Building the case for Moodle Document

Building the case for Moodle Document

by terence armentano -
Number of replies: 12
I am currently working on building a case for Moodle at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, OH.  (Division I school -- over 20,000 students-- currently using Blackboard).

The following ingrediants make the quality of an LMS and are the focal points of making an LMS decision . Let's come together and create a comprehensive list around these topics to create a standard "Building the case for Moodle" document for schools around the world.  This could be used in conjunction with the 10 Myths about Moodle. Please include your knowledge of Moodle in these areas, personal experiences, testimonies, examples, and anything else that will help build the case for Moodle.

  • High availability: The LMS must be robust enough to serve the diverse needs of thousands of learners, administrators, content builders and instructors simultaneously.
    • Moodle and availability - [answer here]

  • Scalability: The infrastructure should be able to expandor scaleto meet future growth, both in terms of the volume of instruction and the size of the student body.
    • Moodle and scalability- [answer here]

  • Usability: To support a host of automated and personalized services, such as self-paced and role-specific learning, the access, delivery and presentation of material must be easy-to-use and highly intuitivelike surfing on the Web or shopping on Amazon.com.
    • Moodle and usability-- [answer here]

  • Interoperability: To support content from different sources and multiple vendors hardware/software solutions, the LMS should be based on open industry standards for Web deployments (XML, SOAP or AQ) and support the major learning standards (AICC, SCORM, IMS and IEEE).
    • Moodle and interoperability - [answer here]

  • Stability: The LMS infrastructure can reliably and effectively manage a large enterprise implementation running 24x7.
    • Moodle and stablility - [answer here]

  • Security: As with any outward-facing collaborative solution, the LMS can selectively limit and control access to online content, resources and back-end functions, both internally and externally, for its diverse user community.
    • Moodle and Security - [answer here]
Best,
Terence
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In reply to terence armentano

Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by Etienne Lévy -
you should add something like "universability" because Moodle is able of working in every langage and must be compared with the other LMS on this point of view. That is the question: should you purchase "english first " for english speaking people" or will you flavoured the free expression in any kind of langage all over the world?
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In reply to Etienne Lévy

Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by terence armentano -
Etienne,
This is a very good point! The international aspect of Moodle is very important and supporting international perspecitves is a core innitiative at our University.  We had a hard time getting support from Bb for various languages.  I'm sure this has something to do with their target market and where they want to invest their money for development. Needless to say, Moodle supports the languages we needed support for.  Moodle shoots and scores in this arena.
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In reply to terence armentano

Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by Dan Stowell -
Terence - You say

the LMS should be based on open industry standards for Web deployments (XML, SOAP or AQ).

"Based upon" is a slightly odd phrase to use - the LMS doesn't have to use these standards in its internal workings, really what you want is for it to "speak" in those standard languages (to import/export/converse with other systems).

So perhaps a change to something like

the LMS should exchange data using open industry standards for Web deployments (XML, SOAP or AQ).


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In reply to Dan Stowell

Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by terence armentano -
Dan,
Good call on changing the wording there. The re-wording is much clearer. Thanks.

modified phrase - "The LMS should exchange data using open industry standards for Web deployments (XML, SOAP or AQ)."

Dan, feel free to fill in any of the areas based on your experience with Moodle. It is my hope that this document will continue to evolve as more people contribute.
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In reply to terence armentano

Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by Dan Stowell -
Terence - I don't really have the time available to contribute much to this. Suffice to say that I'm looking into scalability at the moment, and could contribute something roughly like this:

Moodle runs on a wide variety of webservers/database technologies. As with any installation of a server-based software system, it is crucial to refine carefully the choice of hardware, operating system, and database system, to ensure that the system can cope with a high throughput. The largest live Moodle installation at time of writing (Open Polytechnic of New Zeland) handles 35,000+ students and 6,500+ courses registered.

The consensus in the Moodle community seems to be that a Linux-based webserver running Apache, with PHP installed as well as a PHP accelerator, is commonly the best choice, and that the webserver and database server should sit on separate machines.

It should be possible to load-balance a Moodle installation, for example by using more than one webserver if necessary. The separate webservers should query the same database and refer to the same filestore area, but otherwise the separation of the application layers is complete enough to make this kind of clustering feasible. Similarly, the database could be a cluster of servers (e.g. a MySQL cluster). I know of no live systems that are doing anything like this at present.

