'.
 
 
If you don't know the WebDAV URL of your site, then log in to your Sakai, go to the site and select the 'Resources' tool. Now, press the 'Upload-Download Multiple Resources' button.
 
 
Now, you can access to the content through the app, but it's not linked to a device folder yet. To do that, you must go to the main app screen and hold pressed the item you just created. A pop-up menu will appear. Press on 'Sync Setting' option. Fill the second text input field with the device folder path you want to synchronize with. (The folder must already exist). Use a file manager app like Explorer ES or File Manager , to create the folder.
 
 

Check the 'Download Sync (Preferred server)' option if you want to get the existing site content and then Press 'Synchronous starting' button.
If you go to the path using the file manager app, you will find all the contents of your site there, and you will be able to edit and save them locally. Now, you can synchronize from server to device, and from device to server opening the main menu and pressing 'Sync' button.
You can also automate the sync process pressing 'Setting' on the main screen menu. Check the option 'Background synchronization' and set the sync interval period pressing 'Synchronization interval' option.





You can do that process for each site you want. Just keep in mind that synchronization interval is applied to all folders you set up.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Connecting Sakai to Wordpress

LMS platforms have fairly long been consolidated at universities as on-line learning support tools. For a long time they were exposed to disappear because of the low level of interoperability to third-party services they offered. Finally, as a result of that need together with the mobility nature of teachers and students between institutions (and consequently on its LMS), interoperability mechanisms were implemented to bring the required tools to their users. Tool interoperability allows to connect remote tools inside LMS environment, keeping them contextualized by the courses or activities from they are called. There were some attempts like IMS-TI (IMS Tool Interoperability) or Campus Project, but it was not until the emergence of IMS LTI   1.0 (IMS Learning Tool Interoperability) that TI technology became more popular.   Nowadays, you can find several examples of LMS that implement IMS LTI  like Angel, Moodle, BlackBoard, D2L, etc. M any of these LMS, i...
8 comments
Read more

AI and the Economics of Legacy Software

A few weeks ago, I started thinking about a software project that I had almost completely forgotten. In 2013, Juanjo Meroño and I built LooWID, an open source video conferencing platform based on WebRTC. Some time later, Edu Rey joined us to help with the UI, giving the project an important qualitative leap in its user experience and making the product feel much more complete. We developed it for several years, adapting it to the rapidly changing browser and WebRTC ecosystem, until around 2018–2019 we eventually stopped maintaining it.The code remained public. The product remained there. But the technology around it moved on. Years later, I wondered what would happen if we tried to bring it back—not by trying to make the old application run again, but by asking AI to help us rebuild the product. The original project is still available on GitHub , and the result of the experiment is LooWID Remastered . From legacy code to a working product I used OpenCode as the main development agent. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Two Decades of Sakai at UdL: Thoughs, Challenges, and the Road Ahead

It’s been a long time since I last wrote an article, but the recent gathering with fellow members of the Spanish Sakai community inspired me to share a few thoughts on our years of using Sakai at the University of Lleida (UdL) and its future. Two Decades of Sakai at UdL: A Commitment to Innovation Since September 13, 2004, the University of Lleida (UdL) has maintained a strong relationship with the Sakai platform. Over the past 20 years, UdL has focused on advancing ICT support for teaching and learning. From its initial launch with an early version of Sakai (1.0rc2), the platform has been a key tool in meeting the university’s educational needs. UdL chose Sakai to replace WebCT, opting for an open-source solution that aligned with its commitment to free software at the time. In the early years, UdL played an active role in developing Sakai. A notable contribution was the internationalization of the platform, making it easy to translate without modifying the source code. This effort he...
Post a Comment
Read more