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Moodle has a wide range of use cases across different educational institutions and organizations. In higher education, it facilitates …
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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.
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Popular Features
- Progress tracking & certifications (25)10.0100%
- Assignments (26)9.898%
- Learning administration (24)9.898%
- Course catalog or library (23)9.696%
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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.
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- Setup fee optional
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Moodle Demo | Account Creation | Teacher View | Student View | Adding Resources | Joining Courses
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What is Moodle?
Moodle is an open source learning management system that integrates with other platforms and can be customised for any teaching or training method. Moodle has solutions suitable for K-12, higher education, vocational training, corporates, as well as enterprise learning. The solution aims to improve teaching and student outcomes, as well as streamline training, onboarding, and compliance management, helping users to build more active and engaging online learning spaces.
Moodle users can get support from community forums, access Moodle's certified integrations, and explore over 1900 open source plugins. Or, for expert advice and end-to-end support and service, users can reach Moodle Certified Partners and Service Providers.
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
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What's new in Moodle LMS 4.0?
What's new in Moodle Workplace 4.0?
Moodle Integrations
Moodle Competitors
Moodle Technical Details
| Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| 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
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.
Reviewers rate Learning content and Progress tracking & certifications highest, with a score of 10.
The most common users of Moodle are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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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
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November 04, 2022
A simple and useful online method for distant learning
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I've been using Moodle for more than two years, and I'm happy of it. Its continual development and capacity to provide a paid rollout demonstrate how much this learning management system has advanced over time. Look no farther than Moodle if you're just beginning your adventure into e-learning and want an LMS that is simple to use, free, and has a vibrant community.
- 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
June 17, 2022
Best LMS Solution
We bring in facilitators who deliver content that aim in educating people in different parts of the country. Moodle Workplace creates the perfect environment that hosts courses that can be easily accessible to enthusiastic students. External tools can be easily integrated with client requirements, this is a modern learning solution. It has a dedicated mobile app, which makes it very accessible across devices and the support is impeccable.
- Teaching courses.
- Access to learning material.
- Incorporate videos and documents.
- Mobile applications.
- Best LMS.
- Learning the system for clients can be hard.
- Simple, easier to use user interface.
- More accessibility inclusive.
June 16, 2022
Moodle Workplace - Perfect workplace learning tool
We use Moodle Workplace for our internal digital learning process by creating learning materials. This tool helps to promote professional growth and development in the organization. This allows employees to be constantly learning new company procedures on a daily basis.
- External integration.
- Easy customization.
- Progress tracking.
- Content sharing.
- Engagement tracking can be improved.
- Analytics.
May 30, 2022
Great LMS, Non-existent customer service
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Great and customizable LMS
- LMS
- Easier to Use
May 25, 2021
Moodle in a Mid-Sized Company - Great Value
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Moodle was put in place to augment our existing training systems, which are two different LMS systems for two very different divisions of the company. Moodle was the software that centralized administrative and other cross-divisional trainings and allowed us to reach the entire company rather than duplicating work in two different systems. Ultimately one of the existing LMSs was chosen as the standard for the whole company, negating the need for Moodle, but while it was in operation it was a good product that serviced our needs admirably.
- 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.
April 16, 2021
Easy installation, cost effective solution for institutions with technically talented staff to implement.
We are currently using Moodle in an atypical fashion at our institution. While Moodle is a full scale Learning Management System, we are not using it for the entire set of features it entails. We have another Learning Management System for managing our courses (both online coursework and face to face) but we use Moodle for integrating with our other systems to manage the assessment work associated with program reviews and accreditation. A single department manages Moodle, however the entire teaching faculty at our institution makes use of the product since assessment touches every program.
- 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.
April 01, 2021
Moodle for everyone
Moodle is the sole learning management system used at our organization and has been compared with most of the other popular systems. The only near rival is Google Classroom, and it is not particularly close. Moodle is flexible enough to suit most needs except for synchronous audio or video interaction.
- Frequent updating (through Git)
- Free
- Customizable and flexible
- Takes up relatively little disk space
- The flexibility of the system can be a drawback, as beginners designing courses have too many options
- Test analysis is lacking
- Test results and responses can be bothersome to export
Moodle is the online Learning Management System(LMS) highly utilized in our school to provide quality online learning with our students. Our school/organization is implementing this software for more than 7 years now because of its usability, functionality, usability, performance, and adaptability. These are the qualities of this software that we observe while interacting with the system. Even before the suspension of the class across the US, our school is already into blended learning, and Moodle is one of the remote learning software that provides students and teachers an avenue to collaborate and interact. Teaching and learning are more interesting and engaging because Moodle has different features that both teachers and learners enjoy using. As a teacher, it is easier for me to upload and download lecture notes, monitor the students' progress, grade students' activities, set restrictions on the online quiz and test, back up files and many other related online teaching and learning activities. Moodle has also very useful reporting tool that helps me to provide immediate feedback to my students.
