Begin... why should users choose Moodle over Canvas if they are starting to look at a LMS platform. The complaints from Moodle users is that it looks too stale whereas Canvas looks modern.
thoughts?
If you don't like how it looks, change it. There are many possible themes and uses for each. Canvas so much less powerful.
You can play with themes on the Moodle demo sites https://moodle.org/demo/
Some themes are built into core Moodle. See what you like. Many more themes are available for download Have a look at https://moodle.org/plugins/browse.php?list=category&id=3
As Rick said, the secret to Moodle's power is the admin. The more control you have, the more powerful Moodle is.
Yep, some people like the look of a Ford Pinto over a Ferrari 488GTB. Which one would you rather drive cross country? Or, are you more interested in looks than performance?
Here are some of my quick comparisons:
Posting a syllabus: Canvas = Moodle
Grade Book: Moodle >>> Canvas
Quiz Engine: Moodle >>> Canvas
Assignments: Moodle = Canvas
Forums: Moodle >>> Canvas
Tracking user progress: Moodle >>> Canvas
Responsive (smartphone) Design: Moodle >> Canvas
Support: Moodle >> Canvas
The ability for the LMS company to "sell" their product to administrators (who often have never used an LMS): Canvas >>> Moodle.
Key: ">" means "better than."
Incidentally, my school uses Canvas and I cannot change anything about its look. I use Moodle, and I have full control of its look. Realistically, the "look" of an LMS is often dictated by the LMS administrator.
HI Rick,
You're right about the sales bit. Canvas has invested a lot in acquiring new organizations, especially in the university / college markets. There, most organizations are moving away from BlackBoard to something newer.
As far as the look of a Moodle instance is concerned, there are so many free themes out there that can be implemented or modified to suit the organizations needs. And if an organization doesn't have the expertise to build/modify a theme themselves, there are plenty of specialists who would gladly take up the work for a fee. Don't know how theming in Canvas works, but I'm sure there are not that many designers out there with the skills to make it look prettier.
It would be seriously interesting to see a performance benchmark comparison between Canvas and Moodle for a midsize educational organization with +/- 5000 active student users.
Hi Joost, thanks for your ideas.
Well, you can see that my main point is that "Beauty is only skin deep."
There may be some truth that Canvas may be easier to make a page of content look prettier. And this is maybe what many seek... how to make content look pretty.
But then, what about all of the tools that allow a teacher to "teach" and "assess?" This is why I mention the grade book, forums, assignments, quizzes, etc. Making these look pretty is "skin deep," which is where Moodle is much deeper. Any faculty who is brand new to putting their content on the Internet might like Canvas. Gee, I was putting course content on the Internet back in the 1990s with MS Frontpage. But many instructors who have used other LMS's, with powerful features, are disappointed with Canvas. (Of course, just my own opinion.)
In my case, I seek the very best product for learning. Yep, I could easily use Canvas and would do so if it could come close to matching my Moodle, but it doesn't. So I continue to run Moodle on my own.
Hi Rick,
Although 'performance' normally refers to how the hardware performs while running a piece of software, I was thinking more in the line of a comparison of what the LMS has to offer in terms of tools available for students, teachers, course creators and admins. I don't have clear what Canvas has to offer, but wouldn't mind having a (concise) list comparing these for Moodle and Canvas (and possibly some of the others).
When the California Community College system adopted Canvas for all of its campuses, they put together a basic comparison. Download it here: http://oei.onefortraining.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Moodle_to_Canvas_v0.01.pdf
In general, Canvas has far fewer distinct activities than Moodle. Instead, you organize everything using the Assignment "silo" or the Discussions "silo" or the Pages "silo" or the Quizzes "silo", and optionally organize individual items from those silos into Modules that are navigated sequentially (like Moodle's Lesson activity, but without the quiz features). The Modules also resemble Moodle's course sections in their combination of various course materials, but they don't have a summary (and are not "visual" at all -- no images allowed). Moodle is unique in the LMS world in its focus on discrete activities as the basis for course content.
Some things are definitely easier in Canvas, such as creating group assignments or discussions on the fly (you can create the groups on the assignment configuration page itself) and creating links to other course items in the text editor (you drag and drop the item's name from a list instead of having to type the exact name and turn on autolinking). Canvas also hides some activity configuration settings until you need them, such as the groups functionality mentioned above or assigning peer assessment. This makes the configuration page less daunting out of the box than in Moodle, where far more settings are always visible.
Well Joost, you have fallen into the normal situation. Let me explain with my post from above.
Both vehicles (the Pinto and the Ferrari) have an engine, a steering wheel, four wheels, an exhaust, headlights, seats, etc. So they seem equivalent, don't they? In fact, some might say that the Pinto is easier to "get into."
And, at 110kph, I can turn both of them into so much scrap metal easily. The question is which one am I likely to walk away from?
I didn't realise that Canvas doesn't allow the use of images,"... but they don't have a summary (and are not "visual" at all -- no images allowed)...." though, as suggested by Glenn, above. If this is the case, then how boring is it? It is looking more and more like a Trabi rather than a Ferrari....
I have worked with Canvas a lot in the past, but I am not a Canvas expert.
Canvas provides a number of ways to set up courses. When I was part of an 8-instructor evaluation team, our lead IT/Canvas person said at the end "Everyone set up Canvas differently."
To me, the "Module" approach was closest to my frame of mind, which is similar to Moodle's "topic" approach.
It seems to me that if you use Canvas modules, you end up with a list of links (see attachment.) In this approach, I don't think that you can have pictures. But pictures can be used in other ways.
I am not one who can best argue whether Canvas or Moodle provides better picture integration. I can say that the Canvas editor does not provide emoticons. Isn't that interesting! No way for students to express emotions!
mm that's as exciting as the "Scroll of Doom!", Rick.... [shuddering in memory of an unlamented past .] If that is the landing page, what's the rest of it look like? Just as dull, bland and boring? [Erm, sorry they are three sister cities, Dull, in Perth and Kinross, Scotland, Bland in New South Wales, Australia and Boring in Oregon, USA.]
It's not that Canvas is behind Moodle, but it seems that it is not even in the same ball park.....
There are also some other issues that may or may not be of concern here. The major differences between Canvas and Moodle are endlessly debated by the experts, but there is a couple of areas that are usually overlooked. We have all complained at some point that Moodle is a little resource hungry, that's because of PHP. My understanding is that Canvas runs on Ruby on Rails. RoR is a web framework, whereas PHP is still developing a framework of its own. This has two implications, one is that the use of resources in a Ruby written, RoR environment is actually higher than that of PHP. This also means that Canvas will not run as fast as Moodle, but then neither Ruby or PHP are greased lightning here.
The other issue is that because of RoR, Ruby is not as adaptable or as flexible as PHP. The libraries used by Ruby projects are predetermined and apparently do not lend themselves to rapid change. While this may be considered a good thing, promoting stability, but it is also, for me, a major strike and one I hope PHP avoids.
BTW, a Trabant, or Trabi....
I'm joining this discussion rather late, but something in Colin's post made me think about how one of the big selling points of Canvas in the USA (at least something I've heard a lot) is that Canvas runs "in the cloud."
"In the cloud" translates to "fast and reliable" for those who don't know much about how "the cloud" really works.
I think it's important not to underestimate how important surface features are to most users of LMSs or VLCs. And ease of use and "peace of mind" for administrators.
To continue the automobile analogy, most users don't care if it's a Trabi or a Ferrari as long as the car gets them there quickly and reliably - and they can blame someone else when it breaks down.
"In the cloud" is, IMNSHO, the not so latest buzzwords for those superficial thinkers who think it sounds cool to use such buzzwords..
Several years ago, I was attending a session at an ISTE conference. "The Cloud" was still a fairly new term - to educators, at least. The presenter - I believe it was David Thornburg - in the course of his comments made reference to "the cloud". He paused and as an aside told us - "You know that's just the new marketing term for the Internet, right?"
David
Yep, maybe so.
I would maybe try to make a slight distinction with the way that my university has transitioned to Canvas.
When they had D2L, they ran this product on their own servers.
Now with Canvas, they let Instructure run the server, so since the "server" is no longer a university server (that someone at the university can physically touch), it is "in the cloud."
Maybe this is true of my own Moodle. My Moodle server is not in my house. I have a VPS from GoDaddy. I cannot physically touch this server, so it is "in the cloud."
So with my university's D2L, even though students got to it via a URL (and over the Internet), they would not have said that D2L is "in the cloud."
Well, just my 2 cents. Other positions about this are welcomed.
Thank you everyone for your great comments.... seems like I started a heated discussion LOL.
For those not hosting the platform themselves, what does or does your institution's privacy and security policies with having users and students data hosted externally elsewhere? We have a very strict policy about this in that it has be a Canadian datacentre.
@David, my point exactly, even now I suspect a lot of high level educators and politicians think "the cloud" lies at the end of the Yellow Brick Road and is a place of soda pop fountains and ice-cream mountains, where happiness reigns, and the music plays ever so loudly....
@Rick, while I can appreciate the distinction, with Canvas it appears an issue of who owns the data? With Canvas, control seems to imply ownership. Unless I miss my guess, GoDaddy is not going to be arguing with you about who owns the data in your Moodle. My concern is if things go badly for Instructure in the longer term, it looks like they have already positioned themselves to use your organization's data as an asset of theirs. I have seen nothing, read nothing to make me think otherwise. Unless there is a private treaty or an EULA where it specifically states that data is not the property of Instructure, I would be extremely wary of their marketing.
