Moodle

Moodle is an open source LMS (Learning Management System) that enables educators to design online courses with flexible content and collaborative learning. Moodle is not your typical LMS. Unlike Blackboard or Edmodo, Moodle is free. It needs to be hosted on your web servers and installation which can be tricky sometimes, is a quick process. If you follow all the steps correctly, your moodle LMS will be up and running in under 10 minutes. The administrator controls your LMS and can add users with various roles like Teachers, Course Creators, Students etc. Each role has specific access to activities they can perform. Moodle is a complete course management tools and students can opt in for various courses and all the activities that happen in that course are not visible to someone who is not enrolled. Apart from course level grouping, students can also be grouped based on activity level. Moodle is SCORM compliant and, therefore, you have the option of uploading your SCORM packages as course content. Assignments, forums, polls, surveys, wiki, and chat are some of the tools available to educators for increasing collaboration and make learning fun. With a little bit of training, your teachers will start to create their own online courses.

Moodle may be open source but it's no Wordpress when it comes to setting up. You will need to use all of your technical skills for installing moodle on your web server. Even if you manage to install moodle by yourself, you will need to hire a professional to take care of the administrative work as it can take a load managing all the activities and data management. For Organizations looking to run paid course, moodle does not offer an e-commerce solution and is, therefore, moodle is best suited for educational institutions. The user interface also leaves a lot to be desired. You have access to tons of free or paid theme, however customizing your theme is not an easy task. It's because of these reasons that you see a lot of Organizations employing the services of moodle partners. When it's all said and done, the cost of operating a moodle LMS will add to your operating cost.

If you're looking for an LMS where you just sign up and start creating courses, then Moodle is not for you. Even though Blackboard is dominating the Universities, moodle is catching up. Moodle provides ESP's (education service providers) a free and open source solution for course management. Moodle also has a good community support and a lot of plugins enable administrators to add any features needed by the Organization. Moodle listens to the community and the constant updates are improving and adding to already impressive feature sets. If your IT department can take care of the administrative activities, then it's definitely the LMS you should be investing in.