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)9.595%
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.
- 9.5Course 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
(245)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
(1-4 of 4)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.
- Course authoring
- 80%8.0
- Course catalog or library
- 100%10.0
- Player/Portal
- 70%7.0
- Learning content
- 100%10.0
- Mobile friendly
- 50%5.0
- Progress tracking & certifications
- 80%8.0
- Assignments
- 80%8.0
- Compliance management
- 90%9.0
- Learning administration
- 90%9.0
- Learning reporting & analytics
- 80%8.0
- Social learning
- 70%7.0
- Installing Open Source Moodle has saved us money in contractual obligations and consulting fees for creating the customized solution we were looking for. The time and learning curve associated with using Open Source Moodle as compared with the SaaS, still outweighs paying for a service since we wanted so much customization.
- One negative effect of using Moodle is the difficultly in faculty and staff buy in. While our institution was accustomed to the main Learning Management System we use, it was quite taxing trying to explain why we were using another system for the outcomes alignment and assessment.
- Installing and using Moodle Open Source has encouraged the professional development of the staff responsible for implementation. They have had to use inquiry and perseverance in developing a setup that supports the needs of our institution best.
- Blackboard Learn and Canvas
- Academic Assessment
- Institutional Assessment
- Data Driven Decision Making
- In House custom programming
- Instead of using it just as an LMS, we have built an assessment platform out of our usage
- We integrate other tools such as survey tools to connect artifacts with the assessments
- We export results to Tableau for analyzing
- Expand our delpoyment of Moodle as an Assessment platform
- Integrate our artifact submission process to streamline the workflow
- Automate the opening and closing archiving of assessment periods
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 has had a positive impact on our business objectives because we went from using another service that cost us $60,000 per year to Moodle, which is open source, which we self-host and it is basically free.
- We are able to upgrade from 2.0 which we started on, to each of the upgrades relatively quickly. We have recently upgraded to 2.7 and we test it out on our Moodletest site first and then we upgrade to our actual site.
- We definitely have increased our instructor efficiency. The only issues that we had this semester were with the quiz settings, and we taught several lessons in this to clear up the miscommunication among the instructors. I also have a "Moodle for Instructors" course that I put all of these instructions and many more for the faculty members such as how to make the courses visible for their students, how to transfer a block of students from one course to another, if they wish to combine two courses, how to import materials from last semester's course into a new semester's course. They may refer to these at any time. It saves me tons of email time!
Of the other two people, one guy will help out occasionally if we need a code written in to help us out with something needed in Moodle. We also have the other person who puts in our courses into Moodle at the beginning of each semester.
- The use of Moodle for courses in everyday courses and the syllabus for each course
- The use of Moodle for the administration
- The use of Moodle for the student groups
- The administrative group that has used it to come up with ways to use it for the other administrators to come up with ideas for the QEP
- Our curriculum committee has scanned in all of our documents into the administrative group for the committee to review
- The review committee is thinking of having the faculty put in their ideas for the future of the President of the university's 5 year plan
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Vendor Reputation
- Existing Relationship with the Vendor
- Analyst Reports
- Third-party Reviews
- Implemented in-house
Moodle 2.8 Review
- The new grade book is well received by our faculty. The new version is easy to set up and the improvements of viewing the grade book i.e names moving across the grade columns is a welcome improvement.
- The attendance feature with the ability for teachers to comment on the reasons why a student is late, absent or sleeping is a bonus. The visibility of these things as part of the student grades view has reduced the number of "discussions" between teacher and student over attendance grades.
- Our online faculty love the ease of use of the forums.
- Our HR Dept uses Moodle for compliance training and makes use of the certificate module for proof of participation.
- Faculty teaching cross-listed courses are able to link the multiple courses into one course for the ease of posting content.
- The lesson module, while easier to use than previous versions, still causes our faculty to shy away from it.
- We left our previous LMS due to high costs and poor technical support. Moodle is less expensive, more reliable, more user-friendly, and our service provider is more responsive than our former LMS.
- We have experienced increased use of the LMS by our faculty since switching to Moodle and more interest in trying new features.