All this implies that Moodle's architecture makes it easy to respond to future demand, by adapting the technologies upon which it runs. This should be possible even in a live setting, to improve the service without major disruption.

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In reply to Dan Stowell

Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by terence armentano -

Dan,
That is exactly the kind of expertise we need to make this document a great tool for the Moodle Community. Thanks for sharing Dan!! Quite a helpful bit of information. I am currently working on the usability section.

Current Document:
  • High availability: The LMS must be robust enough to serve the diverse needs of thousands of learners, administrators, content builders and instructors simultaneously.
    • Moodle and availability - [answer here]

  • Scalability: The infrastructure should be able to expandor scaleto meet future growth, both in terms of the volume of instruction and the size of the student body.
    • Moodle and scalability- [Moodle runs on a wide variety of webservers/database technologies. As with any installation of a server-based software system, it is crucial to refine carefully the choice of hardware, operating system, and database system, to ensure that the system can cope with a high throughput. The largest live Moodle installation at time of writing (Open Polytechnic of New Zeland) handles 35,000+ students and 6,500+ courses registered.

      The consensus in the Moodle community seems to be that a Linux-based webserver running Apache, with PHP installed as well as a PHP accelerator, is commonly the best choice, and that the webserver and database server should sit on separate machines.

      It should be possible to load-balance a Moodle installation, for example by using more than one webserver if necessary. The separate webservers should query the same database and refer to the same filestore area, but otherwise the separation of the application layers is complete enough to make this kind of clustering feasible. Similarly, the database could be a cluster of servers (e.g. a MySQL cluster). I know of no live systems that are doing anything like this at present.

      All this implies that Moodle's architecture makes it easy to respond to future demand, by adapting the technologies upon which it runs. This should be possible even in a live setting, to improve the service without major disruption.]--contributed by Dan Stowell

  • Usability: To support a host of automated and personalized services, such as self-paced and role-specific learning, the access, delivery and presentation of material must be easy-to-use and highly intuitivelike surfing on the Web or shopping on Amazon.com.
  • Interoperability: To support content from different sources and multiple vendors hardware/software solutions,  the LMS should exchange data using open industry standards for Web deployments (XML, SOAP or AQ). 
    • Moodle and interoperability - [answer here]

  • Stability: The LMS infrastructure can reliably and effectively manage a large enterprise implementation running 24x7.
    • Moodle and stablility - [answer here]

  • Security: As with any outward-facing collaborative solution, the LMS can selectively limit and control access to online content, resources and back-end functions, both internally and externally, for its diverse user community.
    • Moodle and Security - [answer here]

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In reply to terence armentano

Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by Martín Langhoff -
As part of the NZVLE project, we maintain a high-end Moodle cluster with 45K users and growing. Have you seen the slides from Moodle Moot 2005 Rotorua? Should give you some good material for this. They are linked from this page: http://catalyst.net.nz/var/cm/cm-moodle.php

cheers!
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Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by terence armentano -
Hey Martin, thanks for sharing. Your presentation was very helpful.
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Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by Martín Langhoff -
No worries wink Also

* There's a forum specifically setup for gathering this kind of info: Comparisons and Advocacy

* There is some great "business case" material collected in the wikipages of the NZVLE project.

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In reply to terence armentano

Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by Ghassan Geara -

hi Terence !

At AUB (www.aub.edu.lb), we are considering Moodle as a alternative CMS because we are currently using WebCT 4.1 and are planning to move to an Open Source platform.

AUB counts 7.000+ students and we had last year around 700 courses using WebCT.

Searching on Moodle, I found this forum on "Building the case for Moodle Document" and I want to know :

- Is your document almost ready ? Can u share it with us ?

- Do u have any idea on the best Moodle installation? Issues to handle concern:

* Server requirements (hardware), web server configuration (software)

* Cluster environment on the server side.

* Security issues

* Any Moodle integration with a SIS software (ie. SCT Banner)  ?

I found some infos on moodle.org but I need a more complete vision in order to convince for a shift to Moodle!

Any help, tips, documents, case studies are more than welcome!

Thank you for any help.

Ghassan Geara

Instructional Designer at AUB

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Re: Building the case for Moodle Document

by terence armentano -
Hi Ghassan,
I'm glad you would find this document helpful as well. I am in the same boat as you and hopefully we will end up with a nice document soon. Right now, all I have is what you see here.   I am still looking to the Moodle community for some help on this one.  I will definately inform you when it is complete though.

-take care,
Terence
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