Absorb LMS aims to empower organizations to train employees with the skills needed to stay modern and relevant in today's fast-paced world. The LMS software focuses on aligning learning needs with business demands.
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Moodle
Score 7.8 out of 10
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Moodle is an open source learning management system with hundreds of millions of users around the globe and translated into over 100 languages, used by organizations to support their education and training needs.
We were very disappointed with D2L and Workday's ability to customize what or how content is shown to users. The platforms can be robust but the onboarding time for new administrators is much longer than Absorb. Workday's current offering (2023) for external learners is …
Absorb LMS did the best job at meeting our overall list of requirements for a LMS. It was also the top contender when it came to a customer service plan and how the support worked. Absorb was a more affordable option that many of the other apps we evaluated.
Absorb is a great LMS for most applications. It was fairly easy to learn to configure and looks very professional. Our employees adopted the system fairly quickly and we had mostly positive feedback. The base Absorb platform provides basic reporting, so if you are going to need more customized reporting, then you will need to purchase the additional module for Absorb Analyze. The Manager Experience is still evolving, and managers may want to have more ability to do things in this part of the system than what is currently available. There is a connector that can be purchased from ADP to connect it with Absorb's LMS, although our company chose to develop our own API connector. We are currently using third-party course authoring software. The Absorb Amplify courses are good if you want to add immediate content to the system, although the courses are very basic.
Moodle is great for any environment where a class or other learning activity needs to be completed in an asynchronous manner. It can be used to post information, create interactive threads for discussion, issue quiz and exam work with grading, track and grade progress, and keep track of attendance. It is an overall wonderful solution for managing asynchronous learning.
Usability - Both the User and Admin Experience is so simple and intuitive. The admin tools are clearly defined and laid out, yet the functionality makes it still powerful.
Integration - We used the Scheduled Data Imports and Exports to connect with our HRIS tool. After the initial configuration, it has worked reliably and gives me all the custom data I need to make assignments and reporting a breeze.
Design - I know it's covered a little bit in the Usability above, but the site just looks fantastic. There are a lot of options to customize and fit your branding requirements and all of the thumbnails/posters/billboards/etc give a very visual and appealing look to the LMS. Much better than I've seen in other products.
At the moment you are unable to schedule recurring sessions that are different durations and/or cadence to each other. For e.g. if you have 3 ILC sessions and the time between session 1 and 2 is 1 week but 2 and 3 is 2 weeks, then this can't be recurring. Meaning individual ILC sessions need to be set up and users having to enroll in 3 sessions instead of 1.
Auto enrolment for ILC sessions would be great. Would allow us to automatically new employees in to the required onboarding training without us having to do a manual file upload via FTP
Custom messaging options. In addition to the messages that can already be sent out, it would be great if custom messaging could be sent out to address a certain subject that is not covered in the existing messaging.
The option to send out resources at certain intervals after a training has taken place. We send out learning boosters for our programmes at 2 day, 2 week, 2 month intervals. This is a manual task as there is no way to automate this via Absorb.
The interface is not very intuitive. You must know what you are looking for in order to navigate effectively.
Although installation of Moodle is easy, it is a little more difficult to configure it with your other Learning tools. As an example, LDAP synchronization is a little difficult.
The interface is a little dated, even though new releases keep coming out (which is great!) none of them really add value to the appearance of the platform.
We have no plans to move away from Absorb at this time. It has all of the functionality we are looking for in a learning management system and we have a lot of info stored in our LMS system for trainings including all of our current and past employee transcripts. It is also getting easier to manager with being able to connect the LMS to ADP to update employee reporting/department/location/etc. We don't have a need or reason to move away from Absorb at this time.
We use it because it is what have committed to back in 2011. Perhaps Moodle will evolve and advance in a positive way that will alleviate most of our user-based gripes? Perhaps it will not appear to be as cost effective given the need for a certain level of engineering and support staff to maintain it at a future level of sustainability? It's hard to say. As an enterprise scale critical application, we like it, but don't love it. Our instructors don't particularly like it at all.
Moodle can be used on a tablet, on a mobile phone, and on a PC. It is easy to navigate for learners and figure out for administrators. The learners can easily complete tasks and the administrators can easily track completion. The last thing about Moodle that one may not realize is that it somewhat resembles Facebook in its layout. This means that users are already familiar with the interface and therefore they are more comfortable using it.
Yes, Moodle is always available. We are self-hosted and Moodle is always up and available. The only time that it is not available is when we are upgrading it each semester. It is then down for just a few planned hours. That is in-between semesters and we let the faculty and students know. We do it on a Friday evening and it is back up within a few hours.
