Overview
What is Moodle?
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.
A simple and useful online method for distant learning
Best LMS Solution
Moodle Workplace - Perfect workplace learning tool
Great LMS, Non-existent customer service
Moodle in a Mid-Sized Company - Great Value
Easy installation, cost effective solution for institutions with technically talented staff to implement.
Moodle for everyone
Are you a teacher looking for Learning Management System that is simple, functional, and easy to use? Moodle has it all for you!
Useful tool for online course content
Learning with Moodle
Moodle is a flexible and reliable learning management system that is great for assessment too.
Learning management at its best, considering the price point
Best tool for web based learning.
You get what you pay for
Moodle provides education across many industries and ages
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Popular Features
- Progress tracking & certifications (25)10.0100%
- Assignments (26)9.898%
- Learning administration (24)9.898%
- Course catalog or library (23)9.696%
Pricing
What is Moodle?
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.
Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee optional
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos
How to take Demo Assignment and appear in ESE-2020 by Moodle App from Mobile
MEDIAL Plugin for Moodle - Demo Video
Moodle Demo | Account Creation | Teacher View | Student View | Adding Resources | Joining Courses
Moodle Webex Integration Demo
French on an e-learning platform - Clip Class' Moodle
Moodle Google Hangout Demo
Features
Learning Management
Features of LMS and LCMS systems, related to designing, administering, and consuming learning content in an educational, corporate, or on-the-job context.
- 9.4Course authoring(22) Ratings
Users can develop and assemble online learning content.
- 9.6Course catalog or library(23) Ratings
Learning content is organized into a course catalog or browsable library.
- 9.2Player/Portal(23) Ratings
Students or employees can engage with content and take courses using this interface, which may be called a player or portal.
- 10Learning content(21) Ratings
The vendor offers high quality pre-made courses or assets. These may be specific to certain industries or technologies.
- 9.4Mobile friendly(23) Ratings
Students or employees can access content from mobile devices. Course authors can develop responsive learning content.
- 10Progress tracking & certifications(25) Ratings
The system tracks individuals’ progress on courses, scores, transcripts, certificates, etc.
- 9.8Assignments(26) Ratings
Users can assign courses/curricula to individuals or groups, with due dates.
- 9.2Compliance management(20) Ratings
Users can identify potential risks and ensure that requirements are met and that certifications are up to date.
- 9.8Learning administration(24) Ratings
Administrators can manage the content and people (students/employees, course authors, instructors, etc.) on the platform.
- 7.8Learning reporting & analytics(22) Ratings
Provides insights into course completion, engagement with learning content, etc.
- 9.4Social learning(23) Ratings
Includes features for collaboration and knowledge sharing among peers.
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Moodle?
Moodle Features
Learning Management Features
- Supported: Course authoring
- Supported: Course catalog or library
- Supported: Player/Portal
- Supported: Learning content
- Supported: Mobile friendly
- Supported: Progress tracking & certifications
- Supported: Assignments
- Supported: Compliance management
- Supported: Learning administration
- Supported: Learning reporting & analytics
- Supported: eLearning
- Supported: Assessments
- Supported: Live online learning
- Supported: In-person learning
- Supported: Micro-learning
- Supported: Video learning
- Supported: eCommerce
- Supported: AICC-compliant
- Supported: SCORM-compliant
- Supported: Tin Can (xAPI) compliant
- Supported: Social learning
- Supported: Gamification
- Supported: GDPR Compliant Learning
- Supported: Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning
Moodle Screenshots
Moodle Videos
Moodle Integrations
Moodle Competitors
Moodle Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
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Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Mobile Web |
Supported Countries | Worldwide |
Supported Languages | All languages |
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(244)Community Insights
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Moodle has a wide range of use cases across different educational institutions and organizations. In higher education, it facilitates communication, provides learning materials, and assesses student learning. It serves as an essential training portal, offering online courses, quick reference guides, and knowledge base articles. This platform also caters to organizations' learning and development needs, accommodating different skill sets and objectives. Additionally, it supports early intervention providers by enabling self-enrollment, progress tracking, assessment recording, and grade viewing. For instructors in both online and face-to-face classes, Moodle acts as a Course Management System for posting and grading assignments, exams, and quizzes. Librarians can participate in professional development remotely through Moodle's various media options and scoring reporting features. It is also used for safety training coursework with the flexibility to integrate different media types. In K-12 schools, Moodle supplements courses such as Health Education and offers online courses during summer months. Private liberal arts colleges rely on this platform for student engagement, activity tracking, and grading. Furthermore, Francis Lewis High School has found that Moodle increases enrichment for students while streamlining the workload for educators.