- We have a great support team at our service provider who are very responsive and thorough in their attention to our needs.
- Academic courses
- HR Training
- Faculty Professional Development
- Student Organizations
- Prior to contracting with an outside vendor, we used the questionnaire module to run our end of semester course evaluations
- We have created a site for HR trainings
- We are exploring Moodle for placement tests in Math and English for incoming Freshmen
- Price
- Product Features
- Product Usability
- Product Reputation
- Vendor Reputation
- Third-party Reviews
- Professional services company
- We realized that we left out items in the scope of work and did not realize this until our service provider had performed the required tasks. We then had to issue a change order to amend the upgrade.
- Loading files is easy. doc ppt xls pdf mp3 all load without problems
- Linking to external sites is quick and easy
- Embedding video clips is easy
- The lesson is difficult to construct
- The quiz creation is time consuming and importing course cartridges is not always straightforward
- Moodle is open-source. This means we are able to easily extend Moodle without having to pay for additional functionality. An active user community continues to extend and support Moodle use. We are able to contribute directly by fixing bugs or enhancing functionality, and these changes can be submitted to the community for use by others. We can also make use of enhancements submitted by other users. The roadmap for development and the process of engaging in that process are open and transparent.
- Moodle is constructivist by design, supporting several means for learners to interact with one another as part of the learning process. Support for discussions is reasonably strong. The Workshop module, while complicated to configure, supports peer review of work using instructor-defined rubrics.
- Moodle supports standards such as IMS Common Cartridge, LTI (Learning Tool Interoperability), XML-RPC, etc., allowing content to be imported from other systems (or exported to them). This enhances our ability to incorporate Open Education Resources in our course offerings. This also aided in our migration from our previous LMS.
- Multiple hosting vendors are available to provide SaaS solutions, or an institution may choose to host Moodle themselves, depending on resources available at the institution.
- There is an incredibly wide variety of add-ons, most of which are hosted and/or indexed at the moodle.org site, which also provides rating tools, support forum areas, bug tracking, etc. In particular, Open University in the UK, using Moodle to support tens of thousands of completely online students, has contributed a number of solid enhancements to the platform.
- Moodle integrates with a variety of authentication systems, including most of those likely to be in use at a college or university. We have used both LDAP and CAS.
- Moodle HQ attention is divided amongst the needs of many different types constituents, e.g. institutions who use Moodle to support face to face or hybrid courses, rather than fully online programs like ours. While anyone can make an "add-on" for Moodle, it can be difficult to get changes in the core application approved by Moodle HQ, which can limit the kinds of add-ons that can be created.
- The number of experienced hosting providers in the U.S. is small, and one (Moodlerooms) is now owned by a commercial competitor (Blackboard).
- Because Moodle is open source software, there is no commercial entity providing technical support. There are so many configuration options that some expertise is needed to configure Moodle for the specific needs of an institution. Commercial hosting providers can help, but many institutions will find they need at least one full-time staff member to administer and configure Moodle, even beyond administering the server used to host Moodle.
- The interface of Moodle sometimes seems dated compared to newer applications, e.g. Canvas. Newer interface elements are being adopted into Moodle Core, but many are left to individual "Theme" developers, with varying degrees of support. Three columns are assumed, and the "Block" structure is confining (e.g. one cannot place a block in the central region of the course).
- Although Moodle is intended to be aligned with constructivist learning principles, it cannot "force" instructors to teach in a constructivist way (nor can any LMS).
- Reporting tools are scant. Third-party plugins are needed to provide adequate reports. We recommend Configurable Reports and the Ad-Hoc Database Queries tool. We would like to see tools like these become part of Moodle Core.
- Automation tools (e.g. import of student enrollments from a Student Information System) have been limited and not robust in the past. This is improving, both within add-on services provided by hosting services such as Remote Learner, and within Moodle Core. This situation still needs improvement.
- The Gradebook function is complex and generates many support questions.
Moodle can be used to host courses completely online, but if this is mission critical to your institution (i.e. the purpose of your institution is to provide education and you will do this primarily online), be sure you have enough internal resources to support this application. This is not a turn-key solution. Substantial configuration is required.