- Moodle has impressive features in uploading and downloading lecture notes, creating quiz and test, notification features for both students and teachers, generating reports and many others.
- The backup, restore and import features are really helpful feature of Moodle for teachers.
- Managing learners' profile and setting enrollment keys are also good feature of Moodle to restrict the valid users.
- It's about time that Moodle developers should update Moodle and incorporate videoconferencing functionalities.
- Chatting is another interesting feature to consider by Moodle.
- Providing immediate data analysis must also be one of the features I am looking forward that Moodle should consider (i.e. graph generation to compare the learning growth of each student)
February 04, 2020
Learning management at its best, considering the price point
We implement and maintain Moodle as a learning management system for multiple clients.
- 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.
January 24, 2020
Moodle provides education across many industries and ages
My company is one that deals with the transportation industry, namely helping staff and recruit drivers for trucking companies. In the process of doing so, we have set up learning and training modules for drivers in order to evaluate their safety, experience level, skill sets, and other factors that might influence their ability to be hired or placed with a company. We use Moodle in order to educate as well as to pre-screen drivers to see what company or region they might be best for.
- Simple to look up scores/evaluations.
- Great for evaluators to look at progress/scores.
- Overall the interface could more simple to navigate.
- A relatively poor mobile offering.
January 24, 2020
Moodle for the win!
We use Moodle to chat across the company from manager to employee. We use it to post newsletters and other articles that our company is mentioned in. We also try to use it to complete tasks and have constant updates as to what people are doing with the certain tasks they are assigned and working on. It is definitely a useful too that we try to use as often as we can. It is a great tool for communication from the bottom of the company all the way to the CEO for him to address his employees. It is being used across our entire organization. It really makes it easy to address fellow colleagues pretty easily, whether its HR memos or news articles. It is a great application and I definitely recommend using this platform not just at work but in other aspects as well.
- Communication.
- Tasks.
- More tutorials.
- Ease of use.
September 13, 2019
Moodle to save the day
Moodle was used with our students to provide a platform where they could track their upcoming assignments as well as complete and upload them online. Using Moodle also allowed graders to easily see what needed to be graded and get those grades back to students. Also, administrators and teachers of the classes were able to use Moodle to keep track of where students were in class progress. Using Moodle provided transparency and clarity that had not existed before. People knew what they needed to do to succeed in classes, and administrators could see who was succeeding and who needed more coaching and help.
- 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.
February 06, 2019
Using Moodle For over 7 years
We provide support for senior citizens to perform their routine tasks smoothly. There is a feature to take assessments for senior residents so we have molded the Quiz feature to fulfill the requirements.
- Generic Form builder for the quizzes is an amazing feature.
- External DB connection provides us the support to re-utilize our existing user base.
- The security system is phenomenal, someone doesn't need to worry about their data.
- While we were designing the quizzes, there were some requirements to customize the GUIs. So you need a lot to time to understand the existing structure of the codebase.
Moodle is being used both within our academic department for academic and extension activities, as well as by the organization as a whole. It addresses online instruction/distance education needs, including housing electronic materials in an organized way for specific users/individuals. It is used for academic courses, trainings, workshops, and other education needs.
- Multiple features, such as the ability to hold content (PDF, PPT, Word, URLs, etc.), assessment and grading (quizzes), and offers certificates of completion
- Organization of content into modules
- The ability of users to interact with other users and instructors easily
- Certificates of completion are not very customizable, especially for unique modules within a "course"
- Not very user-friendly in terms of the instructor/manager of the course when it comes to set up. Some features that are different can produce the same results, which makes it confusing to know which should be used (such as requiring specific percentage to complete activity/quiz to move to next module vs. having an item be marked as complete which can only happen if certain percentage achieved, etc.)
- Offline capabilities
January 23, 2019
Teachers Using Moodle Get Better Results
Currently, Moodle is being used in order to improve our workflow and efficiency of education. At Francis Lewis High School we utilize Moodle in order to increase enrichment for students, and make streamline the workload for educators. The Moodle platform is being used by a department with more than 200 students, with 3 fully developed curriculum and 3 educators. The problem this platform addresses is the need for students to be able to pace themselves and control more of their learning process. Students are able to follow the curriculum laid out from their home, their phone, their laptops, and from any smart wifi connected device. Teachers can upload lessons and content very easily, as students are also able to access all content approved by the teacher. Students can submit work online to the teachers from any device, making it very simple to assign work and grade work. This improves education for all students, which is the goal of implementing new tech.