Moodle is recognized for its continual development, simplicity, and vibrant community support. This makes it a suitable choice for those new to e-learning as well as school districts with limited resources. It's designed to enhance teaching and learning experiences through features like lecture note uploads, progress monitoring, grading tools, online quizzes/tests, and reporting capabilities. Beyond the education sector, Moodle supports internal communication within companies by providing chat functionality and information sharing between managers and employees at all levels. Moreover, it serves as a useful tool for task management and constant updates on assignments to improve workflow efficiency. Whether it is hosting online courses for K-12 schools or managing faculty development opportunities across campuses or facilitating information sharing within committees or group projects—Moodle accommodates a wide range of needs. It tracks training delivery for state employees, delivers student orientation, manages various rotations, organizes coursework for faculty members, and provides a centralized space for sharing course-related information, assignments, grading, and document repository.
Flexibility for customization: Users appreciate the open-source nature of Moodle, as it allows for easy extension and customization without additional costs. This flexibility is highly valued by many reviewers, as it enables them to tailor the platform to their specific needs and avoid clutter.
Active user community: The active user community of Moodle is praised for its continuous support and extension of the platform. Many reviewers commend the engagement process and transparent roadmap for development, which gives users a clear understanding of the platform's future direction. They also value being able to contribute directly by fixing bugs or enhancing functionality.
Strong support for learner interaction: Users find that Moodle's constructivist design supports various means of learner interaction. Many reviewers specifically mention the strong support for discussions within Moodle, facilitating effective communication and collaboration among learners.
Outdated and Confusing User Interface: Several users have expressed dissatisfaction with the user interface of Moodle, finding it to be dated and confusing. They feel that it is difficult to navigate and locate specific features within the platform.
Limited Reporting Tools: Many reviewers have noted that the reporting tools in Moodle are not sufficient for their needs. They often have to rely on third-party plugins to generate comprehensive reports, which can be inconvenient and time-consuming.
Complex Gradebook Functionality: The gradebook function in Moodle has been a source of frustration for many users. They find it complex and overwhelming, with numerous options and settings that can be difficult to understand. This complexity leads to an increase in support questions and makes it challenging for beginners or intermediate users to effectively utilize the gradebook.
Based on user reviews, here are the three most common recommendations for Moodle:
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Users highly recommend taking advantage of online resources and YouTube videos for assistance with setting up and managing Moodle. These external sources can provide valuable guidance and support throughout the process.
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Users recommend Moodle for those looking to do virtual education or distance learning. Moodle is recommended due to its many features and status as an open-source resource.
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Users recommend exploring the plugin library in Moodle to discover additional tools and ways to engage students. This feature offers a range of options for enhancing the learning experience and providing diverse learning opportunities.
Overall, these recommendations emphasize the importance of seeking external resources, exploring alternatives, and utilizing additional features to optimize the use of Moodle as a learning management system.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-25 of 38)A simple and useful online method for distant learning
- Online quizzes
- LDAP integration
- Certification system
- Windows Server Installation is not stable like linux environment
- Online "Scorm editor" module should be great
- There is no Integration option with data visualization application
Moodle in a Mid-Sized Company - Great Value
- Course-driven learning delivery.
- Reporting and status on learner progress.
- Supporting asynchronous learning.