If you have the resources to host your own LMS and administer it, Moodle is an excellent choice. You will be able to customize it to meet your needs, for a very modest cost (as the software itself is free).
If you are a smaller institution without 24x7 IT support, you may need to consider external hosting, and this will come at a cost. You may be restricted in how much you will be able to customize Moodle, and you will still need someone within your organization who will be familiar with administering and supporting the features of Moodle.
If you need minimal LMS support for face to face courses at low cost, Moodle is an outstanding choice.
- Switching from Blackboard to Moodle helped us reduce costs at our institution during a critical funding shortage.
- Although we have had to develop reports ourselves, our access to data and reporting within Moodle has allowed us to focus on measuring effective teaching and learning practices within our institution in a way that wasn't possible with Blackboard. We are in the process of developing specific learning analytics to further improve this aspect of our institution.
- As we progressed in using Moodle, we found we had to allocate significantly higher resources than originally estimated, including a full-time LMS administrator internally, and increased support services at our hosting provider.
- Canvas,Blackboard
Canvas was not ready for review at the time we selected Moodle. We routinely compare different LMS products as they surface in the marketplace. Canvas has a good interface, but at this time we don't feel the discussion/forum feature is strong enough to support fully online learning.
We continue to look for LMS tools that provide even better support for learner peer review and more flexible online assignments. We use many external tools to enhance Moodle, including Blackboard Collaborate, Kaltura, Chalk & Wire, Articulate Storyline, and Turnitin. On the one hand, this gives us a "best of breed" solution that doesn't limit us to a single vendor. On the other hand, managing all these licenses can be cumbersome and expensive.
- Adult students needing to complete a college degree while maintaining full-time employment and/or family responsibilities
- Enlisted students deployed abroad
- Adjunct faculty needing a tool to communicate with students without requiring extensive web development skills
- In addition to our college courses, we support the Education and Training Partnership, which provides training to prospective foster families in the state of New Hampshire
- We use Moodle to provide faculty professional development as well as student instruction
- We use xhtml to provide twitter feed blocks in Moodle sidebars about topics of interest to the course subject matter
- We are looking at increased use of SCORM (possibly via Articulate Storyline) to provide simulation-based learning for complex topics
- We are considering badges for both faculty professional development and recognition of complex, high-order student skills crossing multiple disciplines
- We are hoping to enhance learner peer review tools and promote independent learning within Moodle
- The Topic/Week structure in Moodle helps organize course activities in the same way that an instructor's syllabus does, making it clear what tasks need to be performed each week (or other course unit)
- The "My Home" page provides an easy overview of all tasks one needs to complete, across multiple courses
- The Forum provides clear notification of and navigation to new, unread posts
- Instructor grading of forum activity by students seems like an afterthought, even though forum discussions are a critical component of constructivist and social-constructivist learning. The "Rating" system is the most integrated way to provide grades, but using it in that way is not obvious to new faculty (or to students).
- Several tools provide similar functionality, but enhancements do not work across tools, e.g. rubric tools developed for Assignments can't be used in the Workshop or in Quiz Essay Questions, and Quiz Scoring methods (e.g. short-answer matching) can't be used in the branching Lesson module
- User-configurable reporting is not built into Moodle. The Configurable Reports plugin addresses many of these needs.
- Blocks providing additional functionality, e.g. summaries of the 3 most recent posts, cannot be placed in the central region, only in sidebars.
- The Gradebook function is very complex, and generates numerous support requests from instructors and students. Configuring the correct calculation of grades can be difficult for all but the simplest of scenarios (simple average). Instructors frequently override grade calculations by accident and need help restoring the correct calculations.
- Banner
- Chalk & Wire and other LTI-compliant tools
On the other hand, the integration with LTI tools, including Chalk & Wire, has been simple and relatively painless. Students are provided single-signon access to LTI-compliant tools and instructors also have visibility to student progress in those tools. Scores are reported back to Moodle from LTI tools (if provided by the LTI tool).
- Possibly calendar services, e.g. Google Calendar.
- File import/export
- Single Signon
- API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
- Javascript widgets