What About Moodle

What About Moodle? Floyd E. Saner Director of Instructional Technology Goshen College Goshen, IN 46526 [email_address]

Goshen College

Small private liberal arts institution

Located in northern Indiana

~ 1000 students

Very competent IT dept w/ ~ $1M annual budget

Goshen College

LMS use: web enhanced and blended courses

1998 - Started with CourseInfo Blackboard

Bb Learning System - Enterprise license

Ran on Goshen College server

2006 – began to investigate other options (cost driven)

2007 – focused on Moodle; began pilot projects

2008 – decided to drop Bb and use Moodle

Decision Process

Features Commercial vs. Open Source Enterprise vs. Learning Mgmt Outside-hosted vs. Self-hosted Fixed Features vs. Customizable

Constraints & Drivers Cost Use/ Features Req’d Resources Req’d Support Faculty & Student Experience

Constraints Decide Features Commercial vs. Open Source Enterprise vs. Learning Mgmt Outside-hosted vs. Self-hosted Fixed Features vs. Customizable Cost Use/ Features Req’d Resources Req’d Support Faculty & Student Experience

Feature Ranking Learning Mgmt Enterprise System Open Source Commercial Self Hosted Outside Hosted Most Important Least Important Can Be Customized Fixed Features

Process Overview

Consider:

Moodle

Sakai

Jenzabar

Haiku

Process Overview

Testing Moodle

Spring 2007: 8 faculty 12 courses

Fall 2007: 20 faculty 33 courses

Spring 2008: 24 faculty 40 courses

Faculty: How Do You Use Moodle? Faculty n=14; May/October 2007 combined Frequently Few Times Not At All Upload/post course documents 79% 21% 0% Send email to students 79% 0% 21% Grade book 71% 7% 21% Assignments (other than Turnitin) 57% 21% 21% Link to external web sites 50% 50% 0% Compose text or web page 50% 43% 7%

Faculty: How Do You Use Moodle? Faculty n=14; May/October 2007 combined Frequently Few Times Not At All Discussion forums 36% 29% 36% Quiz or Test 36% 0% 64% Turnitin assignments 29% 0% 71% Upload/post/link multimedia files 7% 50% 43% Upload/post pictures 7% 43% 50% Survey 7% 7% 86% Blogs 0% 7% 93% Wikis 0% 0% 100%

Faculty: Satisfaction With Moodle Faculty n=14; May/October 2007 combined Satisfied Neutral Not Satisfied N.A. User interface/navigation 93% 0% 7% 0% Link to external web sites 86% 7% 7% 0% Upload/post course documents 79% 21% 0% 0% Send email to students 79% 0% 7% 14% Discussion forums 50% 14% 0% 36% Compose text or web page 43% 21% 14% 21% Assignments(other than Turnitin) 43% 21% 0% 36% Upload/post/link multimedia files 43% 14% 0% 43%

Faculty: Satisfaction With Moodle Faculty n=14; May/October 2007 combined Satisfied Neutral Not Satisfied N.A. Upload/post pictures 29% 36% 0% 36% Grade book 14% 36% 29% 21% Quiz or Test 14% 14% 7% 64% Turnitin assignments 7% 0% 21% 71% Survey 0% 7% 7% 86% Wikis 0% 7% 0% 93% Blogs 0% 0% 7% 93%

Faculty: Which Do You Prefer? Faculty n=12; May/October 2007 combined Moodle Better About Same Blackboard Better N.A. User interface/navigation 64% 27% 0% 9% Upload/post course documents 42% 42% 8% 8% Link to external web sites 27% 55% 9% 9% Compose text or web page 27% 27% 0% 45% Discussion forums 27% 18% 9% 45% Upload/post/link multimedia files 18% 36% 0% 45% Send email to students 17% 33% 25% 25% Upload/post pictures 17% 17% 8% 58%

Faculty: Which Do You Prefer? Faculty n=12; May/October 2007 combined Moodle Better About Same Blackboard Better N.A. Assignments (other than Turnitin) 9% 36% 9% 45% Grade book 8% 17% 42% 33% Turnitin assignments 8% 0% 33% 58% Quiz or Test 8% 0% 17% 75% Survey 8% 0% 8% 83% Blogs 0% 0% 0% 100% Wikis 0% 0% 0% 100%

Students: Satisfaction With Moodle Students n=110; October 2007 Satisfied Neutral Unsatisfied N.A. Access posted documents 87.3% 7.3% 3.6% 1.8% User interface/navigation 82.7% 12.7% 2.7% 1.8% Keep track of information 81.8% 12.7% 3.6% 1.8% Access external web sites 50.0% 13.6% 0.0% 35.5% Assignments(other than Turnitin) 40.9% 14.5% 8.2% 36.4% Discussion forums 34.5% 24.5% 1.8% 39.1%