- The interface is getting a little long in the tooth.
- Some functions require drilling down multiple levels.
- Reporting is basic, and requires a lot of manual collation across different learning groups.
Easy installation, cost effective solution for institutions with technically talented staff to implement.
- Under the Open Source model of Moodle, there are countless customization options available. We only make use of the modules associated with rubrics and outcomes and that demonstrates the ability to pick and choose what you want to use of the software.
- Moodle is very easy to install on the server and is readily available on CPanel (as well hosting control panels) for even easier installation.
- Being that Moodle offers an Open Source model of their software, it can be very cost effective for an institution with limited resources if they are able to invest the time in setting up the system. If there is a budget allowance for an initiative involving this type of software, then Moodle does a great job of working with you to implement.
- 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.
Moodle is a flexible and reliable learning management system that is great for assessment too.
- Course delivery - Moodle is very flexible. We have a Moodle Developer so we can create plugins, reporting features, basically anything we want.
- LTI compatibility - because Moodle is used globally it can communicate with other systems, Student Management Systems, CPR, etc.
- There are a lot of hidden features that require quite a bit of training in the use of the platform. Sometimes you really have to search to find things it can do.
- To be able to brand and have Moodle look and function the way we need it to for different projects requires a developer to make those changes.
Although the quiz function is very adaptable, if you are doing high stakes testing or require an authoring, review and validation tool for test content Moodle is not adequate.
Learning management at its best, considering the price point
- Managing course schedules, like being able to manage elements of an individual course over a period of time (i.e. which specific lessons happen in which week, when assignments are due)
- Providing teaching staff with useful tools
- Better scheduling management. You are not able to set up time tables for lessons and exams
- Administration of staff and teaching allocations. It would be helpful to be able to set who teaches which subject and being able to see who is free to take extra teaching subjects each semester. Also, being able to track teachers' skills would be useful.
Moodle for the win!
- Communication.
- Tasks.
- More tutorials.
- Ease of use.
Doodling with Moodle
- Traditional LMS.
- Good recordkeeping.
- Cheap.
- Not user-friendly to the iGen user.
- Needs reskinning.
- Outdated.
Moodle to save the day
- Detailing each assignment so that students could refer back to expectations as they completed assignments. This way students were not dependent on they're own notes for reminders.
- Being open-source, Moodle has so many good plugins that there are few limitations to what it can do.
- Related to above, this means that virtually every type of assignment a teacher might envision can be created in Moodle. This allows for a vast array of learning experiences.
- Updating can feel clunky at times. Updating plugins is easy, but updating from one version to the next takes a bit more work.
- Because it is open-source, you generally need to have someone fairly tech smart to set up and maintain Moodle. This means generally simple HTML coding ability, and the ability to troubleshoot issues as needed.
Great but need more improvement
- The main strength for using Moodle is the fact that it is an open source platform.
- We love it as it is scalable and easy to use.
- We also like it as the Moodle community is very supportive. Any questions asked in the Moodle community will be answered.
- The theme is a bit difficult to customize. If you insist on having a lot of changes made to your outlook, it is easier to find another vendor to do it.
- Development of features in Moodle slowly evolves. For example, if another proprietary LMS has video recording function in 2016, Moodle probably will have the features in 2018.
- It would be good if Moodle Cloud can be subscribed to online from Moodle HQ without going through the Moodle partners.
Moodle LMS, A Smart Choice for the Future of Your Online Courses
- ADMIN FUNCTION: Customizable Site Design with Modern Easy to Use Interface: We use the Lambda Theme (purchased from Envato Market) but there are many free themes with a modern look and feel as well. I like that I am able to make the site look the way I would like and am not limited to the old way Moodle used to look. These days are long past, and I am proud of the look and feel of the site. I can also manage the user roles/permissions and what each user sees and does not see very easily.