- Allows for all students to create their own unique account to use to complete lessons and submit assignments. This makes it easier to grade students on an individual basis.
- Allows administrators to easily control visible content, create lessons, and deliver blended learning lessons online and in the classroom. This makes updating curriculum very easy.
- All student grades are listed on the Moodle platform. Students, parents and teachers are able to see student performance in live time as projects are assessed.
- Very easy to use by designers who are not professional web designers. Makes implementation of the platform simple.
- More skins in Moodle to change the color and aesthetics would help engage students better.
- More functionality would be mass texting through the platform. I currently use REMIND to mass text students, this would be easier since educators are always on this platform.
- I would like to see Moodle decrease the amount of bandwidth they used when students are logging in. At times Moodle will crash from overload, though it could be my provider or Moodle platform.
January 04, 2019
Moodle LMS, A Smart Choice for the Future of Your Online Courses
We have been using Moodle (since 2014) at Achieveit360.org as our membership area to host our online courses for the K-12 school market in character, leadership and social and emotional learning (for students and educators). We did purchase the Lambda Theme and had some help to customize this theme to make it look better, but the basic themes that come free are still much better looking now than they were 5 years ago. We are able to host as many online courses as we would like with videos, audio, and online PDF worksheets and anyone can access these materials quickly and easily. There is also a Mobile app for those who would like to access the materials this way.
- 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.
December 08, 2018
Moodle LMS - online learning platform with a bit of a learning curve
We use Moodle as part of a SaaS offering for clients. Specifically, our platform offers light duty work for injured employees who cannot return to their regular jobs due to temporary physical restrictions. We use Moodle to provide safety training coursework to these individuals. Moodle allows us to implement a variety of media into the courses; including audio, video, and HTML5 activities. Moodle supports scoring and reporting for each user. We have customized the reporting and also connected Moodle to our WordPress site through a custom integration.
- Easily create courses that contain multiple choice quiz questions.
- Easily assign certain courses to specific users.
- Share reports regarding course progress and scores by email.
- There is a major learning curve for building and administrating Moodle courses if you've never done it before.
- The interface looks a bit dated. You can theme Moodle to change the look of it, but it doesn't change the overall interface.
- Customization of functionality requires a programmer with Moodle expertise.
July 14, 2018
Learn and teach - wherever you are!
I have been using Moodle mostly as a student at EuNC, but recently I have been helping the new teachers get the hang of the system and find out its opportunities. I love Moodle for having a web version as well as a mobile version because it helps me study wherever I am (especially during long commutes) and it's easy to use for the teachers as well because there are numerous features for various needs (for example, you can set other students' forum posts to show up only after you've created a post of your own as a student, therefore minimizing the temptation to read what others have written first and only then writing your own answer).
- 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.
May 16, 2018
Moodle on a Small College Campus
Moodle is the learning management system for our entire campus of around 1300 students and 100 faculties. All courses taught are created within Moodle, and Moodle provides an online space for faculty to share content and expectations, communicate with students, engage students in online discussions, and provide grades and feedback to students.
- 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.
September 16, 2016
Former Moodle user
At our medium-size public university, we used it first as a secondary LMS in a pilot phase and then for 2 full years as our primary LMS. We have since migrated back to Blackboard. We used it to provide course shells for all courses on campus during the years it was our primary LMS.
- 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.
September 13, 2016
Moodle vs everyone else - why it is time to embrace open-source
Moodle is being used across the agency to develop and deliver education to all staff. In the coming months, with an ecommerce integration, we will be using Moodle to deliver education to volunteer staff and external partners.
- 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.
October 02, 2015
Moodle: Cheap and Easy to Use
We use it to manage the courses that we deploy through our website for professional development of our members, mostly librarians. It is used by a dozen divisions of our organization. It enables librarians to participate in professional development remotely.
- 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.
September 30, 2015
Moodle at McNeese
Moodle is being used across our university by all of our instructors. They are geared toward putting their syllabus up in each of their courses. We have approximately 2500 courses that run in the summer and in the fall. We also use it exclusively for our web courses for our adult learning programs. We do have the business problem of the budget that it addressed. It is an open-source management system which is basically free for our university to use. We were paying nearly $60,000 for the prior learning management system.
- 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.
September 25, 2015
Moodle, Tough to master but worth the effort
Mostly it's used by me as a supplement to scoring and guided learning. The problem it addresses is we need a long-term database of scores, an easy-to-repeat format to get the same quizzes and tests up, and a database of the users and how results improve over time.
- 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.
September 25, 2015
Moodle is Free (but there is a price)
Moodle is used to track the training delivery of state employees who are part of the Medicaid Team. It offers a onestop shop for online training modules, and reports scores to managers.
- 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.