How can I prepare for the Sakai upgrade?

What to Expect with the Sakai Upgrade

Sakai at PLU will be upgraded from version 23 to version 25 on Saturday, August 22, 2026. Almost all content and tools now in Sakai 23 should transition seamlessly with the upgrade to Sakai 25.¹ However, instructors should expect differences in Sakai’s user interface and anticipate new features. More information about these changes are available in the document, What are significant new features in Sakai 25? Furthermore, instructors are encouraged to proactively preview what their Sakai course content will look like in Sakai 23 as described below.

“Preparing for Sakai 25” Webinars

Instructors can register for one of three “Preparing for Sakai 25” webinar offerings in Spring 2026: April 29, May 7, or May 12.

After the Sakai upgrade and before the start of fall classes, we also plan on scheduling a similar workshop on Google Meet during the pre-conference workshops to be titled “What’s New in Sakai?”

Preview Sakai 25 with Sakai Demo

To help smooth this transition to Sakai 25, the PLU Sakai Support Team (sakai@plu.edu) has provided instructors with access to a sandbox instance of Sakai called Sakai Demo (https://sakai-demo.plu.edu). Sakai Demo is an instance of Sakai, running a version of Sakai 25 that is under development. Sakai Demo is completely separate from PLU’s primary instance of Sakai (https://sakai.plu.edu) and is intended for testing and demonstration purposes only.² The objectives that Sakai Demo aims to meet are:

1. Enable instructors to preview Sakai 25 features prior to the upgrade of Sakai. Instructors will have the means to preview what their current course sites in Sakai would look like in Sakai 25. To do this instructors can submit requests through the Preview Course in Sakai 25 form. This form will copy most of the existing course content for a given course site to Sakai Demo for previewing and other testing purposes. The limits to this copying process and other details are described in What should I know about the “Preview Course in Sakai 25” copy process? Alternatively, instructors can create blank course sites in Sakai Demo by using a Request Course form specific to Sakai Demo.

2. Identify and resolve significant bugs before the planned upgrade. As instructors encounter bugs or other support issues on Sakai Demo, they are strongly encouraged to notify the Sakai Support Team (sakai@plu.edu), so that these issues might be identified and resolved prior to the planned upgrade in August. As bug fixes are made ready, the Sakai Support Team will release them on Sakai Demo, which will be briefly out of service each night in order to incorporate such updates.

See also What should I know about the "Preview Course in Sakai 25" copy process?

1. The rarely used News tool is decommissioned in Sakai 25. For details regarding Profile data, refer to the Profile section in What are significant new features in Sakai 25? 

2. Sakai Demo and all its course sites and project sites should be treated by faculty and staff solely as a sandbox for experimentation. In other words, no face-to-face, online, or blended courses will be supported on Sakai Demo. Please be aware that any content copied to or created on Sakai Demo will not be transferred back to PLU’s primary instance of Sakai: https://sakai.plu.edu.

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Need support? Contact sakai@plu.edu.