It just doesn't make business sense to expect faculty to learn an LMS on their own, and certainly our experience with WebCT and Blackboard is that despite all the claims of the makers, most faculty don't learn to use the advanced features on their own.
Thus if the aim is to improve/increase the use of the LMS, the best use of extra money your institution apparently has to spend on an LMS is to increase support staff and faculty incentives for creating high quality classes and learning to use the advanced features.
Does your product work wellwith SCT Banner (grades, class list update, etc)?
We've got snapshot integration code for Banner, but we haven't done a direct integration yet (as HSU is moving to Peoplesoft and we're doing our integation there). However if you all want a direct integration, we'll write it for you for less than the cost of 1 year's license for one of the commercial systems and never charge you for the code again
PS, present the gradebook and quiz module as of 1.5, the new ones kicks BB's out of town
What are the grading options(extra credit, viewing grades, viewing grades as percent, and updatinggrades?
And grade exceptions, don't forget exceptions! How about dropping the X lowest scores in a category?
Technical support - 24/7.Student/Faculty?
If you are in Roseburg Oregon, we've supported Moodle courses at several colleges in California remotely and are now offering support for other colleges. We will be happy to give you an estimate for a support plan, see http://cdc.humboldt.edu/moodle.
What server software issupported?
Windows, Linux, Unix, MacOSX
Are e-Portfolios available as part of the standard product?
The will be soon
How many staff does it take tosupport a local installation?
This depends on the number of students, at CSU Humboldt, with 6000 students in Blackboard Basic, we've needed about 2 full time staff. Our support costs with Moodle are about the same (most problems are the same on both systms: forgotten passwords or missing plug-ins, mainly acrobat).
<?php
echo "Can you include demo scripts";
echo "yes";
echo "smile";
?>