@Jerry, we had a similar problem here, all that happened was the Government changed the law. It seems we don't know the power of the Dark Side. I wouldn't expect it to be any different in Canada, no matter how disappointing the outcomes.
Hi Peter and Colin,
Yes, my (big 10) university runs Canvas "in the Cloud." They were sold on this concept because then the university would not need to spend money on their own servers nor on their own staff to manage the Cloud platform. Maybe a cost advantage! Canvas also seemed to boast that their product was "open." Well, it is not really "open", and running in the cloud, as I interact with Canvas, really doesn't have any speed advantage. In fact, my Moodle that I run on a little VPS outperforms the big Cloud Canvas.
On interesting disadvantage of our university running Canvas in their cloud is that we do not have direct access to the data (i.e., the database.) If, for example, you want to analyze the data, our school has to ask Instructure for a "flat file." Of course, Canvas boasts of having great analytics, but it about as much as saying "when I turn the Pinto's ignition key, the battery starts."
It appears that Canvas does provide some ability for schools to decide which new features they can implement. For example, my school has not yet implemented Canvas' new poorly designed grade book... I can't wait!
So, our university is saving all kinds of IT money to give faculty a lower performing product with fewer features that can't be customized. So yes, Peter, "peace of mind" for administrators seems to be a very important factor, not "peace of mind" for faculty and students.
On the other side of this, probably 70% of the faculty really don't need a powerful LMS, they just want to be able to post their syllabus and grades. So Canvas looks good to many of these faculty. My students do notice the features that I have in Moodle as compared to Canvas. Remember that I am the only instructor at my (big 10) school using Moodle, so one would think that my moodle would get a lot of negative criticism for being "different." But the opposite is true, students seem to really like my Moodle. Oh sure, some initially say "What is this Moodle thing!" However, about a week into the course these students don't complain anymore. Students are pretty adaptable, more than administrators want to believe. Also, some students comment that it is refreshing to see something different than Canvas.
Colin, the "Home" button in Canvas is where there is some flexibility to get fancy with graphics, etc. It can become a web page, using the tools of Canvas' editor. So essentially, Canvas provides a course "landing page" that can look great. From there, one uses the side buttons to get to various features, such as modules, quizzes, discussions, etc. None of this interface is responsive, so students really must resort to the Canvas app to navigate Canvas on their smartphones. Canvas, however, is a bit better than Blackboard because you can link to quizzes from within modules, whereas Blackboard makes embedding discussions and quizzes within topics much more challenging.
Be that as it may, Rick, there is one point that I do get nervous about when people start talking about putting data "in the cloud."
You inform us "...our university running Canvas in their cloud is that we do not have direct access to the data (i.e., the database.).." For me, this opens up a serious issue. Students enroll in your institution, all in good faith. Your institute does a deal with Instructure, in good faith. Now, here is where it gets nasty. Who has the "duty of care" of that data?
Is it your Institute because students have entrusted your Institute with their private data, and accumulated more during their term studying in your Institute? Or is it Instructure because your Institute has entrusted them with that data? My bet would be that because your Institute has no direct control over that data, some smartie lawyer, and there are a few around, will tear your Institute to shreds if something goes wrong at Instructure's end. I suggest that as students are unlikely to be aware that their information is being handled by a third party, or even if they are aware, the responsibility will fall back on your Institute's shoulders. If students are not aware, then they are being denied information that they may want to know, and make a choice about whether they want yet another party having access to their private data.
Another side of that, what if Instructure, for whatever reason, goes into liquidation. Does the data they hold become an asset of the company? There is a lot of existing decisions around the world to suggest it does, and I doubt the US is any different to here in this, so your Institute may have a serious problem if they, as you have indicated, surrendered control of their and their student's data.
Another issue is one Visvanath asked me about a while ago, something I had not considered prior to that. What if your Institute has a serious falling out with Instructure, the type where lawyers get richer on. What if they refuse to pay an account and Instructure denies access to their site, what then? Does this not imply that your Institute could and would, most likely, be held to ransom over that data?
Okay, sure, hypotheticals and hair splitting but that is what lawyers are paid to do and they do it an awful lot better than I ever will. I accept that things are not that straight forward either, but it is not a good look for an Institute to be sued, even if they are taking action against a supplier who let them down. It won't wash in the court of public opinion and it is likely to be pretty dodgy in a law court. None of us have crystal balls, so all this is discussion, but while it doesn't keep me awake at night, it is of concern.
PS, I think it was in "Henry VI" that Shakespeare had a solution to remedy many ills in the kingdom - kill all the lawyers...
Hi Colin, here is my knowledge:
I was at a university meeting about Canvas and I was sitting next to a high-level Instructure employee, and we were listening to a presentation about how the Engineering program was analyzing some course data. After the presentation, I asked this Instructure person how I can connect a product called Tableau to my Canvas data. He said "You can't, the data is on our Cloud Amazon server that serves many schools, this is why we do not allow schools to connect to the database. If we were to allow your school to connect to the database, your school would then have access to other school's data. So instead, if you or your school wants to analyze data, we can provide a flat file to you (as we did for the Engineering program.)
I am at a big 10 university, so I think our attorneys are bigger than Instructure's attorneys. But I could be wrong. I bet that some administrator at our school addressed the concerns that you expressed. I don't get involved in these issues.
But really, is this any different than an instructor using one of the publisher's LMS, like McGraw Hill's Connect product? Remember that all of the major textbook publishers are trying to get instructors to be on their web-based educational product. If I was using the McGraw-Hill system, I probably do not own my data.
"He said "You can't, the data is on our Cloud Amazon server that serves many schools, this is why we do not allow schools to connect to the database."
This is a good signal regarding Canvas' priorities. It is certainly possible to enable customers to access their own data even when you run on a server that serves many schools on AWS or other platform. But they don't either because it is not a priority or because it doesn't fit their business model (they would prefer to own your data).
On my end, I've used Canvas fairly extensively, along with Blackboard, Brainhoney, Schoology, D2L, etc., as we deliver our content into those systems via LTI and that has included setting up courses, gradebooks, enrollments, etc. in the various systems. To me the features provided for teaching and learning seem to be pretty much the same to what is available in Moodle; there has been a convergence in features as the products serve the same market. What I recommend is intuitions look at the LMS in an 'own vs. rent' perspective. The value of an open source solution like Moodle is that you own the system you build, and you own (and have full access to) the data you generate. Moodle certainly runs 'in the cloud' (we run ours on AWS like Canvas and it runs as fast or faster as the many Canvas, Blackboard, etc. sites I've worked with).
Measured as an 'own vs. rent' decision, the institution may still want to rent their LMS, or choose a vendor that offers code escrow and full data access, but I think this is the key decision point, because the rent vs. buy decision has consequences that last for many years or even decades (2003 was when I installed my first Moodle at Cal State whereas the features tend to converge over time.
@Michael,
Very interesting observation Michael, and I think that says it better that I had. And this is something I will incorporate into my spiel, Thanks Michael.
@Rick,
I know I am playing games here, and would have thought that people a lot smarter than I would have considered these things, but when it all boils down to it, which is the better solution 'rent v buy'. For me, 'buy' every time, but then I suspect I am not as fluid as many school leaders are about ownership issues.
My employer is moving to Canvas, and the director who is leading the implentation of it has done it at another college. He has also spoken at Canvas conferences and has high up connections there (which may sound poncy, but in practice we are making full use of wherever we have issues).
What we have been told by him is that if you get the database pushed daily into an Amazon virtual server instance by instructure, Tableau will connect to it. And that we will be getting Tableau to do this before it goes live - he's done that before too.
We as the administrators importing courses and showing staff around it haven't written a proper comparison, but here are the highlights so far (mostly negative):
- email and ticket-based support is utterly useless. we've been told we're getting Tier 1 (24/7 phone number, SLA guarantees an answer within 2mins of phone starting to ring) but that is equally poor (that comes from one of our number who works elsewhere where Canvas is already rolled out
- if you plan to import big moodle courses, it probably won't work. I had to take our larger courses i.e. 2gb ones and break them down into smaller .mbz files to get them to go in
- in trying to get answers on why these big imports were failing, they were telling us you had to change the course size setting (on canvas) in mb and make it a bit bigger than the import you're trying to do.
- no file upload progress bars when importing .mbzs, I've logged a feature improvement on that as pretty much every other file upload type has a progress bar
- no option for collapsing modules (topics in moodle) and their items (canvas speak for resources/activities) on page load (and no summary/intro box as noted in a previous comment)
- you can add headings as an item type, but not rich html labels (e.g. embedding an image or welcome video) onto the page - all this stuff goes into Pages
OCCASIONALLY they'll listen to the community and respond. e.g. the sub-accounts (categories on moodle) view didn't let you search properly or view more than 15/20 from the category - and didn't even show you the subcategories tree the way moodle can. Now we have a better search and results per page across multiple pages. But still rubbish compared to how moodle has been in the entire time I've known it (a decade).
We aren't generally fans of it. But are plodding on as the CEO chose it...
Art and design (notoriously hard to get on board with moodle) like it as it's clean. In fact it just looks like a dumb wordpress admin site, and there is next to nothing you can do about that style.
They're also switching to ProSolution at the same time, which we're told will automate everything on the Canvas side but they haven't exactly given much time to do everything on that front (or room for error if they balls it up). We (elearning) are half expecting to have to intervene with either writing the MIS integration for canvas or frequently change what the MIS system spits out into the cloud.
Take backups of your important courses before it is too late! Read for example, "How to save extensive courses (docs) when ending Moodle" https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=363466.