Students: Satisfaction With Moodle Students n=110; October 2007 Satisfied Neutral Unsatisfied N.A. Grade book 30.9% 20.9% 10.9% 37.3% Turnitin assignments 30.0% 20.0% 8.2% 41.8% Send email 22.7% 16.4% 4.5% 56.4% Wikis 19.1% 22.7% 1.8% 56.4% Survey 18.2% 20.0% 0.0% 61.8% Quiz or Test 18.2% 19.1% 0.9% 61.8% Blogs 12.7% 22.7% 0.0% 62.7%

Students: Which Do You Prefer? Students n=110; October 2007 Moodle Better About Same Bb Better N.A. Keep track of information 52.8% 24.5% 20.8% 1.9% Access posted documents 48.1% 30.6% 19.4% 1.9% User interface/navigation 47.2% 23.1% 26.9% 2.8% Discussion forums 29.2% 24.5% 12.3% 34.0% Assignments(other than Turnitin) 26.2% 24.3% 16.8% 32.7% Access external web sites 24.3% 29.0% 16.8% 29.9%

Students: Which Do You Prefer? Students n=110; October 2007 Moodle Better About Same Bb Better N.A. Grade book 16.7% 23.1% 28.7% 31.5% Wikis 16.2% 20.0% 5.7% 58.1% Turnitin assignments 15.9% 24.3% 24.3% 35.5% Quiz or Test 15.9% 15.0% 7.5% 61.7% Blogs 13.1% 18.7% 6.5% 61.7% Send email 12.1% 18.7% 14.0% 55.1% Survey 9.4% 19.8% 5.7% 65.1%

Comments

Faculty:

At this point, I'd choose Moodle.

I think that Moodle is pretty good and if it saves the institution a lot money we should consider going with it.

I like the format of Moodle so you can look at the whole semester and see what has been done, but the grade book really needs rework.

Given the overhead I think it is a good move.

Switch to Moodle.

Comments

Students:

I've found that things are much easier to find and access on Moodle than on Blackboard. With Moodle it's all right there … while on Blackboard things take much more time to find.

I have enjoyed using Blackboard. What would be the point in switching?

Comments

Students:

I would switch, Moodle is simpler and easier to use. Blackboard is too menu driven and people often miss things because they got confused in the menu system.

Moodle helps much better because it actually lets you see a schedule of what you're going to be doing for the up coming weeks.

Do not [switch]. I find Blackboard much more user friendly than Moodle.

Comments

Students:

I do not mind which of these programs should be used, but I think that only ONE should be used as soon as possible.

I would definitely recommend changing to Moodle. I do not enjoy using Blackboard.

I think the interface of Moodle is much more convenient because everything I need is readily visible, whereas using Blackboard necessitates a lot of digging through menus and such before finding what I want.

Free!!!

Comments

Overall …

Faculty fully expressed a preference for Moodle.

Students expressed a preference for Moodle or supported a move to Moodle (more than 2:1 margin).

Issues Of Concern Concern Long-term viability of the product Resolution There is a strong user community supporting Moodle. We are convinced Moodle is here to stay, will continue to be free open source, and will continue to be developed.

Issues Of Concern Concern Third-party software availability and support. Resolution Rapidly improving: course packs, McGraw-Hill, Elluminate, Turnitin, Wimba, … We used Respondus to create exams for Moodle. Moodle is SCORM compliant.

Issues Of Concern Concern Migration of material on Blackboard to Moodle. Resolution Most of our faculty develop materials outside Blackboard and Moodle. We have no fully online courses in Blackboard. No requests for complete course conversions.

Issues Of Concern Concern Difficulty of training faculty and students. The Moodle user interface is quite different from Blackboard’s user interface. Resolution Faculty and students have adapted very quickly and report they prefer Moodle’s user interface.

Issues Of Concern Concern Moodle’s grade book is very difficult to use. Resolution Moodle 1.9 grade book (released after our evaluation) has greater capability, but still some usability issues. Grade book continues to be improved, with a lot of user input.

Issues Of Concern Concern Advanced features such as whiteboard, live classroom, etc. Resolution We currently do not use these features, but need to determine their importance for us. 3 rd party options are available – Elluminate, Wimba, WizIQ.

Issues Of Concern Concern Integration with our administrative system – especially for automatically creating courses and maintaining rosters. Resolution Essentially the same as for Blackboard. We create simple scripts that pull information from our administrative system and load that into Moodle.

