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Moodle 2.8 Review
September 15, 2015

Moodle 2.8 Review

Ted Burke | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

2.8.5

Modules Used

  • Grade Book, Attendance, Glossary, Evaluation Kit,

Overall Satisfaction with Moodle

Every course at the college receives a Moodle shell. Moodle is used extensively by 85%-90% of our faculty, and minimally by the rest. 100% of our student body uses Moodle for their courses. All new hires attend a workshop on using Moodle and the expectations of the college that everyone be at least a minimal user.
  • 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.
We find Moodle easier to use than Blackboard, less expensive, more versatile and we like the ability to select among numerous service providers for support and price.
The questions to ask when adopting Moodle lie more with the service provider than with Moodle itself. Questions around cloud based storage, ownership of content, data security (including student data) should be asked when vetting a hosting company. Our use of Moodle does not utilize all of the existing functionality, so Moodle is usually adequate to meet all of our LMS needs.

Using Moodle

2500 - The users represent all phases of life across campus. Academics, IT, HR, Student Life, etc....
5 - We have end-user support, network infrastructure support, SIS support and SIS-Moodle integration
  • 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
Our faculty and students are both happy and comfortable with Moodle

Evaluating Moodle and Competitors

Yes - We replaced Blackboard due to its high annual cost and its poor tech support
  • Price
  • Product Features
  • Product Usability
  • Product Reputation
  • Vendor Reputation
  • Third-party Reviews
The driving force was lack of support from Blackboard. We formed a faculty work team to specify must-have features and our IT department to specify product support needs.
No changes. Our process worked well for us

Moodle Implementation

Find a partner who will work with you during the implementation process. Be sure to provide ample training for veteran users on the changes and for newbies on the overall product.
  • Professional services company
OculusIT was the implementation partner
Yes - Our current version was backed up from our previous version, implemented in test, and then rolled into production
Change management was a small part of the implementation and was well-handled - Our biggest lesson was to be sure to test rigorously and to have both power users and minimal users as part of the test team.
  • 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.

Moodle Support

We have never had an issue go unresolved and we have never had to escalate any problem. The Tech Service team does all of that on their end.
ProsCons
Quick Resolution
Good followup
Knowledgeable team
Problems get solved
Kept well informed
No escalation required
Immediate help available
Support understands my problem
Support cares about my success
Quick Initial Response
None
We had a professor delete a course and we could not find where it went. This happened 2 days before the opening of the semester. Our support team worked through the night to re-create the shell and populate it with students so that the course content could be reloaded before classes began...all at no additional charge.

Using Moodle

We have had not major issues with the functionality of Moodle and have been able to integrate other products with our version
ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
Requires technical support
  • 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
Yes, but I don't use it