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Our bosses don't have the AD passwords for the server, moodle is safe for this academic year! But we have it setup to do auto-backups overnight (if a change has been made to a page/it's logs) so mostly those have gone in OK.
9/10 it tells you what it couldn't import (rarely why) but sometimes it just gives up with no clue. It's those cases I've had the least help with when logged. So now I'm just giving them blunt feedback and as long as I don't swear at them it's fair for them to get that!
In my own experience with the Canvas Community forums, "blunt feedback" is often not appreciated. Your feature request will probably be "canned" faster.
It's their support who are earning the blunt feedback. On the forums, I am less terse (although if moodle can do something that canvas is missing, I see no harm in pointing this out). One request got replied to by a mod quickly, saying it needed to be more specific and which bit she didn't understand - so I modified it and she replied back it made more sense and thanked me.
I will back moodle to the hilt. Canvas, I am just doing what needs to be done and not lying when people ask for an honest review of the experience.
It is always helpful to point out to Canvas what Moodle does well. About 4 months ago at a meeting, Canvas pointed out some improvements that they were making in "quiz configuration and settings." When I saw what they were trying to do, my observation was "Hmmm, someone must know how Moodle does it."
All that I can suggest is to keep at it and do your best. I really wanted to find that Canvas had all of Moodle's features, and more, since it was the newcomer. But instead I found that it still needs some time to mature.
Hi
I was thinking of the possibility of running those courses which can not be ported to canvas on Moodle. The link I have posted is about a real case where the teacher had to scrap his courses during Christmas before the authorities shut down his Moodle!
I was thinking of the possibility of running those courses which can not be ported to canvas on Moodle. The link I have posted is about a real case where the teacher had to scrap his courses during Christmas before the authorities shut down his Moodle!
Yep Dave, your post confirms what I have learned (I am just a demanding instructor, not a Canvas administrator, but connected to our school's Canvas admins.)
Good luck with your feature request. Unless you are very lucky, it will be "canned" (they call it archived) in about 3 or 4 months.
What I have found about importing moodle courses into Canvas is similar to importing courses to and from any LMS... it really doesn't work and you are better off starting from scratch (which I believe is a good thing, a good learning activity.) The problem is that quiz banks don't import very well, and Canvas' quiz engine is completely different (meaning they do not have a question bank or anything close to this concept.)
I appreciate your comments about Art and Design. Yep, those folks are a bit more creative, and seem to prefer "pretty" things over "functional" things.
And on top of all that... I wonder how much they have to pay for the privilege of giving away their data, their control, their essential purpose, raison d'être if you like, actually?
Hi Peter
You said:
> To continue the automobile analogy, most users don't care if it's a Trabi or a Ferrari as long as the car gets them there quickly and reliably...
I am not so sure about that. I know many people for whom even the colour of the car matters!
You said:
> To continue the automobile analogy, most users don't care if it's a Trabi or a Ferrari as long as the car gets them there quickly and reliably...
I am not so sure about that. I know many people for whom even the colour of the car matters!
Hi you both
The automobile analogy is quite accurate. I just wondered, once you turn one to scrap at 110 mph, which one hurts more: a Trabi or the Ferrari?
SCNR
The automobile analogy is quite accurate. I just wondered, once you turn one to scrap at 110 mph, which one hurts more: a Trabi or the Ferrari?
SCNR
The comment about PHP frameworks is way off. There have been many with wide uptake for many years - zend , cake, symphony, codeigniter, laravel decades before RoR ever existed.
Ruby's an old language which languished in Japan for decades before returning as a fad in the startup space with Rails . Like Python lingering in academia before striking back with the recent mainstreaming of mathematical programming.
Rails also pre-exists Ruby's return and can be (and is ) used with a variety of languages.
You are correct that a framework will have a cost as opposes a native app but a light framework will often do things like caching non dynamic data and config and speed up your actual operating performance after an initial startup hit (but apps and servers are designed to run uninterrupted for long periods so the framework hit should insignificant overall).
Frameworks have dual roles of guiding development and operational protections or efficiencies (security, registration and reporting etc are common). The real blessing is having developers follow one way of doing things and reusing common modules. If frameworks get huge (its a cyclic trend in dev fads) the dev ends up serving (and often fighting ) the framework not the user.
All which begs that Moodle doesnt have a framework - it has rough separation of concerns (data from display and business logic) but no conventional MVC it seems because its a plugin structure principally.
Canvas is simpler and smaller than Moodle. There are few Ruby developers and the community is not growing as most cool kids are climbing on Node.js. In the end of the day demography is destiny in dev as elsewhere and I don't predict anything RoR being around in that format in a decades time. PHP has a huge installed base of code and developer community so will be plugging along albeit with silvered pigtails.
Optimizing Moodle like any app is first checking the config (particularly caching) is ideal, then the cost of custom plugins and code and particularly data queries. If you scale moodle you should move the database to its own box or slice or vm (for security as much anything) and cluster servers at some point (they're cheap ) - you can load and stress test to discover the value point. Off my head cant think of a lot of php config level stuff that makes a difference.
Usually there is a particular chokepoint (often database calls or custom plugins) and you fix or workaround them and speeds go back to normal.
Hi Joost
I don't know Canvas. But I imagine Moodle has a richer collection of themes. It could even be more. Moodle developers have great fun in redesigning the themes engine, there by leaving lot of "hide" behind. May be it is a plus, a cleaning process. I don't know.
The other topic, performance benchmark: You are talking of something technical, like the load on the server infrastructure, right? I doubt whether such comparisons reveal much. For one, you need to compare apple with apple. Say, so many users submitting a forum of a particular size at the same instant. Or more critically, so many students fetching an on-line exam paper of a particular size at the same instant. But then, does Canvas haves a quiz module as versatile as Moodle's? Added to all that, unless the loads are different by orders of magnitude, what is the big deal about server horse power today? I assume, if the organization has thousands of users, it also has some resources - financial and technical.
P.S. Why we discuss this under General help. There is a forum for Comparison and advocacy.
I don't know Canvas. But I imagine Moodle has a richer collection of themes. It could even be more. Moodle developers have great fun in redesigning the themes engine, there by leaving lot of "hide" behind. May be it is a plus, a cleaning process. I don't know.
The other topic, performance benchmark: You are talking of something technical, like the load on the server infrastructure, right? I doubt whether such comparisons reveal much. For one, you need to compare apple with apple. Say, so many users submitting a forum of a particular size at the same instant. Or more critically, so many students fetching an on-line exam paper of a particular size at the same instant. But then, does Canvas haves a quiz module as versatile as Moodle's? Added to all that, unless the loads are different by orders of magnitude, what is the big deal about server horse power today? I assume, if the organization has thousands of users, it also has some resources - financial and technical.
P.S. Why we discuss this under General help. There is a forum for Comparison and advocacy.
I too didn't know what "performance" factors you wanted to compare.
At this point, I can say that my Moodle "feels" just as snappy as my university's Canvas. This is nowhere close to an apples-to-apples comparison.
Moving (belatedly) to Comparisons and advocacy forum...
You're going to choose a major (and probably mission critical) software system on the basis that one looks 'stale' vs. one looks 'modern'? Seriously?
Don't worry, today's modern is tomorrow's stale...
The essential nature of the use of a product should be the guiding principal for its implementation.
What do you want to do? Use a VLE. Great, Overarching questions:
Which VLE best suits our environment? Simple, can we set them up and test them? Canvas? Moodle? D2L? Blackboard? Sakai?
What best suits the learning needs of our Users? This is the critical question and is heavily influenced by glossy brochures and slick sales reps.
Which system has a great sales department but really suck when we install them? Take your pick.
Then there are the questions Institution Administrators should ask but never do:
1st Question: Which system can we use without having to spend money to install the VLE? Well that narrows it down to Moodle and Canvas, I suggest.
2nd Question: Which system gives us maximum control over the environment, the appearance, the inputs and outputs with a minimum of cost and least amount of downtime? Moodle over Canvas I suspect, but likely not by a lot.
3rd Question: What system gives us the the best range of tools to be as adaptable as it can? Moodle over Canvas I suggest.
4th Question: What system requires the least amount of PD to allow staff to use it adequately, initially? About the same I would think.
5th Question: What system allows the greater flexibility as our pedagogy changes? Moodle over Canvas.
OK, I am a fan of Moodle, yes I agree its appearance leave a little to be desired, but with the new Bootstrap themes, I can make it look not like Moodle. Try the Fordson theme, it's freely downloadable.
I am really coming to dislike these kinds of questions. They are always the same. You have obviously already made your mind up so why bother posting?
I don't know, Colin, Jerry's question might be a fair question. In fact, maybe he is playing the devil's advocate.
If someone wanted some opinions about Canvas, it would probably be fair to log into the Canvas forums and ask the reverse question... "Some of my user's do not like how Canvas... " and see what sparks might fly.
Yes Rick, you are probably right, but this is really reflecting my own frustration. For the last two weeks I have been discussing Moodle to a number of school administrators and they have been stone walling. I am very much aware of the risk of overselling a product, so I am somewhat mindful of the dangers of prosetelysing rather than factual, logical argument. I am finding that this sort of lower order logic is really hard to erode sometimes, especially if the people who make decisions are prejudiced in any way; which they usually are because they don't really understand the technology. What I am disappointed with is that they are often just not willing to try to understand it. Tech Luddite-ism is alive and well, and seems rampant amongst large groups of people who should know better.
And I have been reading Chris' discussions on build a long term strategy for a VLE and how to wreck blended learning solutions regularly. So why are these not front page news for Moodle Docs?...
