Who wants to help me gather some pros and cons about Moodle and Blackboard? Or point me to some?
- Feature Rich
- Usability (Staff and Students specific)
- Total cost of ownership
- Staff required in terms of development expertise
- Support (internal / external skill sets) also Service Contracts / Timely off site support
- Training and education to all OP staff
- Migration options / interoperability between each / course loading
- Hidden costs?
- etc
Off the top of my head (and not being a fan of any LMS) I have:
- Moodle’s design suites sequencing of learning activities more readily than Bb
- Moodle is the development base for many NZ tertiaries developing open educational resources (SCORM doesn’t always ensure successful transfer between LMS’s)
- More NZ Polytech’s use Moodle so finding experienced staff to support Moodle will be less of a hassle
- Bb is giving us grief with hyperlinking within the system (have been told that its because we are doing something that Bb was not designed to do – but hyperlinking is pretty common hey)
- Bb is uncool.. LOL
22 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 4, 2007 at 12:14 pm
brent
How about pointing out Blackboards dubious business practices and patent applications/litigations:
* On October 17, 2000, Blackboard Inc. filed a complaint with the World Intellectual Property Control against a company called Cupcake Patrol for control of the domain name “Blackboad.com”.
* In April 2003, the company sued student hackers and security researchers Billy Hoffman and Virgil Griffith for publishing, and planning to present, a paper highlighting security flaws in their Blackboard Transaction System.
* On January 17, 2006, Blackboard was granted US patent 6,988,138 on “Internet-based education support system and methods” (with other multinational patents having been issued or pending) with claims over features of course management systems (U.S. Patent 6,988,138 ).
* On July 26, 2006, the company issued a press release regarding its patent portfolio and on that day filed a lawsuit against Desire2Learn(D2L), another course management system provider, for patent infringement, using the above patent to assert its rights under US patent law. The Complaint was filed in Federal Court in the Eastern District of Texas, Lufkin Division, a rural East Texas judicial district. Desire2Learn have posted a Patent Information page which comprehensively documents Blackboard’s complaint against them.
* After the announcement of the lawsuit against Desire2Learn, some in the elearning community felt that the patent award ignored prior art on elearning and distance education and started a Wikipedia page, History of virtual learning environments, and a Moodle Docs wiki page, Online Learning History, to document the extant examples of course management systems.
* Because of concern over the patent claims, some in the elearning community protested by calling for a boycott of Blackboard. See, for example, BoycottBlackboard.org. A web site against education patents, with a lot of information about the patent has been created: Noedupatents.org.
* On 9 August 2006, a complaint was filed against Blackboard, Inc. by Portaschool of Atlanta, GA in the United States District Court of the Northern District of Georgia for deceptive business practices, and knowingly and willingly misrepresenting themselves in a patent application.
* On January 25, 2007 it was announced that the Software Freedom Law Center was successful in its request that the United States Patent and Trademark Office re-examine the e-learning patent owned by Blackboard Inc. The request was filed in November 2006 on the behalf of Sakai, Moodle, and ATutor. The Patent Office found that prior art cited in SFLC’s request raises “a substantial new question of patentability” regarding all 44 claims of Blackboard’s patent. Groklaw, a website that tracks legal issues generally related to Open Source software, has the press release: Groklaw.org
* On February 1, 2007, Blackboard announced via press release “The Blackboard Patent Pledge”. In this pledge to the open source and do-it-yourself course management community, the company vows to forever refrain from asserting its patent rights against open-source developers, except when it is itself sued for patent infringement.
(from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackboard_Inc.#Blackboard_legal_issues)
… basically, they’re just not nice and should you be giving your money to them? With Moodle, as in a lot of Open Source solutions while there may not be a huge reduction in overhead costs associated with moving to an Open Source platform, although in this case I’d argue that there probably are some … at least the $ your organisation spends floats around in the local economy rather than just heading directly northwards. I sometimes throw in a little bit about what all the tax dollars Blackboard has to pay off of our investment go towards in the USA… but you can figure that one out for yourself and weigh up your own moral/political compass
July 4, 2007 at 2:15 pm
James Neill
might this be better as a wiki page?
July 4, 2007 at 2:17 pm
James Neill
maybe we can tag
http://del.icio.us/tag/bbmoodle
July 4, 2007 at 3:06 pm
Michael Coghlan
Think it boils down to cost and control. Moodle costs little and provides maximum control – for lecturers and developers. Bb costs the earth and you are locked in to ‘their way’. I think it is worth considering Bb’s business practices and corporate culture…..
Moodle actually more closely mirrors the way teachers work in f2f classrooms. It’s an easier adjustment for staff new to elearning. Bb and the big boys are great for sophisticated pre-loaded content for training that needs to be auto-tracked and assessed, with the option of no or little facilitation.
But Leigh – what about the home made NZ LMS – forget its name. Derek Chirnside will know it. Have never heard anything but good things about it, And they give it away free.
Pluses for Bb:
* Wimba tools come as plugins (powerlinks) if purchased separately.
* basic model looks slick off the shelf. (Moodle needs some tinkering to look as good.)
July 4, 2007 at 3:31 pm
brent
Micheal:
You’re probably talking about Interact (http://www.interactole.org/modules/page/page.php?space_key=1&module_key=116)
brent.
July 4, 2007 at 4:56 pm
leighblackall
In an email:
IHi in a spare moment, I started googling:
one doc I havent read but looked at not too great a conclusion
http://www.naccq.co.nz/conference05/proceedings_05/concise/bremer_moodle.pdf
a clue to follow up here
http://isothermal.edu/talc/profdev/PDS.Minutes.2006.06.12.pdf
A comparison where Humbold went moodle, but the stats arent that ‘killer’ to me
http://www.humboldt.edu/~jdv1/moodle/all.htm
and
http://www.humboldt.edu/~hsuas/resolutions/RESOLUTION%20SUPPORT%20MOODLE.htm
the best search throwing up potentially useful pages
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&q=comparison+moodle+blackboard&btnG=Search
regards
mark
July 4, 2007 at 5:01 pm
leighblackall
Thanks so far everyone. Yes, my initial look at Christchurch’s home grown left me quite impressed. Socially networked before it was cool. Feature rich. Feels like Moodle.
Pumice. I’m with you on the corporate badness of Bb.. dunno if its an issue for those who decide how to spend the money here though.
Interesting to note that the naccq link in the comment before this one – is a paper by staff at Otago Polytechnic. Haven’t read it thoroughly, but I suspect it was influential in Otago’s decision to run with Bb.. like I said, haven’t read it yet – may turn out to by pro Moodle..
James. I reckon it would be better in a wiki. I’ll let this flow for a bit and then transfer it all to a wiki. Good suggestion regarding the Del.icio.us tag. bbmoodle it is hey.
Keep those links and comments coming!
July 4, 2007 at 8:11 pm
margoconnell
Leigh, we used Edutools to do some comparisons between LMS: http://www.edutools.org/summative/index.jsp?pj=4
If you’re interested, I’ve tagged some stuff I found: http://del.icio.us/margoconnell/lms
We’ve been evaluating WebCT CE6 and could look further afield (not yet confirmed tho, by powers that be)… can keep ya posted…
Interesting that we had almost 50/50 split on WebCT and were left with lots of questions! http://flickr.com/photos/46651875@N00/563035364
Marg
July 4, 2007 at 10:45 pm
James Knightly
Hi Leigh
I use Manhattan Virtual Classroom (personally) for a number of network adminstartor reasons. One of the guys who uses it with me used to do presentations for blackboard and although he rates the blackboard product he is realistic regarding it price – he really liked what is know as adapted release which allows individual student programmes based on response. He does like Manhattan virtual classroom because of its simplisitic use and because its free. Other LCMS i would rate inclue Atutor, interact, drupal, moodel and caroline
some good sites
http://www.opensourcecms.com/
http://www.cmsmatrix.org/
the second has some ranking
some good sites
July 5, 2007 at 4:07 pm
botts
hey leigh
not sure the overheads for moodle are that great. our college has a hosting agreement with them and they put together a package for us that included some training as well.
the whole thing seems pretty bullet proof with no outages that i am aware of and the odd small technical glitches we’ve had have been fixed within a few hours of us reporting them.
the moodle community has a huge repository of stuff. everything from courses to how tos to high level techie info. very very helpful.
its really easy to import / export material from/into a number of formats, including shaggy’s tpu stuff.
whilst not having used them myself, i do know that there are numerous plugins available, multiple language support, full customisation etc etc etc and ultimately – if you want to go down the path – its free.
my experience of blackboard is limited to my interaction with it as a uni student but i do think thast compared with moodle it is crap.
its not intuitive, the interface is clunky, it is regularly unavailable (this may be the fault of the university hardware????) , the capacity to interact with other users is only available through some dodgy looking forums, and it is (i understand) flippin’ expensive.
enjoy
botts
July 9, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Stanley
hi Leigh
. But I’m finding that for current levels of teachers’ (if I can use that word-that-shall-not-be-used 
understanding of pedagogy, there is very little difference between the two. Most will use an LMS in a reflex way to continue a transmission model of teaching. Even with the social constructionist affordances of Moodle, I would say (from experience and speculation) that a majority of courses worldwide on Moodle would be based on that paradigm…. Bb has ‘building blocks’ available that allow for blogs/wikis/etc (I’m experimenting with these at the moment) but unless the underlying assumptions change the LMS will be continue to be used to perpetuate the dominant approach…
having been well-involved in Moodle development in NZ, I now find myself at a ‘Bb’ institution (shock/horror
To cut a long story short – comparisons between LMSs / VLEs always tend to focus on features, which merely perpetuates the technological bias. Very few studies focus on the underlying assumptions about learning that inform the design of these systems. This is where the debate needs to go imho….
One very useful paper about the constraints of Bb is by Jon Dron at http://www.cmis.brighton.ac.uk/staff/jd29/papers/elearn06lms.doc
cheers
Stanley
July 9, 2007 at 2:01 pm
leighblackall
Many thanks Stan, I agree whole heartedly – which leads me to point back to that old but famous post: Die LMS die, you too PLE.
July 9, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Joël Fisler
So is it just Moodle vs. Blackboard? How about looking at other open source solutions like OLAT (http://www.olat.org). A Swiss java-based open source LMS worth looking at… (ok, I work with OLAT so I am a little biased but still, there is not just Moodle out there…)
July 17, 2007 at 4:54 pm
» Learning Management Systems and the Betamax Syndrome Magister XXI
[...] and relatively simple to integrate into other systems. I am not alone in my view of Moodle’s advantages. If the old premise that a better mouse trap will cause a path to be beaten to your door held true, [...]
August 28, 2007 at 6:42 am
Samuel Mann
Leigh,
You should really actually read 2005 Dave’s paper, but if you don’t, here is most of the conclusion:
“The students seem to prefer Moodle to Blackboard on most counts”
“Moodle has some interesting features. The fact that constructivist thinking is designed into the tool, rather than as an afterthought, is a good thing. Some further development is necessary before the product would be adopted by choice by the instructor in this trial but these features appear to be currently in Beta”
“While Moodle is free to acquire and use, administration and maintenance costs are often more significant than purchase (Brown & Eis 2003). However, in this case Moodle appears to be relatively straight forward to run. All of those involved in the project were impressed by Moodle and continue to consider its place as a resource within the learning environment.
We are recommending to our e-learning team that the product shows significant potential and should be seriously considered for further investigation.”
August 28, 2007 at 2:44 pm
leighblackall
Thanks Samuel, I did read Daves paper and forwarded it onto our IT manager back in July 4. Unfortunately the recommendation made to OP leadership was to continue using Bb for another 12 months at least. I haven’t seen the recommendation or the minutes of the meeting but I have heard that cost was quoted.. 16 grand for Bb and 18 grand for a hosted Moodle (seems like someone running Moodle is making a lot of money out of people’s ignorance)…
To my mind, in this day and age, both systems are out of date and we need to be considering so much more!! and if 16-18 grand per year is the real cost of running an olden style LMS.. then it makes no sense.
A friend and colleague in Australia who manages the NSWLearnscope project pointed me to Servage.com
For AU$100 per YEAR!!! you get one click installs of the likes of WordPress and MediaWiki – and yes they are one clicks, I tried – 360 gig of storage and some huge figure on bandwidth. At that price we could afford to buy accounts for every department, have for more capability and still save money.
18 grand for Moodle.. they must be tripping. $100 for a long list of CMS options, includes online support (but using MediaWiki and WordPress the support is EVERYWHERE), huge bandwidth and storage, software that is constructivist by its very nature.. hmph! what are we doing!!?
May 17, 2009 at 12:40 pm
Oliver
There’s also the problem of how well implemented it is. I’m at a BB university at the moment and there isn’t really that much material or usefulness in all bar one of my subjects to give me much incentive to go on there (usually only to check what to do for my assignments)
October 26, 2009 at 9:14 am
itadieddisp
Hi.
Please, give me some info about actual now dating sites.Thanks,
itadieddisp
November 9, 2009 at 8:20 pm
GrouncSor
Hi guys.
My PC worked not correctly, many mistakes and buggs. Help me, please to fix buggs on my computer.
My operation system is Windows XP.
Thx,
GrouncSor
December 18, 2009 at 5:19 am
engargoirorne
Hello,
My computer worked slowly, many mistakes and buggs. Help me, please to fix buggs on my computer.
I used Windows XP.
With best regards,
engargoirorne
January 10, 2010 at 10:00 pm
LeraIderfag
Hi nto All
Can you help me to find most popular dating sites.
On Tipe: http://www.yahoo.com/ please.
Thanks,
LeraIderfag
March 4, 2010 at 6:59 am
generic
You will not prompt to me, where I can read about it?