Hello everyone,
I graduated yesterday. My thesis is now published. In the beginning it was going to be about Open Source course management systems but along the way the subject has shifted to open source software evaluation with a case study on course management systems. Moodle is evaluated in the case study and declared a true winner.
Anyone who is interested in reading it, you can find the PDF here.
Congratulations! Cheers! Applause! I look forward to reading your work!
atw
atw
Oh, Karin, that is awesome! Congratulations on getting it finished!
I've added it to Buzz!
I've added it to Buzz!
Hi Karin, this looks great! Is there any way you could submit it to Educause?
The Moodle topic area there is empty (other than the many positive listserv postings), and this is a place many US Universities get their ideas about what is going on in the world of IT. The kind of study that you have done would I think be very interesting to the CIOs, staff, and faculty who frequent Educause.
To contribute: http://www.educause.edu/Contribute/646
The Moodle topic area there is empty (other than the many positive listserv postings), and this is a place many US Universities get their ideas about what is going on in the world of IT. The kind of study that you have done would I think be very interesting to the CIOs, staff, and faculty who frequent Educause.
To contribute: http://www.educause.edu/Contribute/646
What you've done is similar to the BRR (Business Readiness Resource) model.
http://www.openbrr.org. You noted as much right at the end of your paper. Great minds think alike!
Your thesis could be used as the basis for a listing on Moodle at openbrr.org. I see a few up there already. Have you considered doing this?
http://www.openbrr.org. You noted as much right at the end of your paper. Great minds think alike!
Your thesis could be used as the basis for a listing on Moodle at openbrr.org. I see a few up there already. Have you considered doing this?
Should have looked a bit closer at openbrr.com
There's a rating of Moodle there (http://www.openbrr.org/docs/BRR_Worksheet_25Jul05_Moodle.sxc)
along with several others: Mambo, Sakai, JBoss.
Naturally, any rating will depend on who is doing it. A compliation
from a number of people, i.e.) a larger sample and hopefully unbiased group, would be more helpful.
There's a rating of Moodle there (http://www.openbrr.org/docs/BRR_Worksheet_25Jul05_Moodle.sxc)
along with several others: Mambo, Sakai, JBoss.
Naturally, any rating will depend on who is doing it. A compliation
from a number of people, i.e.) a larger sample and hopefully unbiased group, would be more helpful.
I think you'll find the OpenBRR documentation on Moodle (and others) is simply sample data - i.e. it's rather meaningless. It's a proposed framework, nothing definitive in there yet. That's what I'm seeing at least 
Congratulations to you on an impressive achievemnt, Karin.
Great job.
-- Art
Great job.
-- Art
Interesting criteria. I will have a closer look. In the mean time...
Gefeliciteerd !
Congratulations - it's an important piece of work because as yet there's not alot out there regarding evaluation frameworks for FOSS. I like the criteria - the Integration aspect covers what we described as System Architecture and Code Quality.
If you don't mind we'll link it from a few spots on www.eduforge.org
Well done,
cheers
Richard
I don't mind at all, the more people I can reach with this work the better. The url will be valid for as long as I can keep it there, which I suspect will be years at least. It's my personal domain so this shouldn't be a problem.
Thanks, Karin.
Your thesis is timely and great. Congratulations!
Good Job, congratulations. I am only suprised that the newer Dokeos with newer ideas like the introduction of the "learning line" ends lower on the list then the older Claroline. Is that the longevity penalty?
Yes, this is explicitly mentioned somewhere after the results, that the difference in scores is explained by the age and release activity even though the projects are very close together. At the time I was reviewing them (and keep in mind, this was not an in depth evaluation, I would have evaluted the top 5 if I could but I only had time for two), Claroline and Dokeos did not show much difference, perhaps more has changed by now.
How did moodle get 10 overall if it didn't have 10 in each of the three rankings (looking at the bar chart)?
(not that I mind, mind you)
I'm also interested in how folks look at these comparisons, because the standard "does it have a discussion forum? Does it have a place to describe the course?" don't in any way do justice to what sold me on moodle in the first place.
For me, a huge deciding factor from the very beginning was that you could assign grades in the forums, and that the forums can be emailed out. It's not sufficient to just confirm that other platforms have forums - but rather you almost need to least a subset of features of each feature, and compare those. The problem is you then end up with very comprehensive, and bewildering comparisons, like that of CMS's at http://www.cmsmatrix.org/
But I do think that such a comparison would show up moodle in a very good light, and perhaps also highlight some of it's weaknesses vis a vis a small feature set in BB and WebCT (our dominant players in the US). For example, in the BB gradebook you can click on a grade and that takes you to the page for that grade for that student...
Great work, regardless!
d.i.
(not that I mind, mind you)
I'm also interested in how folks look at these comparisons, because the standard "does it have a discussion forum? Does it have a place to describe the course?" don't in any way do justice to what sold me on moodle in the first place.
For me, a huge deciding factor from the very beginning was that you could assign grades in the forums, and that the forums can be emailed out. It's not sufficient to just confirm that other platforms have forums - but rather you almost need to least a subset of features of each feature, and compare those. The problem is you then end up with very comprehensive, and bewildering comparisons, like that of CMS's at http://www.cmsmatrix.org/
But I do think that such a comparison would show up moodle in a very good light, and perhaps also highlight some of it's weaknesses vis a vis a small feature set in BB and WebCT (our dominant players in the US). For example, in the BB gradebook you can click on a grade and that takes you to the page for that grade for that student...
Great work, regardless!
d.i.