It was management's question to us Moodler's, which we prefer and wanted some ammunition to counter their preferred platform though I think it maybe politics... even Blackboard is in the scope...
Hi
You wrote:
> management's question to us Moodler's, which we prefer
And the answer was...?
Seriously, you saw the kind of questions https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=368215#p1485065 the management _should_ ask?
> I think it maybe politics...
You mean lobbying? (See my post at the end of the sub-thread linked above.)
You wrote:
> management's question to us Moodler's, which we prefer
And the answer was...?
Seriously, you saw the kind of questions https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=368215#p1485065 the management _should_ ask?
> I think it maybe politics...
You mean lobbying? (See my post at the end of the sub-thread linked above.)
It was management's question to us Moodler's, which we prefer and wanted some ammunition to counter their preferred platform though I think it maybe politics... even Blackboard is in the scope...
Erm.. Blackboard? Get them to have a look at
, and enjoy it... Consider too that if a number of students are willing to do something like this, then maybe they have a point....
Work on the basis of costs. There is little setup cost, more time investment than anything else, if you have the infrastructure in place. Most organizations will have this in place, sufficient to get Moodle started and depending on users, you may need to repurpose an additional server and add in some additional storage, but in most circumstances, that will be about it.
Training costs are minimal because most training can be easily done online or inhouse. In most circumstances, anyway, we train ourselves, even if we need a leg up to start, but if we are interested, we learn more, use more, if we are not, we don't. I have mentioned Chris Kinneburg's posts on creating a longer term plan for your VLE and how to kill blended learning several times, these confirm what I have already seen in many different schools, and what I have suggested above.
The usual maintenance costs are incurred, but they have nothing to do with Moodle, they are the costs that any organisation will generate in the normal course of their operations. Normal support costs are minimized too, the expertise they need is here, freely available to anyone with a question, so time is the major cost and usually not a lot of it. That time, btw, is much shorter than it is for BB, believe me and with no add on fees.
It is the update costs where Moodle becomes an outstanding candidate. These costs are in time with Moodle. It takes time to update a Moodle, an hour or less if the people doing the updates know what they are doing. The update schedule can be totally controlled by the organization, do not require additional support or hardware. These are factors that can generate huge costs, comparatively, that Moodle avoids.
Control too, is important. Your organization controls everything, from the first installation to the latest enrollment. How far do they want to take it? Can they say the same for any other VLE? I don't believe so. They can't create and modify things the way they can in Moodle. Troy Patterson's blog suggests this has be of enormous benefit to the Dearborn Schools District, so what would it be like for your Organisation, compared to the static and constricted BB or Canvas?
The point I really like, and keep coming back to is made so well by Chris, and Troy Patterson, "you have to invest in something, we choose to invest in our people." This is such a powerful message, and I reiterate it every opportunity I get, and it has a cumulative effect apparently. Seems some people here are taking notice. That is where the most money is spent with Moodle and that has the highest ROI, simply because it never wears out, never needs replacing, and allows people to move and contribute at their own pace, in their own ways. Some will dive in others will just dip their toe in, but you don't have to pay large fees for the ones who barely use the VLE.
Another point is that you can use Moodle to create learning environments that are well outside the traditional classroom, and that has to be of huge benefit to students. All that, btw, does not incur any additional costs either.
Sorry, but I don't believe in short answers...
I used Blackboard at two different schools and I have to report that this video is quite accurate, Blackboard would sometimes (too often) crash at the student's submittal of a quiz. This problem led me to use a technique of allowing students to "repeat" quizzes. If Blackboard crashed, they could do it again.
I gave up using Blackboard for exams. It was just too unreliable. A colleague of mine did use it for exams but demanded that a Blackboard support person be available during his exams.
The problem was even deeper... there was no way to reset exams! You had to repost a copy. Then, some students would be confused as to which exam to do, or both! What a complete mess.
I was a little apprehensive to use Moodle's quiz engine for quizzes and exams based on my bad experiences with Blackboard. However, I have to report that Moodle's quiz engine is rock solid. I can turn an exam on for students while traveling on vacation... it (Moodle) just works!
This video, of course, brings back old memories. I want to say that I haven't used Blackboard for quite some time, but this is not completely accurate. I needed to translate a Blackboard question bank from Blackboard to Moodle, so I got a free Blackboard account (good for one or two courses) and used it to do the conversion.
I've supported and developed in Blackboard and its an ancient mess. I'm stunned they're still selling it. It's core code is decades old and a mishmash of two systems apparently merged at gunpoint with numerous odd tackons added over the decades with no plan.
Just don't go there its been on a deathmarch for a decade at least and someone should have the decency to give it a bullet.
Just don't go there its been on a deathmarch for a decade at least and someone should have the decency to give it a bullet.
I am one who believes that this is why Canvas has been successful. Consider having a product that goes down regularly every week. Then, Company B comes along and says "Our product doesn't go down, and it costs only a little more." Wouldn't that be appealing? And then Company B says "It runs in the Cloud, you don't need server admins, you get the support that you have paid for, and it's simple." (Also, Company B's product somewhat looks like Blackboard, meaning "non-responsive, tools on the left, etc."
Except of course that cloud actually means commodity crap shoved in non identifiable piles of ram, storage etc which will never completely fail but can often be functionally unusable and usually delivers substandard service .
The value of the cloud is for massively scale-able almost working functionality, that you pay for what you use (to a degree as if its really important you're paying a premium to reserve resources and have priority deployment) or more commonly just testing deployments.
Unless your software was written for the cloud or properly refactored for the occasional availability and non address-ability of resources you'd be optimistic to trust anything mission critical and particularly time critical to commodity cloud. And premium cloud isnt a lot cheaper than reserved hardware vps or in the ultimate your own hardware.
Unless black friday is 10X youre capacity the cloud is a lot appealing in practice than is salesmens mouths.
Have you ever tried to install Canvas?
Yes I have and it all went swimmingly - straight down the gurgler....now I suspect I am going to have to rebuild my server...
OK, irrespective of anything I have said, I must admit that installing Canvas is not as straightforward as installing PHP apps. and I am still not sure I got Ruby installed properly, that seems to be an issue. Also, Ruby Gems...mmmmmmmmmmmmmm so I am going to have to go back and try to get Ruby installed. While the Canvas download is either a tarball or a zip, it seems that Canvas wont run in a Windows server...am I reading that right?
I want to try to at least get some sort of understanding of Canvas because right now, I suspect I am either Canvas bashing without really knowing too much about it, or being an evangelical zealot for Moodle and I would rather not go down those roads. The generic stuff, like "own or rent" or "stored in the cloud" or even "pooh-pooh - no images" is not entirely unreasonable but now I suggest we may have moved right off topic and gone into attack/defence mode. That can't be a good look.
No need to wrestle with installing it yourself, if you don't want the hassle. You can get a free Canvas account at http://canvas.instructure.com.
You have to use a VM I think to get Canvas up on windows https://bitnami.com/stack/canvaslms/virtual-machine .
You would only use it for evaluation I imagine as why the overhead of a vm.
You would only use it for evaluation I imagine as why the overhead of a vm.
Our IT team are trying to ditch as many physical servers as possible. To the point where we gave up a couple of physical servers (which had 2tb worth of data drive between them) and they in turn gave us ALL that space back as useable by VM versions of those servers.
I would wager a lot of places are happier deploying a VM these days (I note not all, but definitely the majority). Especially if their IT is mostly in the cloud, where VMs rule.
EDIT - I assume you're referring to spinning canvas up on a desktop, but if we wanted to eval something that was available as a fully configured VM I could probably give a VM image to our IT guys and have it up and running later that day from the VM farm.
Yeah thats the fad but you also find the early adopters of virtual everywhere are now walking their vital functionality back under their own resource control. It's usually only the customer interface that needs to be scaleable the core needs to be reliable , secure and recoverable .
Basically the cloud is cheap, scaleable and semi reliable. Commodity hardware for commodity services.
Hi Colin
You wrote:
> Then there are the questions Institution Administrators should ask but never do:
> 1st Question:
> ...
> 5th Question:
...
Fully agree. But there is a practical difficulty though. The answer need to be collective, or "democratic". Which means, up to 49% could be unhappy.
> I am really coming to dislike these kinds of questions. They are always the same. You have obviously already made your mind up so why bother posting?
You knew the answer. Ever thought, why the "decision makers" are like that?
One reason I can think of is that to answer those five questions, one must have taught in the tool of interest. Most decision makers a managers, not teachers. Even if a (former) teacher, the chances a low, that he used that particular tool (or even any VLE).
Another one we shouldn't overlook is the "lobby". (Don't want to say more, )
I notice that the run towards on-line (compared to the classroom) introduced a new dependency to the teacher, the choice of the VLE!
You wrote:
> Then there are the questions Institution Administrators should ask but never do:
> 1st Question:
> ...
> 5th Question:
...
Fully agree. But there is a practical difficulty though. The answer need to be collective, or "democratic". Which means, up to 49% could be unhappy.
> I am really coming to dislike these kinds of questions. They are always the same. You have obviously already made your mind up so why bother posting?
You knew the answer. Ever thought, why the "decision makers" are like that?
One reason I can think of is that to answer those five questions, one must have taught in the tool of interest. Most decision makers a managers, not teachers. Even if a (former) teacher, the chances a low, that he used that particular tool (or even any VLE).
Another one we shouldn't overlook is the "lobby". (Don't want to say more,
I notice that the run towards on-line (compared to the classroom) introduced a new dependency to the teacher, the choice of the VLE!
Blowing off a bit of steam, Visvanath, sometimes dealing with blockheads is hard work..