Moodle is an excellent LMS in relationship to any other one that I have seen or used. The pages load quickly and the reports complete in a reasonable time frame. Moodle has taken on Respondus, StudyMate, BigBlueButton, Turning Tech, Turnitin2, Certificates, Attendance, Tegrity, Questionnaire, Virtual Programming Lab, and Badges. All of these programs work right in with Moodle and do not cause any issues. Instructors may also use Camtasia and Snagit software as well as using webcams, downloading videos from the Internet, adding into books, or any of the many other areas within Moodle. Our instructors use the grade books without many problems and really don't ask questions much anymore. We upgrade Moodle every semester and are currently on 2.9+. Our instructors have basically learned to use most of the resources and activities.
We cannot speak highly enough for the Elite Support service. Having a dedicated partner to help us through multiple projects, multiple upgrades, and multiple custom configurations has been absolutely key. Our CSM really has been like an extra team member and we know we can rely on him for anything we need. His product expertise and friendly professionalism is unrivaled!
Moodle is open source, and must be evaluated in that context, but one also has to provide a fair comparison to competing products with commercial backing. Support varies depending on the component of Moodle. Bug reports in Moodle Core that affect security or stability are dealt with promptly. Functionality requests or features not working smoothly may or may not be addressed, depending on whether the functionality desired matches the "vision" of Moodle HQ. The user community provides excellent support for initial installation and configuration, but more complex questions may go unanswered, unless they are noticed by someone who happens to know the answer. The support forum feature at the Moodle site (the same feature used within Moodle itself) does not provide granular subscription to topic discussions, apparently by design, and Moodle HQ seems resistant to changing this feature.
Find a partner who will work with you during the implementation process. Be sure to provide ample training for veteran users on the changes and for newbies on the overall product.
We were very disappointed with D2L and Workday's ability to customize what or how content is shown to users. The platforms can be robust but the onboarding time for new administrators is much longer than Absorb. Workday's current offering (2023) for external learners is unacceptable for our use case and much more manual then Absorb's solutions. Workday does not have the ability to create engaging content or notifications to the user and the UI is pulled directly from the HCM with very little flexibility between the modules on look, feel or layout. While Thinkific was good for external users and monetization, it also lacked flexibility for multiple different demographics. EdApp while having a good mobile presence and quick turnaround for course creation, it's offerings for other engagement factors fell short of Absorb. Moodle can be a great LMS, but all of the features require you to plan and (potentially)code your requirements into the platform. This required time that we didn't have and to administrate the platform required additional personnel and resources for any changes we wanted to have after go live. We didn't have the time nor other organization resources available when launching so it couldn't be considered.
Blackboard has clear advantages in rubric management, and offers a content management system of its own. The largest barrier is cost for smaller or financially-disadvantaged organizations. However, as in any IT project, adequate resources must be made for even "free" software.
Well, I administer Moodle for a dozen of our divisions and there is a wide range of flexibility between offerings. I have course instructors who use every module i their course, chock full of videos, pictures, links to web tools for synchronous sessions within the asynchronous course. I also have others who are content with a syllabus, a few pdfs, links to podcast lectures and a few simple assignments. No matter if your organization is big or small, or if your requirements are strict for credentialing or non-existent (for internal know-how), Moodle can accommodate you.
After using the Absorb LMS system, we've seen a reduction in the number of employees reaching out for troubleshooting or help requests when taking the training.
We've seen an increase in departments storing webinars to be used for future training and storage of information.
While it certainly takes more time to develop an online training vs a face-to-face we can offer the same content over and over again and meet a larger audience. There's no way we could have offered these trainings face-to-face to the same size audience. Economically it's just not feasible. Moodle allows us to share multiple trainings on a variety of topics over extended periods of time in a cost effective way.
The impact on early interventionists is still being evaluated, but we do know that early interventionist now have more ways to access professional development than in the past. The ability to customize the registration page has allowed us to track which agencies in Virginia are having their staff participate and we can see which topics are favored above others.
Other LMS's were far too costly. Aside from the monthly hosting fees (less than $200 a year), and the time it took to do the initial install and setup, Moodle is free. Once it's setup the only elearning costs are related to the development and creation of each training and then the setup of training on Moodle. This allows us to devote more time and money to the development and creation of more courses vs. the management of the system.
Minimal tech support for the users is required and most requests are limited to lost/userid passwords. The course designer is able to manage tech support needs for the users because so few requests are received.
