Moodle Marketplace?

Moodle Marketplace?

by Nicholas Walker -
Number of replies: 13

Hello everyone,

I use Moodle 1.9 as a companion site for a small publishing company I operate with a fellow ESL teacher. Don't get the wrong idea. We are exploring our passion for pedagogy, making our ideas a reality, and covering our costs. In the process, my partner and I have been able to send a few bucks to a handfull of developers for plugins, customizations, and technical help. 

It strikes me that if open source Android phones can have a Google Play store button, one could put put a Moodle Marketplace button on Moodle.org so that people who have created pay-for-use plugins or materials might be able to flog their code or activities openly.  I realize that you can buy hosting, t-shirts and make donations already. I am suggesting opening that concept up.

Does anyone else think this idea has merit? Is this heresy? Please, comment.

Best wishes,

Nick

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In reply to Nicholas Walker

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by Tim Chambers -
Actually, Nick, that seems like it'd be a great idea and possibly result in increased opportunity and creativity. I'm not a developer or accountant, but if developers could reap the benefit of the time they put into their plugin designs by receiving a monetary return (e.g. like iPad/iPhone app creators do, even at $.99/app), then it seems they would devote more time to making plugins knowing that they can be compensated for their time and knowledge investment. Still open source, but wow- imagine the increase in interest!
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In reply to Nicholas Walker

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by Frankie Kam -
Picture of Plugin developers

I support the idea. Now how to realise it?

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In reply to Frankie Kam

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by Nicholas Walker -

Hello Tim and Frankie,

Thank you for your replies. You'll notice that there hasn't been an avalanche of interest in this thread. I am not sure why. 

Frankie, you ask how.

The easiest way to my mind would be to start with an edu-preneur forum on Moodle, a place for commercial talk. There, at least, people wouldn't feel awkward simply letting others know that they have products or services for sale. 

Another way would be to ask Moodlenews.com to set up a classified-ads page. There are other possibilities.

Thoughts?

Nick

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In reply to Nicholas Walker

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by Matt Bury -
Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Nick,

I wouldn't be too sure about a lack of interest. I bet lots are watching but just don't feel they have much to contribute. Do these forums have view counters on the discussion threads?

From a more abstract perspective, we're talking about how to help learning content and curriculum developers to monetise their work, aren't we? Perhaps some kind of social ratings system, or independent reviews? There's a fair number of Creative Commons repositories already out there. I don't know how used or how successful they are. It'd be interesting to find out.

There are many different ways to generate revenue from one's endeavours and personally I'm open to all perspectives and approaches. Donations, virtual "tip jars", freemium, licensing, and whatever else might be out there.

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In reply to Nicholas Walker

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by Tim Chambers -

I don't understand how it works, but why not follow the example of the WordPress market? Thousands of plugins and themes. Many are free, but premier versions are for sale.

Also, what about looking at the iOS (e.g. iPad) app market model? 

I don't think you should reinvent the wheel, and I don't think you should try something different. Moodle needs something that's familiar, intuitive, to bring it out of the 'different' and into the familiar so that dummies (non-IT folks) can understand and be attracted (not intimidated) to it.

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In reply to Nicholas Walker

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by Martin Dougiamas -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Testers

It's not a bad idea (obviously anything to give developers motivation is good!), but we still have to get Moodle plugins working smoothly first:

2.3 - admins get notified about new plugins
2.4 - admins can choose to update plugins via web interface
2.5 - admins can add new plugins to their sites direct from Moodle Plugins 

At that point we can add some Paypal features to Moodle Plugins so that developers can request some small payment at the initial install time if they choose.

However, I would hope that mostly everything stays free because that is an important thing for Moodle and our users.

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In reply to Martin Dougiamas

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by Justin Hunt -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

So where are we with this? Now it's 2015 and the items Martin noted are checked off . Actually the changes that were made are really good, the plugins database now rocks. For admins , developers and users its really good. 

The flip side of this is that if the plugin is not on the plugins database, people are wary to install it. Understandably so. But this makes it pretty hard to sell plugins independently or set up some sort of off-Moodle.org plugin marketplace.

Is there currently any initiative from Moodle.org to implement something like this? Or is there some way to work this into the existing partners arrangement?

Average of ratings: Very cool (1)
In reply to Justin Hunt

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by David Mudrák -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Documentation writers Picture of Moodle HQ Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Peer reviewers Picture of Plugin developers Picture of Plugins guardians Picture of Testers Picture of Translators
Do we actually need to implement anything? You know, all plugin maintainers are free to put a call for donations at their plugin description page and the README file. Be it PayPal or any other way they prefer (such as postcards).
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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by Just H -

There's a difference between asking for donations and selling though and this is more a push for an "official" list of paid plugins rather than being optional I feel. Not something I'd like to see but then again ... I'm not a developer big grin

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In reply to David Mudrák

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by Justin Hunt -
Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Honestly if a donation button were enough, we wouldn't have the Moodle Partner system and the soon to arrive Moodle Association.

In my own experience, donations didn't work very well. Paypal Japan stopped doing donations, so my buttons stopped working. I put in place a different system that cost $5 a month to run, but that was way more than the donations I was receiving. So in the end I just stopped the donations thing. I was losing money on it, and did not really seem worth the trouble.

There are a lot of good reasons for premium plugins, not least that fact that developers have a good incentive to support and maintain them. But I know there is more than that to consider, and users, developers and Moodle will all have different perspectives on this. I am interested to see what people think.

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In reply to Justin Hunt

Re: Moodle Marketplace?

by Gareth J Barnard -
Picture of Core developers Picture of Particularly helpful Moodlers Picture of Plugin developers

Hi Justin,

I've found the same issue.  I did set-up a Flattr account which was fine until recently when they stopped supporting PayPal.  I have replied to your other thread in the developers forum pertaining to that aspect of this concept.

Cheers,

Gareth

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