The thing I am starting to notice recently is how Moodle offers a huge array of opportunities to get away from the traditional classroom. These are things I hadn't seen, even though I was using Moodle for this purpose. Other VLEs will likely do the same, but this is a marketing point the we don't often use. Nothing like the blind leading the blind ...
Hallo Colin
No, it is not that gloomy. Now managements learning to _ask_ questions, https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=368215#p1485406, all will be good. (It is not just AI, I hope.)
No, it is not that gloomy. Now managements learning to _ask_ questions, https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=368215#p1485406, all will be good. (It is not just AI, I hope.)
In case I wasn't clear, the rule is not to ask questions at all (not to mention the kind of questions Colin contributed). You don't have to look far: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=368215#p1486715.
Hi all,
I'd love your feedback on this reality (and how to most efficiently rectify it):
It takes about 300% more steps to create a forum with groups in Moodle vs. Canvas:
Steps to create a discussion forum using groups in:
Canvas:
Click Discussions
Click +Discussion
Enter name and directions
Check "This is a Group Discussion"
Click "New Group Category"
Name group set
Select "Split students into __ (enter #) equal groups"
Click "Create category"
Click "Save & Publish"
Moodle 3.1:
Click "Turn Editing On"
Click "Add an activity or resource"
Select "Forum"
Click "Add”
Enter name and description
Click "Common Module Settings" (not intuitive)
Change "Group mode" from "No Groups" to "Separate Groups"
Don't be misled by the ID number field or highlighted "Add group/grouping access restriction" button!
Click "Save and return to course"
In the Administration block (not intuitive that you would need to go here to affect your Forum groups), click "Users" then "Groups"
Scroll down since the "Auto-create groups" button is usually off the screen
Click "Auto-create groups"
Enter # into "Group/member count" field
If you want these groups to only apply to this forum, click "Grouping"
Select "New grouping" from the "Grouping of auto-created groups" drop-down menu
Enter a Grouping name
Click Preview if you want to check the groups
Nothing appears to happen, so scroll down to see the groups (not intuitive)
Click Submit
Click on the name of your course in the breadcrumbs at top
Click "Edit" next to the forum you created, select "Edit Settings"
Click "Common module settings"
Select the grouping you just created
Click "Save and return to course"
In addition, the icon for groups being near "Edit" creates unwanted accidental changes in group mode when clicking close to but not on the Edit button and instead changing the group mode from No Groups to Separate Groups or Visible Groups, which if there are no groups created, makes that forum no longer work correctly.
Yep, you're absolutely correct. This specific functionality is way easier and more adaptive/intuitive in Canvas. No two ways about it. The only way to really mitigate the inefficiency you've outlined in Moodle is to remind instructors to create their groups and grouping first, before creating the activity.
You can read my comparison post below. I didn't address grouping because grouping has interesting effects across many elements within a course. I bet that Canvas' grouping can be made to look simple (as illustrated by the one example above,) but that if one took a comprehensive look at "grouping" features, Moodle would come out ahead.
I am probably not the best person to illustrate all the feature's of moodle's grouping because I primarily use groups within forums. I do plan to use group quizzes soon, too.
Ignoring grouping (which I may have to explore in canvas now a tutor has told us two of her colleagues currently have different pages for the same course, one per group)...
I do agree that SOME of the time, it's not a terrible thing that there are less options in the moodle forms when creating an activity, But sometimes I want all those extra options that less advanced users don't. And some of the wording is more friendly.
Maybe if moodle had a 'basic' or 'advanced' profile field (in terms of user ability), that then decided whether they needed more than 2 or 3 fields per adding an activity form, that would answer that. And the Basic mode should load things in a popup, as it is slicker visually and saves waiting for a whole page load the way we have with moodle now. I don't know if a full moodle edit form (as they stand) would go into a popup properly.
Too late to edit - I meant in second paragraph that Canvas forms have fewer options when adding something
Yes Dave, your suggestion of an "Advanced" versus "Basic" mode has been suggested before. One complaint about Moodle is that "there are too many features!" meaning too many options. What moodle often does is to provide the "Expand all" on many activities as a way of making the options be less apparent, and seem simpler. Quite honestly, I like this "Expand all" feature. Some of the time I don't need to expand, and sometimes I do. So this "Expand all" might be considered a switch between Basic and Advanced.
I would never want to not be able to see all options, as in some Administrator global setting, or even as an instructor. Sure, some of the options I might not understand, but by being able to see them I know that there might be an opportunity for me to grow my moodle skills (my instructor skills) by seeing that there are more options to explore and learn.
But the Canvas salespeople tend to claim that this is an advantage to Canvas... "It is less complex." They are correct, but along with being less complex, it is also less powerful. So what I see happening is that many mid to advanced instructors complain about not being able to do something, and the basic instructors seem to like the simplicity of Canvas. Then these basic instructors want to do a little more complex calculation in the grade book and they are told "Use Excel" (as an example) or "Don't do that!" or (use the publisher's web tool for quizzes, don't use Canvas's). I think that you get the idea.
So some people would prefer buying a dishwasher with on button on it, START, and they don't care about pots not coming clean (the HEAVY button) or not saving energy (the ENERGY SAVER button.) But if you choose the simple product, don't complain when it doesn't perform more specialized tasks.
In some circumstances, Canvas's "simplicity" does indeed amount to a distinct lack of some advanced configuration option (e.g., gradebook calculations). However, Canvas's simplicity is also about, for example, dynamically showing the user options only as they're needed. In other words, you don't see (or aren't potentially overwhelmed by) all the features of a given tool unless you enable something that requires additional configuration. It's a really effective way of guiding an instructor through a maze of settings.
The group assignment comparison that got this thread started is a perfect example: the entire group configuration mechanism is hidden, out-of-sight-out-of-mind, until you tick the box that says "This is a group assignment", and then it appears magically. You don't worry about it until you need it. In Moodle, on the other hand, you're always faced with more settings than you'll likely use, and this can definitely be troubling for new users. Heck, even I still have to look through all the sections of the Moodle assignment settings page just to make sure I didn't miss something hidden in one of the sections. Canvas's UX in this regard is less stressful even as it might be missing a particular minor feature that Moodle has, and in my experience, it's a good part of why instructors find Canvas compelling.
The group assignment comparison that got this thread started is a perfect example: the entire group configuration mechanism is hidden, out-of-sight-out-of-mind, until you tick the box that says "This is a group assignment", and then it appears magically. You don't worry about it until you need it. In Moodle, on the other hand, you're always faced with more settings than you'll likely use, and this can definitely be troubling for new users. Heck, even I still have to look through all the sections of the Moodle assignment settings page just to make sure I didn't miss something hidden in one of the sections. Canvas's UX in this regard is less stressful even as it might be missing a particular minor feature that Moodle has, and in my experience, it's a good part of why instructors find Canvas compelling.
Oh thank you Glenn for posting this! I totally agree! Simplicity matters! I am a total Moodle fan, having used it for 11 years. However, Moodle forces you to know exactly the settings you need to get the job done. Creating a forum with groups feels a bit like, "Go to this room, flip this lever, then go to this other room, flip these two levers, then back to the first room, and flip one more lever." Now your forum works with groups!
So many opportunities for failure. This has led to frustration on the part of many faculty and students.
We could talk about the complex gradebook too! Why can't the Edit buttons in the gradebook edit the points they are right next to? Why do you need to click the Edit at the top of the Gradebook Setup page to edit the grade aggregation method which appears at the bottom of the page!? Rhetorical questions.
I love Moodle, but believe it could be simpler and more sensible to use.
Rant over.
Yes Nathan, I understand. We would all love Moodle to magically know ahead of time all of the settings that I will use, and only show me those settings and nothing more. Then, if I do need a feature or a setting, it should magically appear the next time I log in. Yes, this is how everything in life should work, never show me an option unless I need it! (I even wonder why when I get in my car, it has Park, Reverse, Forward, D3 when all that I want to do is go forward. Why doesn't my car know this and only show me "Forward"?)
I could probably agree that the Canvas grade book might appear simpler, but once again that's because it is much less capable than the Moodle grade book. I know instructors at my school who have asked for more power, like to be able to do calculations, and even sent out a mass email to all faculty asking us to "vote" on this feature request, but that went nowhere in Canvas. Sure, let's all just have a simple grading scheme: 10 assignments worth 10 points each, 100 points for the course... why anything more?
I am not quite sure I understand the "edit button" problem that you describe. Moodle has become much more consistent in that when you click an "edit" button, or a "gear" icon, that most of the time your first choice is to enter the full-blown editing dialog box.
One of the consistent themes of discussion on different products has been this one:
"I know instructors at my school who have asked for more power, like to be able to do calculations, and even sent out a mass email to all faculty asking us to "vote" on this feature request, but that went nowhere in Canvas."
Substituting any other LMS for the word Canvas and there we have a single issue that is a severe drawback for every LMS other than Moodle. It has been my experience "Feature requests" rarely if ever have an impact on the consciousness of the development organisation and that includes Moodle, but for whatever reason, Moodle does have a system that if an idea garnishes enough support in Moodle Tracker, it will be developed. I haven't found anything as transparent as this connected with any other LMS.
Obviously it is not a matter of User demand, it is a simpler Company vision thing. I spoke to a rep from BB once and he told me that future development was structured by the vision of the Company. If a possible feature is part of that vision it would be included sooner or later in their product. I asked if he knew how that vision was created and his answer was "no idea but User demand" he thought.
