I am sure that all of the products I looked at are fine and worthy systems, and recognise that some of the comments are down to the limitations of my knowledge. As it turned out, the level of hosting we have proved a deciding factor as well. We do not have a dedicated host as I would not like to take on the risk of creating a disaster! It is also worth pointing out that I am a nurse by background and have not worked on this side of a proper VLE before, and although I can edit a php file if I have instructions to follow, I have no real coding ability.
It was decided to pilot with an open source software solution as this allows us to use a system for relatively little financial outlay, concentrating resources on developing content instead. The objective was to look at 4 open source systems that were likely to
- Offer suitable functions
- Be robust
- Have an established user base and future development plan
- Be relatively straightforward to use
The process of selection went through a number of different installation, administration and usage assessments, with the idea of rejecting any product that would present problems in maintaining or using. In addition, aspects of course creation and student use have been looked at.
The product
emerging as the winner of this process was Moodle, which seems to offer a
robust and mature platform, that is relatively easy to install, maintain and
use, and allows teachers and students the tools they are likely to expect.
I
created a table outlining notes on different aspects, such as
installation, adding content, tracking students, upgrading etc. A summary is below, although this is mainly the bad bits.
Bodington
failed as it requires full Java (not just scripting) hosting, a feature
only really available on a root host. High level of IT skill needed (I
think) and user support/community not developed enough.
Dokeos
failed as it would not allow you to access newly created courses - you
had to go back and reset the directory permissions. I also managed to
delete a whole function set from a course, the SCORM import module.
Seemed to be no way to get it back. Some of these may be bugs that have
already been addressed, but it was enough to make me nervous of the
carnage our teachers could create! Moderate user community.
ATutor
seems a reasonalby decent product. It seems reasonalby unclurttered but
did not seem to be that intuitive. It also does not like word
documents, so would create an unnecessary burden on staff having to
create html or text files. We may revisit this if the staff really
decide they hate moodle! Moderate user community.
Moodle
was the actual winner. Seemed the most powerful product, least flakey
and having an accessible and active community was a necessity (I have
been running phpBB up till now, which helped to highlight the
importance of this sort of user forum). Seems to have the most active
user / development community. In this process I also looked at the
planned developments and any development release, cant wait for Moodle
1.6 or 2.0! I do still have a couple of outstanding issues, for example
the exit strategy. It would be nice if you could export courses in
SCORM format or something that could be transferred to another system
(everyone seems to be migrating in, but migration out is a
possibility).
Hope this is of interest to some of you, although I do recognise the limitations.
There is a blog detailing the process at http://nursing-elearning.blogspot.com/
