The folks at Wesleyan University have a blog up that is a stellar example of how to evangelize for an LMS platform to faculty when you’re facing the front end of a migration. ((Another great example is UNC’s Sakai pilot blog.)) For starters, their FAQ is rich with information, including analysis by peer schools.
Here’s a sample:
Why are so many schools switching to Moodle?
While we cannot speak for all the other schools, we imagine their motivation is similar to ours—Moodle is more cost-effective than Blackboard and we have more control over it. A plethora of independent research on student and faculty satisfaction with course management systems show that users like Moodle as well as or better than Blackboard.
- In favor of Moodle
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte
- University of Canterbury
- University of North Carolina at Pembroke
- Blackboard vs. Moodle: Comparing User Experience of Learning Management Systems
- Blackboard vs. Moodle: A Comparison of Satisfaction with Online Teaching and Learning Tools
- A Comparison of Two Learning management Systems: Moodle vs Blackboard
- LMS-based EFL blended learning: Blackboard vs. Moodle
- Moodle and Blackboard are not that different
- North Carolina Community College System
I also like their “Moodle in 15 Minutes” screencast series:
- Minute 1: The tour
- Minute 2: Add a syllabus
- Minute 3: Add readings
- Minute 4: Link to WesFiles
- Minute 5: Assistants and auditors
- Minute 6: Email and Announcements
- Minute 7: Assignment w/ dropbox
- Minute 8: Grade an assignment
- Minute 9: Add a forum
- Minute 10: Delete a file
- Minute 11: Gradebook tour
- Minute 12: Manual gradebook items
- Minute 13: Gradebook categories
- Minute 14: Weight grades
- Minute 15: Customize
What is Moodle?
How many schools are using it?
Is it secure?
Why are we considering alternatives to Blackboard?
Are we going to pilot other alternatives?
How different is Moodle from Blackboard?
How do I convert a Blackboard course?
Does Moodle have the same features as Blackboard?
Are there browser limitations?
Will we be dropping Blackboard?
Is Moodle’s online help better than Blackboard’s?
Why are so many schools switching to Moodle?
What about foreign language support?
Does Moodle support symbolic notation?
Does Moodle have any specific advantages over Blackboard?
Is support during the Spring pilot different from the support I get using Blackboard?
What happens to the placement exams if we move to Moodle?
Moodle, like Blackboard, is a course management system. They offer comparable tools and support the same sorts of course-related activities—document upload and sharing, discussion boards, blogs, gradebook, assignment upload, calendar, etc. Blackboard organizes these items for you by giving you a page for course documents, a page for assignments, etc., and allows you to do some customization of the organization. Moodle, by default, provides primary organization by topic or by week. Links to all course assignments, documents, etc. are then created automatically. Moodle is arranged as one long page broken into sections (by topic or by week).
How many schools are using it?
There is a very large movement in Higher Education toward the adoption of Open Source course management systems. Currently, the two major contenders are Moodle and Sakai. Moodle has been adopted more widely, and especially among our peer institutions in the Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges. Here’s a sampling of schools that have adopted Moodle:
| Albion Bard Bates Beloit Carleton Colby Colgate College of the Holy Cross College of Wooster Colorado College |
Connecticut College Depauw Dickinson Earlham Hope Kalamazoo Kenyon Lafayette Lawrence Macalester |
Middlebury Oberlin Occidental Reed Rhodes Smith St. Olaf Vassar Wabash Wheaton Williams |
Hi Michael,
Nice post. You may also be interested in these presentations from the Victorian Directors of IT, eLearning Forum held in June. This is the Victoria (Australia) University IT directors group that arranged a joint e-learning forum with presentations from several universities. I was involved in organising the day and am responsible for the web site that contains Slideshare presentations and videos.
The site as at http://www.vdit-elearning.com/
Of particular interest to this post are:
The Monash eLearning Environment (http://www.vdit-elearning.com/2010/06/the-monash-virtual-learning-environment/)
Monash University is Australia’s largest and one of the most respected. They have gone to Moodle, Mahara and Google. This is a great presentation from their Pro Vice Chancellor.
La Trobe – LMS evaluation and rationale for moving to Moodle in 2011 (http://www.vdit-elearning.com/2010/06/latrobe-%E2%80%93-lms-evaluation-and-rationale-for-moving-to-moodle-in-2011/)
La Trobe University is a well respected University in Melbourne moving from WebCT to Moodle.
Moodle at Ballarat (http://www.vdit-elearning.com/2010/06/moodle-at-ballarat/)
Ballarat University is a respected smaller, regional University in Victoria. There is no video for this one unfortunately.
Hope these are useful.
Cheers
Mark
@marksmithers