ARE YOU READY TO “MOODLE”?
I like this review of Moodle. Brandl touches upon a number of the reasons that I like the system. Not only is it open source, it is somewhat easy to install and manage on the admin side and it is easy to learn and use on the instrutor/student side.
I have used it for 3 classes now (one fully in Moodle and 2 using the Moodle Wiki). I have only had one problem with it over the last year and that was really an issue with my hosting service. They updated to a new version of PHP that made my installation of Moodle barf (technical term 🙂 All I had to do was spend about an hour in the Moodle discussion forums and I had everything fixed and ready to go. Gotta love that community.
Indiana Univesity is current using Sakai 2.0 as the basis for its OncourseCL CMS. This system has improved greatly in the last year and I’m sure it will continue to improve in the future. That is not the point, however.
The point is that this system is FAR inferior to Moodle with a vastly bloated administration and development team. It is confusing to use as both an instructor and student. It puts far too much control in the hands of administrators and much too little control in the hands of instructors and students. The model is short-sighted and doomed to failure.
I was once told that anything could be added/fixed in OncourseCL. All I had to do was contact a developer in Michigan who would determine whether it was worthy or not. If it was determined to be worthy, it would be put in a que and addressed in due time. At that pace, I’ll be collecting Social Security before my issues are addressed.
Oops, a posting on Moodle became a rant against OncourseCL…go figure 🙂