- ADMIN FUNCTION: Mass Enrollment: If I want to enroll 1,000 students at a time, I can easily enroll or delete mass numbers of students by using a simple Excel spreadsheet upload. I can have a class copied, with students and teachers enrolled in a matter of minutes. I can also manually add students or teachers quickly when needed.
- ADMIN FUNCTION: Regular security updates to be sure your site is secure. Each time there is a new release, I am able to upgrade to the latest version. I do outsource this to a Moodle expert for time reasons, but many people I know do this easily on their own.
- COURSE FEATURES: Multimedia embedded throughout. I am able to quickly and easily add audio and video to each lesson for more engagement.
- COURSE FEATURES: Group Management: I can easily create classes so that a teacher can quickly login and see their class at a glance, and print reports.
- COURSE FEATURES: A more recent feature is the assignment module and grading feature when the teacher can write annotations and feedback directly in the browser.
- Virtual Private Servers: In order to have large numbers of students using the program at once, I did need to upgrade to a Virtual Private Server from Hostgator to give me more memory/space/capacity for use. There is a cost to do this and when I did not have students using the program, I didn't like paying the monthly fee for this. I am still searching for another way to handle larger numbers of students without having to use a Private Server.
- Stronger Representation from their Leadership Team: I do follow many of the Moodle Leadership team, and support communities they have set up and often send them messages (and they do write back). I wish they had a stronger representation (training programs) in the USA to really take Moodle to the next level. I have seen this starting to occur and it does take support from the users as well. I would love Moodle to be known as THE leader in open-sourced learning. I can see they also have this vision by reading their ROADMAP on their website.
Learn and teach - wherever you are!
- Numerous features that are useful for both teachers as well as students, for example, tests, forums, documents. Even tests themselves offer a lot of opportunities, for example, you can ask an open question or you can ask a question with a specific answer expected and students can see the results right after they hit "Submit" - students don't have to wait to find out how they did and teachers don't have to spend precious time grading :)
- Its drag-n-drop lesson creation is amazing and so easy to use. For a perfectionist, who wants everything to look nice and pretty, it's a good feature :D
- Its mobile app is great because it allows using the system even when you don't have access to your computer.
- I enjoy Moodle and to be honest, I think the very few things I have stacked against Moodle are mostly related to how the system is configured for my university. Otherwise, it's a very useful tool and I love the opportunities Moodle presents for education.
Choose Moodle
- Moodle is able to keep track of student data per course.
- Moodle is able to integrate outside programs such as Panopto that you can use within your course.
- Moodle is user friendly for the most part. Everything is self explanatory and it doesn’t take a lot of researching to find actions, activities, how to setup your course, etc. When editing your course, it’s very easy to add activities/resources to your course and Moodle explains, in detail, what each activity/resource is and how it will function within your course.
- Sometimes Moodle has issues “communicating” with certain outside sources such as Lockdown Browser.
- When upgrading to the 3.4 version of Moodle, the campus is noticing that some activity plugins are not upgradable.
Moodle on a Small College Campus
- Provides a space for faculty to share course content and feedback to students.
- Has an intuitive design, so new users don't face a steep learning curve.
- Facilitates students engagement and collaboration outside of the classroom.
- Helps students stay organized for multiple courses.
- Moodle lags behind more sophisticated Learning Management Systems, such as Canvas and Sakai. Outside integrations are typically clunkier and less evolved than those for other LMS options.
- There is more unused white space in several of the most popular Moodle themes, such as SNAP and Boost than is necessary. This means there is a lot more scrolling and visual work demanded from the users than there should be.
- There isn't enough flexibility in course organization for several Moodle themes. The text editor is clunky, and the overall editing options are limited.
Former Moodle user
- It was extremely customizable.
- The layout, while not for everyone, was great for students - having everything clearly laid out.
- We were able to add photos to user profiles very easily - something that is not so easy on Blackboard.
- The options were overwhelming to users sometimes.
- Grading was difficult to understand.
- Discussion forums were a step behind those of other LMS providers.