Trying to install Canvas on my NAS server has proven erm... near impossible, I might get it one day, but after two days of trying I am giving up for the moment. The Quick Start installation instructions are seriously overly complex, written in Geek speak, requiring the Nerd translator to be interpreted. Looks like the were written by experts who once worked for Microsoft, has that same Catch-22 feel that Dark Side help files used to have. You have to know enough to be able to ask the right questions but if know enough, you don't have to ask the questions because you know how it works. One funny thing, there are no obvious instructions for installing on a Windows server, only for Linux and Mac. Why is that? Are they hidden or are they just not available?
Colin, I will add another 2 cents (US) to what you have said.
My major (big 10) University used to have Blackboard and WebCt. But Blackboard had all kinds of problems, and of course, doesn't move very fast to fix them. When I was using Blackboard, my IT staff recommended switching to WebCT. I did, and it was much better. The same situation as what we have been talking about... my IT staff said "It appears that you are the kind of professor who wants more power and is willing to learn, so we recommend that you use WebCT." Then Blackboard bought WebCT and killed it. Since Blackboard was not responsive to the University needs, they decided to switch to D2L because D2L promised to be responsive to the University's needs. After about 6 years or so of using D2L and finding that D2L was not responsive, along came Canvas saying "We will be responsive to your University's needs." Now four years later, well... we are still waiting.
In my own experience, BB and D2L were not supportive, and I picked up Moodle thinking the same thing. But to my surprise, some of my feature requests and bug reports actually got implemented. Wow! So I continue to make suggestions whenever possible. But with Canvas, it's a dead end.
Okay, so here is where I end up. Canvas seems to really want people to provide ideas and suggestions, and they want us to think that they have a system that gives users a priority and voice. But what they have is the equivalent of McDonald's customer suggestion box. Canvas decides what they do and do not want to do. Moodle has a much better user-driven system.
One can read Canvas' system at this link.: https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-2109-how-does-the-voting-process-work-for-feature-ideas. Notice "A new idea may be pulled out of voting if the idea is incomplete or needs clarification from the contributor." This means if they don't like it, it is pulled out. Also read "After six months ... Ideas in the bottom 90th percentile will be archived." So 90% of the suggestions are "canned." This means "gone." And it doesn't mean that 10% get implement, it just means that they can drop 90%. They also say "Technically, ideas can be resubmitted (after they are canned.)" But they forget to say "Good luck trying."
I'm thinking that what Chris K is doing in Dearborn could be a model on effective use of resources and technology. That would work in any education or training environment, K-12 and College/University. To make it work though, it would need someone who is also a developer, or has the skill base to become a developer.
Can you link to this Chris K post please?
Don't have to, Dave, it has been pinned as the first post in this Forum as recommended reading. There is a second post, on 3 ways on how to stop blended learning, but that is a bit further down..
But it is...
Interesting, Colin (and Dave). Your post and how you created a link to "Top Tech Tools" demonstrates "linking to other posts." Might this be yet another feature of Moodle's discussions -- the ability to link to a very specific post by using a Permalink? I just check my Canvas, and I cannot detect any similar feature (but maybe because Canvas is so simple, this feature is hidden. Someone else will have to verify this for me. )
I use this Permalink feature in Moodle all the time, a feature that is often missed by those not watching or learning moodle. In fact, sometimes students will email me a question (yes, via a normal email) and I will point the student right to a very specific discussion post. From the student's side, they click on my link in the email, if not logged into moodle they log in, then they are taken right to my post.
That's how I have always logged in Rick, using the link in Thunderbird, my email app. I think I would be lost without it, because it takes me direct to the thread, if not the exact post I want to comment on, like this one.
Hi Rick: Our experiences with the LMS are really similar - except for the resolution.
I started at a large US community college in 2006, which was using WebCT. Then, as you pointed out, BB bought WebCT and moved us to their own BB version of WebCT (they called it "Blackboard CT") which was unstable. Everyone hated it and there was a clamor to adopt a new LMS in 2009.
My college looked at BB, Moodle (provided by one of the Moodle partners at the time), and D2L. D2L won out and my college has been using it since 2010.
The problem I have now is that I'm *really* tired of D2L. As you point out, it's really tough to get any features added, and the interface really hasn't evolved at all. But the guy who administers D2L at my college loves it and doesn't want to change. I met with him recently and he said something about putting his foot down with D2L "and this time they're going to listen!" I thought, Good luck with that.
Do you, or do any of our loyal readers, have any suggestions about what to do when an administrator is deeply entrenched in an LMS and doesn't want to change? The contract with the vendor is up for renewal in a few years, and I would just like to be able to shop around a little, but I fear I won't be able to - administrators will be unwilling to ask the question, Would we be better off with another LMS. Thanks.
I don't know anything about D2L except that it sounded a lot like BlackBoard. So in a more generic sense, the questions I would be asking would be along the lines of:
- Is the LMS being used going to be within our future budgets?
- What is their fee/charge model? How does that compare with other, similar tools?
- Will changes we need for future development require an additional charge?
- What additional cost to customize existing tools if required?
- What actual fees do we pay?
- Is there a support contract we are paying for?
- Who owns the data?
- Does the LMS' supplier use our school data for their own purposes? e.g On-selling data?
- If we go to another LMS can we export courses easily?
- Do we have to budget for upgrading our infrastructure to meet the needs of this LMS?
- Has customer support been sufficient to meet our need?
- Has the LMS supplier been responsive to a changing demand as we try to meet changing student need?
- Do we get regular updates offering new learning or improved tools? What kind of cost?
- Is there a clear upgrade and development path?
- Can we build learning plans and future targets around a roadmap for future development of the LMS?
- Do our existing systems integrate with this LMS or can we work towards that integration?
- Has the LMS been adaptable to changes in technology? e.g. cell phones
- What is the current level of frustration of staff for the LMS? Satisfaction survey?
- Can we develop inside this LMS so we can have a set of learning tools to meet our future needs?
Clearly this is not a comprehensive or complete list, but it might spur conversation. I suggest one area to explore is the future; costs, upgrades, development plans, responsiveness to changing external technologies, (e.g.cell phones are getting more an more sophisticated). Also, increasing pressure to adopt less traditional classroom practices is placing demands on any LMS, so how does D2L react to that? Moodle is incredibly flexible here, but is D2L? I don't know but these are some questions that could be asked, or be developed further or be a little less aggressive or more so if needed.
The one advantage Moodle has over everything else is that it can not only be hosted by a Moodle Partner, but it can be self hosted with a high degree of competence by anyone who knows PHP, essentially, and even that is not an absolute requirement. As long as the Network admins are knowledgeable then there is really no reason anyone else needs to get involved at all.
Good luck.
First, tell D2L that you are considering switching to Canvas. D2L is losing its market to Canvas, so they need to get your message.
Then, if not successful, you might consider getting a faculty team to evaluate a switch to either Canvas or (and now include) Moodle. This is procedural because most faculty don't know how to evaluate the difference, and it is too time involved. So take your pick, then wine and dine these faculty (and administrators) to your preference.
If you are an administrator and end up with this stubborn supervisor, consider changing jobs.
If you are a teacher at this school, consider running Moodle on your own.
If you are looking for one major and important difference, you might want to collect a variety of syllabi and focus on grading. Pick the LMS that can best satisfy all grading schemes. If you are at a college with an engineering program, make sure to include syllabi (and grading schemes) for these engineering professors.
The problem I have now is that I'm *really* tired of D2L. As you point out, it's really tough to get any features added, and the interface really hasn't evolved at all. But the guy who administers D2L at my college loves it and doesn't want to change. I met with him recently and he said something about putting his foot down with D2L "and this time they're going to listen!" I thought, Good luck with that.
I was a student this year in a Canvas-run course and also was paid to teach a D2L course as well.
In the 14 years I've been using Moodle I love it more and more.., but IMHO the single most glaring issue is Moodle's really primitive way of grading forum posts. I use forums all of the time, and other than quiz and assignment, forum is the most used feature of the website.
In D2L, you can assign a forum as an assignment. When you grade the forum posts, you get a list of students. On each student, you automatically get a list all of their forum posts for that particular forum assignment. You can then post feedback and give a grade.
In Moodle, it's a mess. You have to assign a rating by clicking the user post. It's not super easy to just bring up all of the posts by one student because you have to hunt around for them. There is no button called GRADE ALL POSTS. For students who haven't posted, you have to then go into the grade book and type in zeros for those students. It's a huge headache.
You make a good point about the ease of grading discussions in D2L and the seeming lack of ease of grading discussions in Moodle. I've asked some of the folks who designed Moodle forums why the forums were designed that way, but I've never gotten a really satisfying answer.
I suspect some of the apparent muddle of grading Moodle discussions stems from Moodle's social constructionist pedagogy, which posits that educators are supposed to care more about building knowledge through discussion (or "negotiation") than they are about transactional grading, which is something D2L really excels at.
I work with D2L and the other day an instructor said, "Hey! D2L has this polling feature my students and I can use to evaluate discussions!" I thought, Haven't we gone back to the future? But I had to admit I have never seen an instructor use this feature in D2L. Most instructors use discussions to assess student work and assign grades, and want the easiest and quickest way to do this, which is kinda sad, really.
I suspect some of the apparent muddle of grading Moodle discussions stems from Moodle's social constructionist pedagogy, which posits that educators are supposed to care more about building knowledge through discussion (or "negotiation") than they are about transactional grading, which is something D2L really excels at.
Yeah, I think the forum ratings system was really meant for students to rate each other. It was not designed for teachers to apply a rubric to the post - which is what D2L allows.
