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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

About two years ago I have played around with some open source Learning Management Systems (LMS). The by far most popular one is Moodle, but there are also Claroline, Dokeos, ILIAS, ATutor, SAKAI, ... and many more.
Most of the open source platforms have originated in the school system, so they are more oriented towards and more popular in school environments than the corporate world.

My findings at the time were that open source was not ready as a corporate e-learning delivery system because

1. Lack of support for standards such as SCORM (badly implemented or non existing SCORM modules) - companies need to live by open standards so they can buy courses everywhere and be sure (enough) they will work on the learning platform
   
2. Lack of a decent reporting infrastructure - companies need reports on course completion, scores, but also on consumptions for cost allocation between departments, etc. Most of all companies need to be able to fully customise their reports to their needs, and to export reports in popular formats such as XML or CSV.
3. Lack of integration capabilities - an LMS should not be a standalone system but linked to many other applications in the company, such as LDAP for authentication. But it should also be possible to make use of the LMS by using APIs or other service calls from within other applications or web sites. In a time of web services and SOA it becomes critical to open up the black box of the LMS to other programs.

In a recent Learning Guild 360° survey report respondents report that Moodle is currently the number 4 LMS today in companies! You'll find it more in smaller or medium companies, and you'll find it more as a test system versus production server, but still it is an impressive achievement.
So I think it is time to review the readiness of open source LMS systems for the corporate world again. Over the next posts I will explore 3 systems and share my findings with you:

• Moodle, because it is the most popular with the biggest install base and biggest community.
• Dokeos, because there is just a new major and promising update, and because it is Belgian.
• SharePoint Learning Kit, because it is the only working open source LMS-like system for the .NET platform.

I will be looking at those systems from a very specific angle: as a basic e-learning delivery system for companies. Basic e-learning delivery means uploading/making e-learning packages, enrolling people, taking the e-learning, reporting on completion and results. So I'm not concerned with class management or administration, and I'm not concerned with its (proven) usefulness for schools. I will also not go into the classic pro/con battle between commercial and open source software. There is a difference in support, openness, licence costs, complexity, in-house knowledge required, etc. I will just cover the 3 chosen systems from a functional perspective. Can they fulfill the needs of companies for e-learning delivery? And at the side: can I as a Joe Averge informatic get those systems working rapidly? Just to set the expactations straight.

Labels: dokeos, LMS, moodle, open source, sharepoint learing kit