Learning2.0 : Journey to about2findout.com

Moodle is the most popular open source Learning Management System.

"Moodle is the brainchild of Martin Dougiamas, who designed the program while working on his Ph.D. at Curtin University of Technology, Perth, Australia. He developed it as a tool for his dissertation which was on a Socio-constructivist approach to learning." (Thomas N. Robb)

Originally it was made for use in schools and based on pedagogical principles you either like or you don't like, but increasingly it has found its way into the corporate world. An E-learning Guild Report from March 2007 reveals that it is the 4th most popular LMS system for organisations accross industries and for all company sizes, after SumTotal, in-house developed systems and BlackBoard, with a market share of 10,68%. The report further specifies some penetration of Moodle in large corporations, but a more substantial share among smaller firms or as a departmemental LMS (largest market share for SME). But also in terms of ROI and satisfaction Moodle scores high, and substantially higher than some commercial implementations. For example 96,2% of respondents give Moodle a good ROI, as compared to 75% for Saba and it scores highest on satisfaction in the SME market space.

You can read about my Moodle installation experience in the article 'Moodle installation, my try' on my 6C learning blog. It installs and updates quite easily via a web based installer, as many PHP based applications. Moodle is currently localised in over 75 languages and has a lively community that develops add-ons, or helps you out with hosting or installation services. The documentation is quite complete and many answers can be found back in the forums or with a Google search.

So let's evaluate the 3 pain points of the last time.

- I did not test integration, but Moodle has an LDAP component to link it with your company directory system. And in the roadmap I have found more and more APIs that are in the pipeline, so Moodle is well on it's way to opening up to other applications. Database support is already multiple: you can run Moodle on MySQL but also on Oracle or MS SQL Server. For integration capabilities and extensibility I give Moodle a thumbs up.

- Reporting: There is basic reporting on activities, logs and quiz scores and also SCORM tracking available. But it is nothing near the vast reporting facilities that many administrations need, for example for cost allocation, compliance tracking etc... And I haven't found a customisable reporting engine. I'm not convinced Moodle answers to the reporting and tracking needs of many corporations. That is a piece that will require custom programming. Thumbs down.

- SCORM: The SCORM module ships with the product, you just need to verify if it is enabled via Modules > Activities on the main administration page. Currently Moodle does not support SCORM 2004 but as I see very low adoption for it in the industry anyway, I don't really care. What I do care about is how my 3 test packages import, show and report. I have a small 2 MB sample package with a dummy course, a real course we developed in SCORM (12 MB) and a Thomson/NETg course (+100 MB). Unfortunately, all my efforts to upload a SCORM module have failed. Only in the Moodle demo site I was able to upload, run and track the small 2 MB course, because of the upload size limit. I do appreciate however Moodle makes a distinction between uploading the SCORM package, and importing it. You can ftp the package to the Moodle Data folder and then just point to it to import instead of having to rely on your PHP file upload settings for heavy packages. The SCO player however doesn't look very good.
But on all my installations I have the same error when I try to configure the SCORM package. It gets stuck on an empty 'modedit.php' and the module is never configured. It is a documented bug. And I did try, believe me. I tried on my hosted environment with Moodle 1.8. Didn't work. I upgraded to the Moodle 1.9 development release. Same problem. I installed Moodle on a USB stick and tried again. Same problem. I installed Moodle 1.8 on my own server. Same problem. I know that some people have uploaded SCORM modules and some even got NETg courses working. But I'm not one of them. So unfortunately I'll have to give it a thumbs down.

Labels: moodle