Good point, but have you written this up in Moodle Tracker? I wouldn't suggest this is a trivial change, but I don't think it would require a huge rewrite.... maybe.
@Peter, "Most instructors use discussions ... and want the easiest and quickest way to do this, ... ." Yes, agreed, but I suspect that for Teachers it is all about time, the less time they have to spend on something gives them more time to spend elsewhere.
Simplicity
I have to agree Simplicity matters to new users. All the activity settings that can modify a learning activity to be customized to fit what the teacher plans for the engaging the student can be overwhelming to many. It lead to the paradox of choice for new users, which can lead them to look for an easier tool.
The basic settings of most activities may fit 80% of what teachers want. So as teacher become more comfortable with blending their instruction with a LMS, they will want to make adjustments to their activities to change the way the student interact with each other with learning activities.
Site Administration / Plugin / Management Settings
With that said, our district has started to use the Site Administration / Plugin / Management Settings to adjust the default setting of activities/resources to be more customized to fit the needs of the school district. That way when a new user creates a learning activity, the teacher generally only need to edit the General Settings and save. The rest of the options are there when new users are ready to move to the next level of use.
Another benefit of adjusting the Site Administration / Plugin Settings is that the district can subtle influence the instructional practices that is encouraged. For example, the district is focusing on Feedback, so we have modified some of the Site Admin / Quiz Plugin settings to behave the way the district instructional coaches are doing professional development with their teachers. Of course the other options are still their available for teachers to modify to fit their purpose of the activity.
User Tour
Of course the User Tours have helped greatly. We have downloaded and used some User tours from moodle.net to guide new user through the process of setting up activities. In fact we have modified some of those User Tours to guide students through the process of how to submit an assignment. Of course we are still learning how to create the tours.
MartketPlace /LearningCommons
After using Moodle for almost 10 years I have seen teachers create some well designed learning activities to support their instruction. So we are in the process to gather those learning activities into a single "one-stop shop" MarketPlace hub for our new users to import these already created learning activities/resources into their courses using the Sharing Cart Block.
The Learning Commons is a new concept to implement with the elementary teachers who typically have a fear of technology. So these Learning Commons will be already built courses that will have activities that are Standards Based learning activities. So the teachers and students will be automatically enrolled into a single grade level Mini-MOOC using the meta-enrollment function. That way we are trying to make it as simple as possible.
In Conclusion
So I am probably off topic of the discussion of the comparison, but just wanted to share what we have been trying to simplify the experience for new users. Just wished that as Site Admins we could have more functionality to adjust more of the activity settings. Because the Site settings for a forum are limited compared to the quiz settings, which makes sense because of different activities.
Keep Moodling Away...
Although I understand what you are saying, Glenn, that you like things to appear only when needed, your example doesn't quite support your Canvas point of view. Let's take our Discussions. When I click on add a Discussion in Canvas, I see about 10-12 things appearing that I have to know about clicking or not clicking. When I click on "add a Forum" in Moodle, I see only 4. Yes, in Moodle, if I want to see more (like your Group example in Canvas) I can click on the subtopic to expose it. Then I see more. Yes, you might say "But look at all those subsections!" and I would respond, "That's because Moodle forums are much more powerful." And with Moodle, you can expose all features with one click by clicking "Expand All."
Hi Rick: I think you've hit on a very important learning principle here, and I'd argue it also extends to the way people adopt new software.
I work with instructors who are learning to use our LMS (D2L Brightspace), and these novices struggle with exactly what you've outlined - too many choices on the page. To get a basic discussion going, you just need a title and a description and you're off. But the page offers you more: Do you want this discussion to occur at a certain time? Should users be able to post *before* or *after* reading others' posts? etc etc
Turns out there's a learning principle at work, which I first learned about as "simplifying conditions theory," but also goes by the name of "elaboration theory," pioneered at Indiana University (go, Big Ten!). The basic idea is to limit the number of stimuli for new learners and increase the number of stimuli only when the learner has mastered the basics. It's a simple (ha) idea but regularly violated in the design of software, I would argue. It's one reason Google is the #1 search engine: When Yahoo and others filled their pages with ads and other crap, Google gave us the one little text-box, and we felt like we got that and it made us feel good.
I would argue the same principle is at work when people adopt software. When faculty, who are not experts in software or UI design, first encounter software like Moodle or Canvas or D2L, they tend to judge it by how well they can grasp it right away. They are inexperienced and don't yet appreciate the really powerful things the software can do, but if it's too complicated and too tough to grasp (provides a poor ROI for their efforts), they tend to reject it.
I'd argue that Canvas has done a really good job of meeting most novices at the point where it seems easy enough to grasp yet still does all of the things they need w/o seeming flimsy or cheap. And that's important b/c the novices - the ones who don't yet really know the software - are often the ones picking it at many institutions.
Okay - those are my two cents (three?) of insight on the issue, and I think this idea of being able to "unroll" more features is an important one b/c it follows a fundamental learning principle.
I like what you have said, Peter. (I made a post above, a bit of humor, about what everyone wants. Oh, some people don't know what to do with Permalinks, yet.)
One can say the same thing about drinking wine. It takes awhile until you appreciate the nuances of wine, such as a Bordeaux, Pinot Noir, or Zin. At first, its simply "I want to party and get drunk!" Then, ...
That is an interesting point Nathan, and as Glenn pointed out, create your groups first. But it does raise an issue that I had not considered, and that is how to make Moodle more efficient in what it does do.
The other side of that is what does Moodle actually do better than Canvas? We have had some of that here, but I suspect that like me, it is tainted with a prejudice of support for Moodle rather than an objective perception - (with all due respect guys, it's hard to be objective at the best of times).
Nathan, thanks for your post. But unfortunately, you are only partially correct. You have picked on a feature of Canvas, adding random groups to a discussion, that makes the comparison appear to favor Canvas.
Let's start simple: I want to simply add a discussion topic, no groupings. Maybe later we can discuss grouping, which will be another interesting comparison.
Well, I made the video shown below. It's the best apples-to-apples comparison that I could come up with. Maybe you would do things differently.
Summary:
Canvas #1, 10 clicks, 2 typings.
Canvas Method #2, 11 clicks, 2 typings.
Moodle: 8 clicks, two typings.
Well, that's where I end up.
If I didn't like the Discussion topic, Moodle takes 3 clicks to delete it, Canvas takes 4.
But here's another interesting difference (which depends more on how one uses discussions.) For me, I typically create one discussion with about 6 topics. I allow students to choose their topics, and I award points per topic. In Canvas, you simply can't do this. The closest you can get is to create 6 individual discussions in Canvas. So in my typical way of using discussion in my Moodle courses, it is much faster (less clicks too) to create 6 topics than creating 6 Discussions in Canvas. We also have an example of an extreme lack of capability in Canvas (a leading Discussion individual topics), that gets even more awkward when setting up Canvas' grade book. Canvas simply falls flat on its face. Even Blackboard and D2L supported Discussions with individual topics, but not Canvas!
Oh, I might add my favorite difference between forums among these products. Moodle is the only product that allows the instructor to grade forum discussions, in context, and easily manage the grading. For you to appreciate what I am saying, I might need to make another video. All of this gets me back to my original position, from looks alone or from very simple tasks (like adding on discussion topic), people get convinced to go with Canvas. But upon deeper investigation, and powerful features, Moodle is far ahead.
Actually, when I pointed this Canvas Discussion feature deficiency out to my IT staff, their solution was to find a better external tool for discussions. In other words, they were saying "Abort Canvas if you need a better discussion tool. Of course, the external tool would be distinct and unlinked to Canvas and its grade book. Why not just use Moodle for discussions? (Oh, and other things too.)
Well, enjoy the video. (Remember, my university's Canvas does not support emoticons.)
(I would love to address groups, but I wonder if that feature is more important than comparing other features, like the grade book, quizzes, or assignments. Your thoughts welcomed.)
Our problem with grading is that tutors here have been told to use ProMonitor to keep grades together.
And noone seems to have successfully created a way of getting ProMonitor to suck in moodle activity grades (presumably you'd need the course creation and management fully automated to do this accurately, and this may be part of the problem with the end goal of interactivity between the two systems).
So to reduce workload, we don't recommend staff use moodle's grading tools here. Canvas, we will have to write reporting as part of the ILR funding data report (now compulsory online hours are in the equation) but quiz results, what score they got in an assessed SCORM assignment etc, won't get ingested into on-site databases.
I guess I just wish Moodle would automatically monitor things like when faculty set a forum to use groups, but they don't have students in groups. A forum set to use groups will prevent any and all students who are not in a group from using that forum. Consider this common scenario:
A faculty member with a course that does not use groups turns editing on in their Moodle course, they move their mouse to click the Edit button to the right of a forum, and accidentally click the gray person icon for "No groups" instead of the Edit button. The group icon changes to "Separate groups" and suddenly that forum ceases to be usable by students since they are not in groups.
We have tried to mitigate this mistake by changing the group icons from all one color to different colors. Screenshot in the attachment field below. But still, I wish Moodle would say, "Hey there, looks like ya just set a forum to use groups, would you like help to actually make those groups?"
We built a custom theme with hints for this sort of thing. It's put a dismiss-able alert at the top of the page if we see anything that commonly causes support issues. Even basic things like "do you know your course is hidden", "this course had no enrolments", "this activity has permission changes". The theme is too specific to be shared but it isn't that hard to do and might give someone some ideas.
Interesting Nathan (and Howard.) In this discussion about Moodle versus Canvas, I might be a little off-base as to what you seek, Nathan.