Moodle vs everyone else - why it is time to embrace open-source
- Content management - Moodle has a strong database structure that allows for content to be stored locally and used in multiple instances without corruption of the data.
- Customizations - Moodle is highly customizable, with over 1000 plugins available, a very transparent API, and customizations available directly inside the platform, such as language, themes, and structure.
- Notifications and reminders - With the ability to customize who, when, and how notifications are sent and the ability to write custom notifications, students are always kept in the know.
- Static pages - One area in which Moodle is not very strong is acting as a website, meaning not a CMS, but instead presenting static pages, such as faculty information or help documents.
- eCommerce - Although there are many add-ons and plugins available, many of which are inexpensive, Moodle does not come out of the box as a full fledge eCommerce site.
- Integration - Moodle has over 1000 plugins and you can write using their API relatively easily, however, Moodle does not, out of the box, integrate with other systems, such as how Sharepoint LMS or Oracle does.
Moodle is great for college and corporate settings alike. I have yet to see an instance where Moodle could not be customized to fit a particular need, all while not having the overhead of other LMS systems and still having the ability to be managed centrally by the agency deploying it (meaning you are not reliant on another company to manage). Moodle can be installed locally for testing, on a server farm, or in the cloud, depending on the need and scalability.
Moodle does require nesting of activities, which can be time consuming, however, this is by design to offer the most custom and specific learning and setup outcomes.
Moodle: Cheap and Easy to Use
- It is Open Source, meaning the deployment is cheap, relative to other LMS systems considered.
- There is a TON of documentation out there and support from a huge community of users from universities, corporate and other not-for-profits
- There are later versions out (2.6) that solve problems and bugs of earlier versions and the interface changes are in favor of all users, (admin, facilitator and student)
- Users can create their own profiles, and courses can be protected with an Enrollment Key set by the course creator.
- It has a consistent interface that is fairly intuitive and easy to use.
- Forums have been greatly improved in the later version. I am in hopeful anticipation of upgrading from 1.9 to 2.6 soon, for that feature alone.
- Groups in 1.9 are clunky, but much improved, according to online users in later versions (2.2 and above).
- Restore and Backup are sometimes irregular to the point that you may want to save a basic copy of a course in addition to depending on backing up a course to restore as a new course moving forward.
- Not loving that we have to use a 3rd party for chat rooms (we use Flash Chat) and the chat history is stored in Moodle.
Moodle at McNeese
- Moodle provides a vast variety of using technology in ways that the instructor or student with little experience with technology is able to use it. All of our instructors received beginning training in how to use Moodle before we switched over to it, so that they felt comfortable with the switch. They could come to the training more than one time if they chose to.
- I give all of our instructors more advanced training when they choose to teach the fully online courses, and they also receive training in additional software. They also receive a webcam and they can also receive a document camera if they are a math or an accounting instructor.
- They have also received Camtasia and Snagit which work well with Moodle. They may basically use any software and are able to upload their own videos, videos from the Internet, any sort of PowerPoints that they create with their own voice or video, extra technology, notes, etc. for the students.
- The instructors use a variety of modules within Moodle. We have available for their use BigBlueButton, which is a webinar. It provides guests appearances and provides office hours for our instructors who have strictly web based courses. They also have Turnitin, which is the plagiarism tool, Turning Tech that is the linked in tool that provides a quiz taking that links to Moodle and to the gradebook. We also use Tegrity that delivers the instructors and the students with an additional tool that permits them to do a video, or a PowerPoint or allow the instructor to link to anything on the computer and to upload it into Moodle. We also have the Attendance module, which allows the instructors who take attendance in the classroom to give the students "points" for attendance. We are adding the Ebsco reading list for the library this summer, which lets individual instructors to add certain reading lists from the library for their individual classrooms.
- Right now, our Moodle is not working with our Banner product in being able to bring our grades in from Banner directly into Moodle. This isn't a problem with Moodle, it is a problem with the integration with the product.
- There are issues with the gradebook being difficult for the instructor to use because there are so many different ways to use it, however Moodle is working on a new gradebook component.
- We make extensive use of MNet and there are many ways to use it, but again Moodle is in the process of improving it.
Moodle, Tough to master but worth the effort
- Free and Open source, so it's free to try out and you can customize the look and feel of it, provided you have the technical expertise.
- Well-documented and community driven. Makes it easy to find solutions to problems.
- It's gotten better, but it takes a while to learn the innards of the system if you are brand new to it.
Moodle is Free (but there is a price)
- Easy to upload Captivate learning modules.
- Reliable reports.
- Good security.
- Easy to upload user accounts.
- Locked into a general appearance. Templates are available, but they are all basically variations on a theme.
- Have to go through the back door to clean up European spellings, so you need to be comfortable editing database objects.
- Moodle is generally built for academia. To make it more a corporate tool, you have to massage the product quite heavily. It's important to know HTML to do this.
Its academia background is very apparent, so corporations should know up front that there will have to be changes made to it so it fits their world. This will require a Moodle developer who is knows HTML and PHP.
Corporations are drawn to Moodle because it's "free." But they have to understand that downstream costs such as database personnel and HTML developers will add costs throughout the project.
They must also understand that there is no help desk. Moodle developers must be able to find answers through the Moodle community and other resources, then put the "fix" in place themselves.
Moodle, an LMS for the People
- Course organization - Moodle allows faculty members to organize their courses either by week or by topic so students can access their course materials in a logical chronological order. Additional blocks allow students to access content based on type, such as assignments, handouts, or quizzes.
- Ease of use - Moodle 2.9 supports drag and drop features for many of its modules, making organizing/reorganizing a course, or building a course from scratch much quicker. It also has a fairly consistent set of controls across several content types which act in a consistent manner, so you can expect actions in one context to behave in the same manner as they do in other contexts.
- Customization - Moodle allows a lot of customization with its plugin architecture, as well as custom themes, to help give Moodle the right look for your organization.
- Restrictions - Restrictions allow you to powerfully manage who has access to what content and at what time. This is particularly useful for controlling the flow in which course materials are accessed. Content might be available only if a student receives a passing grade on a previous assessment, might only be able to see something if they are in a certain group, or might not be able to view some content before or after a set date.
- Strong Community - Because Moodle is so widely used, it is fairly easy to find answers to most questions you may have.
- Lack of drag and drop in some places - While drag and drop support is offered throughout, there are a few places where it is notably absent. The primary one is in the gradebook, and another is in the question bank. They make sense there, but have not been implemented yet.
- Lack of support for some issues - Moodle's community is one of its greatest strengths as well as one of its greatest liabilities. While you can usually find an answer to questions you have on Moodle's community message boards, it is also possible that you have a more unconventional question that might not get answered at all. If you want to use Moodle for your organization, you will definitely need some tech savvy people to solve some of the trickier aspects of using Moodle. Likewise, support materials on the site don't cover all environmental variables and settings you might run across, so it requires some testing on your end to figure out what things do.
- Modifying functionality can be difficult - Moodle is open source, which means that it can be modified by you. This is great, but as mentioned previously, the support materials and developer documentation can be lacking. It is very easy to shoot yourself in the foot if you make the wrong changes, so you should always make your modifications on a test server and make backups before deploying to your production servers. I know that's good advice for any kind of software, but it can be critical in Moodle, particularly if you use it for storing student grades.
I have seen other institutions use Moodle as their Content Management System as well, but it seems less well suited for that task. I would not personally choose to use it as a portal for an educational site without some better integration for Student Information Systems. Better/easier SIS integration might change my opinion on this in the future.
A Trusted LMS That Does (Almost) Everything
- In short, it's tried and true. Too many newer learning management systems look snazzy but many of their claimed features turn out to be "in development," i.e., vaporware. Moodle has been around and had time to learn what works and what doesn't, and make numerous improvements (and can be expected to continue to do so).
- The extensive, active, and robust Moodle community is a huge point in Moodle's favor. You can count on plugins being tested, and if you realize you want to do a particular thing, chances are good that someone else has already thought of it.
- Though we don't use it that often, the item analysis for quizzes is a terrific feature that isn't as readily available in many learning management systems.
- We're believers in open-source products whenever possible.
- There are so many features it can be easy to forget exactly where things are sometimes.
- Newer learning management systems may have more elegant out-of-the-box UI. Moodle has extensive design capabilities, but extensive customization can prove complicated.
- Like with any learning management system, there are always features you'd like to see, e.g., the ability to enroll cohorts in multiple courses at once.
Moodle for the Corporate Noodle
American Cybersystems is an international staffing and solutions company. This means we have an accounting department, a billing department, vendor managers, recruiters, salespeople, customer service associates, and a solutions group. Our training department is responsible for the learning and development of the entire organization. There are many different skill sets that have to be taught and therefore there are several different mediums our training department likes to use in order to maximize the training effectiveness. Moodle has several different supports for all the different learning objects we like to use.
- Reporting: Moodle does a great job of keeping track of all the users in the system. There are several different layers of reporting in Moodle. One can track user login time, interactions with course objects, activity logs, eLearning course (SCORM) scores, views of discussion boards, badges and more. Tracking in a training program is a chief concern for many reasons: ROI, engagement, improving future trainings, and insights.
- SCORM packages: Loading a 1.2 SCORM package is easy and simple to do in Moodle. Also, the features for reports are really helpful if you have a course that needs to report variables. In many different LMSs it is nearly impossible to report variables (especially numeric ones) from a SCORM package. However, because Moodle reports "interactions" you can even create a survey and get the answers populated into Moodle for easy export to an Excel file. Not only is the reporting great, but all of the authoring tools that I have used are compatible with Moodle: Captivate, Articulate Storyline 1 & 2, and Lectora.
- User Upload and Creation: In Moodle it is a snap to upload a ton of users. I have encountered other LMS programs that make user creation a burden. This is not the case with Moodle. All one needs is a username, password, first name, and last name in order to create a new user. A large group of users can be uploaded and created through a simple csv file. This has come in very handy when trying to load an entire department into the system. I just ask the department head to send me the csv file and press a couple of buttons and viola! Also, I can batch upload users to a cohort, so if it is a new department that is getting loaded because there is a new course created for them, I don't have to try to find each of the new users I just created and enroll them one by one. Instead, I can enroll the new cohort with the 'enroll cohort' button in the course. This has saved me so much time, so many times!
- Support: Moodle is big and only getting bigger through the support and enthusiasm of the open source community. Anytime I have a question or an idea that I am not sure how to implement in Moodle I can always find an answer. There is the entire knowledge base of Moodle online, there are Moodle enthusiast sites, there are Moddle blogs, and there are instructional designers (corporate and higher education) who write, demonstrate, and talk about Moodle. There are also developers and tinkerers who create plugins, skins, and other applications to integrate specifically with Moodle. This means, if I have an idea and the function is not already in Moodle there is someone who has already created a solution and a plugin. There are even entire companies that are dedicated to making Moodle slick, like Moodlerooms.
- Hosting: Hosting Moodle yourself is difficult. I wouldn't want to mess with all the things involved with hosting and maintaining Moodle on my own server. Hosting Moodle requires a web server with PHP and a database. However, this weakness is also a strength. Although it would be cumbersome to manage Moodle on one's own the fact that it can be done and freely really sets Moodle apart from all other LMSs.
- Scheduling: The basic version of Moodle (no plugins) does not include a scheduling component. What I mean is there is not a way to schedule in person or webinar training sessions in the system and then track attendance. Unless of course it is all done manually and no one wants to do that. There is a face-to-face plugin that does just what I am talking about, but because of the way I have Moodle hosted plugins are not an option for me without going through a few hoops.
