Canvas vs. TalentLMS vs. Moodle

It is really well suited for school situations like knowing what [assignments] need to be done when, getting feedback, getting points, finding the slides that the teacher used for explaining an [assignment] or theory. I think It would be less suited in business situations because it's [primarily] made to be a [one-way] communication tool for schools. Businesses need more control on individual levels I think[.]

Incentivized

TalentLMS is user-friendly enough for someone new to LMS management can get a site up and running in a relatively quick manner. It is rather intuitive to operate. My needs have been a rather small scale of 400 learners and TalentLMS more than meets the need to produce a professional-looking and operational website to send customers and staff. The point here is that although I do not know how well it can be up-scaled, it certainly delivers for small to medium organizations to need to get content online

Incentivized

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.

• Creativity options for teachers to create a virtual space that still has fun graphics and accessibility options.
• Canvas has versatility in viewing options for assignment due dates such as the calendar built in feature as well as the dashboard options to display upcoming and due assignments.
• Allowing teachers to create community with each other and collaborate in each-other's space.
• Discussion platforms within classrooms for students to communicate with each-other and with their teachers.
• Easy messaging portal within each virtual classroom.

Incentivized

• Report creation and distribution
• Course creation, launch, and individual assignments
• End user friendly for people with little computer skills
• API integration with such platforms as ADP, Microsoft.

Incentivized

• Moodle's grade book works well. Assignments are integrated so the grades are recorded automatically.
• Moodle is customizable by administrators, so our version only gives us the options we need. NO Clutter.
• The discussion board offers several options for instructors that help with grading. I use "sum of points", but there are other options as well.

Incentivized

• Their integration with Big Blue Button was a bust for distance learning. Would be great to see them collaborate with Zoom or Google Meets.
• Their "feature request" process is slow and cumbersome at times because it relies on user "up votes" to get ideas addressed by the developers.
• They seem to have a lot of turn-over with their staff. We get a new Customer Success Manager far more frequently than with other vendors.

Incentivized

• Email notifications have arbitrary limits on what information can be included. For example, you cannot include the user password in any notification email regarding course enrollment, group enrollment, etc.
• Notification emails are not sent out in a reasonable time frame. Sometimes, it takes over 20 minutes for a new user to get their registration email.
• It would be nice to get reports in the base domain containing customer user fields from various branches.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

The other LMS tools have fallen behind. One reason is they are not able to update their systems, features, toolsets in a timely manner. While other LMS providers release bug fixes and new features several times a year, schools struggle to install and implement them in a timely manner. It is not uncommon for a school to take 6 months to a year to fully install and implement new releases on other LMS platforms. With Canvas, those features are released every 3 weeks, and there is nothing for a school to do other than choose to turn them on once released. This has allowed Instructure to innovate faster, and get new features and tools to customers quicker. Other factors include great pricing, customer support, and the innovative way in which LTI is implemented in the tool.

Incentivized

The ease of use, the robustness of the offering, and familiarity. It does everything we need and probably more. We likley don't utilize all the functionality it has as it does what we want it to without having to dig that deep into its tools. Their course library also has saved us some time in terms of saving time from creating some basic courses.

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.

The functions in Canvas are well integrated and consistent across the application, and mostly intuitive. Overall navigation and setup is streamlined through integrated features and navigation. The feedback we've gotten from our program participants is that it is easy to learn to use. It also integrates well with third party software like Google Docs and Blackboard Collaborate web conferencing software

Incentivized

The system is intuitive. It does not have a lot of features that are hidden behind secret menus or elsewhere. There are often multiple ways to get to the same place through different menus without having to go back to the home or root menu. It makes things pretty easy. Additionally, if there is something I can't figure out, there is documentation available to help with that.

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.

Incentivized

I have never run into an issue with downtime in 5 plus years.

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.

Incentivized

It loads fast. Screen transitions are quick. Nothing seems to ever lag.

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.

Incentivized

I do not personally use Canvas support since we have a central office that helps us. However, our central office always has the answers we need and are always able to solve our issues - so I would assume that get great support from the Canvas team on their end. They also offer great training, which uses materials directly from Canvas

Incentivized

Quick answer, comprehensive, and customized. I sent an email with multiple questions and feedback about their new UI, and the agent addressed all of them directly and honestly no sugar-coating and no call center lingo. Most questions can also be addressed directly in their UI with a really good help center widget.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The training sessions were broken down into several days as well as different levels depending upon the knowledge of the user

Incentivized

The online tutorials and videos are very clear and addressed the issues/questions that I had about using the system.

Incentivized

I have used a few sites and they were adequate but my best learning experience was face to face and hands on.

Incentivized

Once you purchase and sign the contract there is nothing to install or hardware to buy. You can almost immediately start using it and have courses up and going within weeks. We signed in December and had pilot courses online ready to go for the start of school in January

Incentivized

Implementation was relatively easy. When we set up a second branch, we needed a little help. But the support area is well-detailed. My clients had no experience with an LMS and their digital skills were limited. We had a long way to go. Nevertheless, it was relatively easy. It was rather quick!

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Canvas is more secure, has a cleaner design, and has more features. For the features, they have in common canvas still stacks up against [Smart school] by going for the extra mile. Besidfor e that, [the] canvas looks a lot more [professional] than [Smart school]. I didn't make the decision myself to get canvas instead of [Smart school] but I'm happy they did.

Both are good, but the pricing and general value proposition of Talent LMS are better than Trainual in my opinion. Trainual is a bit more modern and cleaner looking from a user interface perspective, but it comes at a higher cost. Both platforms provide very similar features in the way of general functionality and user experience, but Talent LMS wins because of its better pricing model.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

The product can create as similar or unique experiences for different branches as you want for training purposes

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.

Incentivized

• Canvas has helped us provide a more robust online component to our courses.
• Canvas has helped us better adapt to a rapidly changing educational landscape.
• Canvas has reduced the time that we have to spend training faculty on how to use our learning management system.

Incentivized

• Managers have used this internally to get new employees up to speed and trained faster. It's a great onboarding tool.
• Externally, we help our customers better self-serve when they understand the software they are using. This reduces calls to Customer Support.
• We've used training as an added incentive for our customers to maintain a higher level of service, resulting in increased ARR.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized