It's not a real "problem" and it's a little off-topic, but I need to explain in my study-report *why* I choosed Moodle for my project here. I mean there are a bunch of other open source- eLearning systems on the market, so
"What do you think makes Moodle so special, that you decided to choose it for your situation?"
I really like to here other opinions ...
Fabian:
Well first and foremost in my mind is the support I was able to get from Martin and all the other developers out there. We tried another platform and failed to get answers to major issues that concerned us. These folks here are great and willing to put up with basic questions from newbie developers.
To quote one of my students "Moodle Rocks!" 
Just my humble opinion,
Tony
Short and fast I'm afraid but the list goes: features, ease of installation and maintenance, the amount of control and features the instructors have in their classroom - and not the least of which, out of pocket costs. We tried several and I assure you that the frustration level was high. Several of the virtual classroom products made me wonder if the people writing them had anything to do with education or any idea that the instructors need intuitive controls. Moodle is pretty intuitive (I'm _still_ explaining that you "add a resource" to "add a page" *chuckle* They'll get it one of these days though.) and most of my instructors say that the more they use it, the better they like it.
We like it too because it's open source - which means lots of input and good ideas to the designer. I personally like open source because it is my belief that if the person sat down and accomplished it because they wanted to, vice they were told to do it, they tend to put more into it. The dedication level shown by Martin is extremely high.
In the end, our instructors were given a choice of academic.com or on-site hosting with Moodle. They still have that choice but by far and large their choice is Moodle for ease of use, on-site location (translates as: we know who to yell at when something goes wrong 
) and "customer support".
There ARE other free e-learning systems?
Anyway, I'm trying it because my provider (rochenhost.com) includes it as an auto-install script. Bn
Dear Fabian
Herebelow is a review I sent to a mailing list recently. I would like to be able to explain the reasons for my choice more. There is a great comparison site posted some on the meetings/conferences forum I believe. Here it is, thanks to Jacob Romeyn
http://www.edutools.info/course/compare/index.jsp
here is my review/plug. I would be interested in other peoples Moodle raves. There is a "buzz" page on this site, of course.
Moodle and Constructivism
The Moodle software suite is particularly effective at: providing information (resources, documents, images etc), opportunities to discuss that information (e.g. one click creation of forums, and chat spaces), and cooperate in providing
information (eg. student uploaded resources, and wiki-style cooperatively produced archives). Thus, Moodle is learner-centered, cooperative, interactive,
transparent, and geared towards developing intrinsic motivation through these means. Hence Moodle is "constructivist", and generally 'right-on'.
However, due to this emphasis on "constructivist" learning, earlier versions of Moodle were a little weak (compared to commercial systems such as Blackboard and WebCT) in the areas of teacher-centered control of the learning process such as triggering and testing.
Triggering refers to the concealment and controlled availability of recourses, such that, for example, a test only becomes available once students have viewed a particular resource, or a resource only becomes available when students have achieved a certain score in a test. Date triggered, and instructor triggered resource (de-) concealment has long been available in Moodle but the, "once you jump through the hoop" type triggered de-concealment functionality has been made available only very recently in additions to Moodle. WebCT, on the other hand, has for some time
boasted a similar control option called "selective release."
While earlier versions of Moodle did have good, randomised, multi-format tests, (and the capability to import Blackboard and idirectly, WebCT format tests since there are many defectors), it was only very recently that cheat-proof timed "exams" were implemented using Moodle (with the addition of functions to disable ctrl-p, right click, the browswer back button, and include mulitple password protection, and auto submitting, etc.) The latest Moodle tests are now so cheat-proof, that they are
used by a provider of online accreditation charging XXX$ to sit an exam. This sort of testing and 'learner-controlling' functionality is more suited to "make them memorise and test them afterwards," non-constructivist methodologies. I think that this is one of the areas in which the Methodology of Moodle may have (past tense) affected the range of pedagogies available to the Moodle user.
However, since Moodle is open source (you can see the source code, change it, add to it, and distribute it) and there are now thousands of educators using it and many *contributing* to it, Moodle is growing at a pace that commercial software producers may find difficult to match. New activity modules (referring to things like Web Quest, dialogue, excercise, glossary, libary and journal modules) are being added weekly.
For this reason, the Moodle software suite has a functionality which now overflows the boundaries of the original creator's particular pedagogical proclivities. You can now use Moodle to put your students in an electronic straightjacket, jump through hoops, and make'em memorise, using a very non-constructivist pedagogy.
BlackBoard &. WebCT vs. Moodle
While the commercial systems may still have the edge in terms of number of institutions using their products, their popularity, in global terms, can be gauged in the number of languages into which they are translatied. How do these three systems rank in terms of number of language packs?