- Cloning a Course: For one of my trainings there is a course that uses the local branch Director as the instructor. Therefore, I have to create the same course over an over again for each branch across the company. While there are a few ways to duplicate a course, there is only one way to duplicate the course and include all the badges, a backup file. This means I have to backup a course, create a new course, upload the backup, then go in and turn on all of badges. I want a magic wand button that clones a course exactly as it is; is that too much to ask?
- Also, if I have to fix a typo in a SCORM package I have to reload that file to every single course that contains the file I fixed. My second wish is to have one place to load SCORM packages and then just point to them in the courses so there is only one place I have to go in order to upload a corrected file.
If you want an easy interface that is intuitive then Moodle might not be for you. When you are looking to use Moodle you should ask yourself a few questions about your needs.
Who is going to host your LMS? Is it going to be in-house or through a vendor? The answer to these two questions will answer several other capability questions for Moodle. For instance, if you will need to add a bunch of plugins in order to make Moodle customized to meet your needs, you will probably want to go in-house because several of the cost efficient Moodle hosts like mdlspot.net do not add plugins for you. Also, if the majority of your training is face-to-face, then you might want to consider the LMSs that cater to that type of instruction.
Moodle in Education
- Customizable - I have had the chance to explore many LMS providers and no provider seems to come close to the ability to customize as Moodle does. Since it is open source, anyone can build code to find solutions to challenges and share them with others. I am not sure there is a larger community working on any other LMS-type system.
- Ease of use - the system is very easy to use for the end user. If organized properly, you can do just about anything that you might dream up.
- Cost effective - Moodle is open-source and free. The only cost you might have is the cost of someone managing the administrative side and possibly add-ons that you purchase to enhance the experience of the end user.
- Customer Service - If you would like customer service straight from Moodle, that is more challenging to receive. If you are ok with finding your own answers searching through Moodle forums and such, then this might be ok. It really helps to have an expert on staff that can manage the site and take care of the back-end logistics especially if you are a larger school/company. There will be questions and challenges that you would never imagine.
- Starts as bare bones product- There are numerous ways to customize but you have to be willing to put in the time and effort to do it. The most basic product is not as dynamic as what other LMS options might be. However, given that, the upside can be greater.
- Gradebook - One of the largest complaints we had from teachers was the way the Gradebook was set up. It is not user friendly and includes more technical pieces than it needs to share with an end user in most cases.
Reflections on Moodle after returning to Blackboard
- Availability of third party open source modules to extend functionality. The stand-alone Moodle product is useful, but limited by the effort in setting up courses and content. The ability to integrate with Content Management systems (or possibly Document Management systems) is critical, and provides additional benefits to managing employee training and productivity.
- Use of rubrics. These are external, explicit grading criteria to improve communication between instructor and learner regarding expectations and ways to improve performance. A management plan for rubrics is necessary, and not readily done internally within the Moodle default installation.
- More complex learning schemes are supported, such as SCORM and other adaptive learning systems. However, for non-trivial course development, external tools for building this content is required.
- Rubric Management. This may have been addressed in a plugin module.
- Better tools for examining outcomes from exams and rubrics across a class, course, or organization. This may have been addressed in a plugin module.
- Improved content management within the default installation. While there are modules that support products such as Drupal, building into the default product would ease adoption.
Moodle - Free Learning Anytime and Anywhere
- Users have the ability to create a wide variety of question types. (Drag and Drop, Missing Words, Matching, Multiple Choice, etc.)
- Because users are able to password protect their courses, copyrighted textbooks and other materials can be placed online. (unlike an open web page)
- Moodle is easy to install and administer. Best of all, there are no real costs associated with Moodle other than IT time and space to host locally or in the cloud.
- Because it is open source you need to be comfortable in a forum environment for help. Support also comes in the form of online help files.
- Moodle releases several versions each year and makes it difficult at time to stay current. Not really a big issue however.
- Moodle does require some IT expertise for the initial install and configuration if you choose to host your own instance.