This document summarizes Goshen College's evaluation and decision process to switch from Blackboard to Moodle as its learning management system (LMS). It discusses Goshen College's needs, constraints, and drivers. It describes testing Moodle with faculty and students over multiple semesters. Faculty and students generally preferred Moodle and supported the switch. The college ended its Blackboard contract in 2008 and implemented Moodle campus-wide. The document discusses implementation, costs, hosting options, and the pros and cons of Moodle.

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

4. Decision Process

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

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

7. 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

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

10. Process Overview

11. Process Overview

13. 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%

14. 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%

15. 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%

16. 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%

17. 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%

18. 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%

19. 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%

20. 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%

21. 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%

22. 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%

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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.

50. 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

51. 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 - -

52. 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”