WebCT 16, Blackboard 23, Moodle 28*
(* Language pack survery Based on the information available at)
http://www.webct.com/intl/viewpage?name=intl_download_plugin http://www.blackboard.com/about/sitemap.htm (assuming there are separate language packs for all non-English speaking countries serviced) http://moodle.org/download/lang/ (not counting all versions of Spanish)
Perhaps someone can tell us about the advantages of using BlackB and WebC, as well as their approximate cost? These companies do not seem to like to mention the cost of their software on their web sites. And not surprisingly. There are some interesting documents on the web that indicate costs between 5000 - 50,000 USD per annum. About $30,000 a year seems typical.
http://alto.aber.ac.uk/Bb/Evaluation/commentstudent.asp
http://www.tacoma.ctc.edu/home/jmiller/faq.htm#cost
http://www.sau21.k12.nh.us/hajh/Web_Based_Learning.pdf
http://www.eberly.iup.edu/ABIT/proceedings%5CSharingTheKnowledge.pdf
The following document is particularly interesting, claiming a WebCT advantage over BlackBoard, and stressing learner control functions (such as "selective release") and the price of up to $44,000 to set up, and a mere $29,000 a year, as one of WebCT's strengths!
http://www.wit.ie/library/vles/WCTCompAdv.pdf
I notice no significant functionality that is not supported by Moodle. The only thing missing is the price tag, for the software. ( Full support, updating, and hosting comes at only $1000 per year.)
Moodle is mushrooming! Moodle is stable, powerful, fast, easy to use, and FREE. Please visit
http://www.moodle.org
or the forums at
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/index.php?id=5
Please note, the comments hereabove are my own opinions, *true only to the best of my knowledge*, and may have no relation to the those of Martin Dougmias,
the instigator of Moodle or the current situation of the commercial software about which I am largely unaware. I have no commercial interest in Moodle. I am merely a satisfied user. I am plugging Moodle because, the more of us that are using it, and improvining it, the better it will become.
BlackBoard is copyrigh of Blackboard Inc.
http://www.blackboard.com/
And WebCT is copyright WebCT In.
http://www.webct.com
Sincerely,
Timothy
Timothy Takemoto ne Williams
Associate Professor,
Yamaguchi University
thanks for your replies! I really like to here more opinions, but I agree: a huge advantage from Moodle over other system is the great community ...
keep up the good work ...
Perhaps there should be a sepate forum for this.
I found out today that my university has a educational software research group that is pushing for the introduction of another EMS. I did not know that the research group even existed.
I need to make a presentation tomorrow after the professional presentation by the Intelect guy (aslo, strangely, a non-Japanese Japanophone).
Has anyone given any presentations of this type?
Tim
Hi!
I'm in a similar situation... The director of studies at my college chose a platform made in Canada, only available in French, very difficult to learn, free for now, but eventually for a price... The teachers had nothing to say about it... But since a few teachers were using Moodle, he decided to permit it's use. Moodle is gaining more and more users and it's not the case for the other one!
I did a demo to him and a few other persons wich consist of two part :
I didn't try to show everything Moodle can do because there too much for a short demo. Just the main things. I have used examples from real courses with students interactions.
Then I showed them how to create a few activity and add a few ressources... They agreed that it seems easy enough or at least accessible (for those without any knowledge of the Web).
With teachers, to show how easy Moodle is, to really give people a feeling how easy it is to do things with Moodle, the best way I found was to have the people behind a computer and make them try a few tools (to put a document, to create a forum, ...). Again, only a few things... They come out from the experience saying how easy it is... They have the impression that they could master Moodle in no time...
I do not know if this helps... Best of luck to you!
Jean-François
Thank you very much David Delgado, John Bolton, Jean-François Nadeau, and Dale Jones, particularly David for the Top 10.
If any other moodlers have any MORE TIPS ON MARKETING MOODLE then please post away.
I will ask some questions about specific points elsewere on the forums, once I have searched more thorooughly. The first thing that is confusing me is the SCORM module by Roberto Pinna. I have found the three main threads regarding the module but I am still confused about what it is. I will post there.
Open Office Org has a sort of marketing chapter or somesuch with a forum/mailing list and section of downloadable brochure type files. I can see the need.
Tim
Well first of all we are a 6-8 middle school in central California. I had been looking, for 3 years, for a testing package that would do the things that I wanted to do, at a cost we could afford. September 2004 we discovered Moodle. Since then I have built all quizzes that go along with our reading books into Moodle. Our teachers love it. Since then I have spoken with alot of other technology users at other sites about Moodle. Everyone is quite amazed with what it can do. A few of our teachers have gone off and created many new amazing things for their classes. This is an amazing product. You would think someone woud get the idea to sell this. ;>}
Now I have math teachers asking about it. Soon the science dept will discover what it can do for them. Now if only history would come along, my work on earth would be done............
Anyway, please send our thanks to the team of developers for Moodle. They are an amazingly talented bunch.
I can customise it by modifying the PHP code freely. Best of all, Moodle is free with no licensing fees. YAHOO!!!