Process Outcomes

The Academic Computing Committee decided to end our Blackboard contract June 30, 2008.

Faculty were paid a stipend to attend Moodle training the first week of June, 2008.

Additional faculty training was provided in August 2008.

Process Outcomes

The IT department archived all Blackboard courses and extracted grades.

Software that will extract course documents and discussion board exchanges is available from UNC – bFree http://its.unc.edu/tl/tli/bFree/

Current Moodle Configuration

Moodle 1.9.3 (Build: 20081016)

Running our own server

Looking at Moodlerooms hosting this year.

What Moodle Has…

Secure login and authentication via LDAP

Course announcements and messaging

Links to documents, websites, videos, etc.

File directory (upload files, control student access)

Assignments (upload, online, offline)

Forums (discussion boards)

Online tests, quizzes, and test generator

What Moodle Has (cont’d)

Lessons (a form of adaptive release)

Grade book

Groups for class work and assignments

Email (class, selected individuals)

Calendar (w/ links to assignments and activities)

Wikis

Glossary

Database

What Moodle Has (cont’d)

RSS feed capture

Course backup and restore

Student and course activity reports

Customizable roles

Administrator role for system configuration and maintenance

What Moodle Lacks…

Virtual classroom/whiteboard

Full enterprise integration with other institutional software

Live chat (Moodle has a chat tool, but it is so slow students use other services)

Take A Peek Inside

Goshen College Moodle Server

What Works & Does Not Work? Works Well

Controlled release by Martin Dougiamas (Moodle developer)

Development is very responsive to user desires

Excellent support from competent users

Can Be Frustrating

Interface design lacking in some modules

Inconsistent interface

Sketchy documentation

What Works & Does Not Work? Works Well

Easy to make minor tweaks and modifications

If something does not work well, users organize and make something that works

Many inexpensive Moodle “Moots” – user conferences

Can Be Frustrating

Features can ‘evolve’ – modules are released but may change as users give feedback

Does Moodle Scale?

Registered Moodle Sites

Athabasca University (fully online) 37,000 + students

Open University (fully online) 150,000 + students

Louisiana State University 30,000 students

Humboldt State University 7,550 students

What Is The Real Cost?

No license fees (GNU General Public License)

No server or database fees – runs on Apache, MySQL and PHP

Our administrative costs are no more than what we had with Bb - server support only

We do not have any developers

The cost is what you want it to be – if you want to do a lot of development and customization, then you must support that

3 rd Party Options

Alfresco – open source content/document mgmt. http://www.alfresco.com/

Elluminate – virtual meetings and classrooms http://www.elluminate.com/moodle_course_management_system.jsp

Mahara – open source ePortfolios http://mahara.org/

McGraw-Hill Online Learning Packages http://onlinelearning.mhhe.com/index.php?page=course-and-program-catalog

3 rd Party Options (cont’d)

Turnitin – plagiarism detection software http://turnitin.com/static/products.html

Wimba – virtual classrooms, audio, etc. http://www.wimba.com/products/moodle_integration/

WizIQ – free virtual classroom software http://www.wiziq.com/downloads/moodle/

Moodle Hosting

Run your own server (free download) http://moodle.org/

Hosting Options – Moodle Partners

ClassroomRevolution http://classroomrevolution.com/

Moodlerooms http://moodlerooms.com/

Remote-learner.net http://remote-learner.net/

Price varies but the annual hosting fee is often in the range of $1-$5/user

ClassroomRevolution Annual Cost Accounts Storage Bandwidth $ 150 150 500 MB Unmetered $ 800 500 10 GB Unmetered $ 3,800 5,000 50 GB Unmetered $ Call 15,000 Dedicated Server 2,000 GB/month

Moodlerooms $3 and $5 plans include plugins for integration with Elluminate Live, Turnitin, Wimba, WizIQ, and other programs. Annual Cost Accounts Storage Bandwidth $ 1/student Blocks of 500 2.5 GB/block 50 GB/month $ 3/student Blocks of 500 10 GB/block 200 GB/month $ 5/student Blocks of 500 30 GB/block 600 GB/month $ Call Large institutions - -

Remote-Learner Annual Cost Accounts Storage Bandwidth $ 795 < 100 1 Gb - $ 1,500 “ several hundred” 12 GB - $ 2,500 ~ 3,000 25 GB - $ 4,000 ~ 4,000 40 GB - $ 9,000 ~ 10,000 500 GB Dedicated server “ hundreds of courses” $ 20,000 ~ 25,000 500 GB Dedicated servers “ thousands of courses”

Suggestions For Evaluation/Selection