I post two discussion topics from my Canvas course. Can you tell which one has groups and which one does not? Well, at least Moodle shows you. And Moodle does take it one step further that you can change the grouping by clicking on the icon showing you what is what.
So might you be suggesting that Moodle's approach makes it too easy to allow teachers to make mistakes? Are you saying that you would prefer that Moodle not show you which discussions are grouped or ungrouped, like Canvas does, and forces you to have to go deeper to avoid unintentional errors? Or are you simply saying that you prefer that changing grouped forums not be so easy?
Or, does your question have nothing to do with Canvas and is instead just a feature request for Moodle? I do like your coloration. I am not an "accessibility" expert, but somehow it seems that colored icons have become less common, maybe for accessibility reasons (that I don't understand.)
Hi
So Moodle finally won: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=370610 ?
What are the main reasons for the decision? Could you post a summary?
So Moodle finally won: https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=370610 ?
What are the main reasons for the decision? Could you post a summary?
I think your link goes to the wrong forum thread. Could you post again?
Don
moodle.org is sometimes a labyrinth. In this case the link was right:
Quote: "Will be installing Moodle 3.4.x"
"Nginx or Apache with PHP 7.1.8?" https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=370610 by the OP on the Hardware and performance forum.
moodle.org is sometimes a labyrinth. In this case the link was right:
Quote: "Will be installing Moodle 3.4.x"
"Nginx or Apache with PHP 7.1.8?" https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=370610 by the OP on the Hardware and performance forum.
Visvanath, I am not sure that I am the one to post a summary, and I continue to think about this issue "Canvas vs. Moodle" because I get faced with this issue every day, since my university uses Canvas and I use Moodle.
For example, in the above example of adding a forum post, one position was that Canvas has a simpler interface with fewer options. I posted "not so," that Moodle's interface is simpler with fewer initial options. As I thought more about it, one other significant difference is that with Moodle, one can easily learn about the options (actually, across the many Moodle feature, not only forums) by clicking on the little question mark icon next to the feature. Can't do this with Canvas. I find myself digging and searching the Canvas docs to figure out what something does.
Oh well.
My (biased) summary is that the "arguments" that Canvas is easier, faster, cleaner, whatever, are unsubstantiated when one looks at these two products critically, as an instructor or student. As one continues using these products and becomes more experienced, Moodle becomes even better. I don't know what other analogies make sense, but one might argue that the 30-year-old telephone is easier to operate than a modern smartphone. And maybe yes, this is true, if all you want to do is to phone someone. (Although this analogy may seem ridiculous, my father-in-law actually takes this position. Well, he does like the smartphone's portability, but he avoids any map app (e.g., Google Maps) when trying to drive somewhere.)
Rick, I think we the techies make the wrong assumption that human being is something rational. On the question why person X or organization Y chose one software over the other, I have seen so many reasons, not to mention the reasons I have not seen, I conclude that the world is random. If you try to make something right for everybody, you join a caucus race.
There is good news though. I remember Linus Torvalds saying right from the beginning that he is not interested in what Microsoft is doing wrong. He'll put his energy to the Linux kernel. See now how the times have changed!
There is good news though. I remember Linus Torvalds saying right from the beginning that he is not interested in what Microsoft is doing wrong. He'll put his energy to the Linux kernel. See now how the times have changed!
In summary:
The cynic in me suggests Moodle's marketing department is not doing a good job. It seems to be unable to articulate Moodle's advantages and possibilities adequately. I suspect that this is because most Moodle boosters are struggling with the sheer scope and scale of those advantages and possibilities as well as the rate at which these are expanding under the current release regime.
That is why I suggested Chris Kenniburg's brilliant post on building a learning platform be pinned to the first position in this Forum, so thank you to whomever did that.
Having said that, is it possible that a set of documents outlining advantages could be placed into Moodle Docs for downloading? OK it is pretty much a self-promotional tool, but if written and presented appropriately, it could also provide an analysis of what Moodle can do in a non-technical and non-threatening way. Even the least tech minded administrator will be able to get an idea of the essence of Moodle for comparison to other tools if written and displayed properly.
Go look at the front page of the Moodle Docs as is, it is all technical advice on how to get started, how to use Moodle, how to manage sites and courses, but nothing on WHY Moodle should be selected over any other LMS.
It is going to take a better person than me to write such docs, and there will need to be some marketing flavour in them. If these docs are easily accessible, even the most inarticulate among us will show more skill in presenting Moodle's best features. (And perhaps the Moodle song will get a new lease on life too, I like it.. )
Colin, you've hit the nail on the head: the power of marketing the commercial LMSs cannot be overstated.
I am probably like many colleagues who find themselves in a position of having to work with a commercial LMS because the decision-makers who bought it were completely convinced they were getting something of much greater value than open-source Moodle. I've said for years that Moodle has a kind of DIY flavor (or "flavour"), which is highly appealing to DIY types but anathema to those who want things handled for them. And that's exactly what the marketing folks have down to a science: reassuring the decision-makers that they'll take care of everything - you have nothing to worry about.
I can already hear the counter-argument: If you don't want a DIY project, have a Moodle partner handle everything for you. But if you're committed to paying Big Bucks for a commercial LMS, then you're competing on the basis of marketing: Can a Moodle partner's marketing dep't (if there is such a thing) compete with sales & marketing from Canvas, D2L, or Blackboard? I doubt it. Years ago I saw a Moodle partner try to compete and it was no contest - esp when some instructor would ask, "Can your LMS do x, y, or z?" The Moodle answer was always kinda hazy but took this form: Well, Moodle is an open-source project and if someone gets interested in creating that feature, it could be integrated but it's probably not something *we* could do. The commercial LMS answer was much clearer - however fanciful or dubious it would turn out to be over time: Why yes, we have every intention of creating all of those features, and we'll be rolling them out with release 5.2.x. The Moodle answer was realistic, factual, and dissatisfying; the commercial LMS answer was fanciful, dubious, and exactly what the decision-makers wanted to hear.
As someone said, there are probably a million reasons people pick LMSs, but there is something about the way commercial LMSs are marketed that seems to disadvantage Moodle in certain environments. Thanks.
I am probably like many colleagues who find themselves in a position of having to work with a commercial LMS because the decision-makers who bought it were completely convinced they were getting something of much greater value than open-source Moodle. I've said for years that Moodle has a kind of DIY flavor (or "flavour"), which is highly appealing to DIY types but anathema to those who want things handled for them. And that's exactly what the marketing folks have down to a science: reassuring the decision-makers that they'll take care of everything - you have nothing to worry about.
I can already hear the counter-argument: If you don't want a DIY project, have a Moodle partner handle everything for you. But if you're committed to paying Big Bucks for a commercial LMS, then you're competing on the basis of marketing: Can a Moodle partner's marketing dep't (if there is such a thing) compete with sales & marketing from Canvas, D2L, or Blackboard? I doubt it. Years ago I saw a Moodle partner try to compete and it was no contest - esp when some instructor would ask, "Can your LMS do x, y, or z?" The Moodle answer was always kinda hazy but took this form: Well, Moodle is an open-source project and if someone gets interested in creating that feature, it could be integrated but it's probably not something *we* could do. The commercial LMS answer was much clearer - however fanciful or dubious it would turn out to be over time: Why yes, we have every intention of creating all of those features, and we'll be rolling them out with release 5.2.x. The Moodle answer was realistic, factual, and dissatisfying; the commercial LMS answer was fanciful, dubious, and exactly what the decision-makers wanted to hear.
As someone said, there are probably a million reasons people pick LMSs, but there is something about the way commercial LMSs are marketed that seems to disadvantage Moodle in certain environments. Thanks.
Hi Colin (and Peter),
I recall at a MoodleMoot several years ago, at the end of Martin's keynote address, he was asked this very same question, (essentially) "Why doesn't Moodle market itself better so that we (schools) can convince our (unknowledgeable) administrators that Moodle is better?" Martin's answer (as best as I can recall was "We don't market Moodle." Yep, that was about it. But I actually understand this response. Marketing costs money and moodle is free, so there is no money for marketing something that is free. Or, (somewhat what Martin said) it is left to the users to convince their schools. (Hey Martin, if I misquoted you, jump in and correct me.)
The docs that you would like that critically compare LMSs are very difficult to produce. For example, in my responses to a few posts above about how well Canvas does things, it took me a lot of energy to put together the comparison. Over the years, I have had the (pleasure) of comparing some of these major LMSs because I worked at schools using them, and I want the best for my students. It's a lot of work! And for me, the question is "Why?" I am successful running Moodle on my own and don't need to convince others. (My students probably sell, meaning talk about, Moodle much more than I do. At my old school, I never bothered my IT staff about Moodle. One day, I was visiting this IT staff and on their big whiteboard they had written: "Moodle Not Allowed.")
The other thing, on a realistic note, is that many instructors are (I hate to say this) "simple-minded." Give them a way to post a syllabus and they (like 50% of them) are happy! So this is where Canvas is tracking... its a simple product for simple-minded instructors. So even though my school uses Canvas, this was probably not a bad decision because it serves 70% of the faculty well (right now.)
My university used to have two products, Blackboard for simple-minded folks and WebCT for the "more demanding." You probably know which one I used. Then, the administrators said "let's get one" and since Blackboard had purchased WebCT and had poor support, they were sold on D2L (via marketing) that D2L would "listen" to needs. D2L didn't, so along came Canvas. Time will tell. (Moodle wasn't considered because an administrator said "Blackboard bought Moodle" and my university wanted nothing to do with Blackboard. How's that for wisdom? !!!)
Now, I actually did enjoy some of the posts above where people spoke of Canvas. These posts gave me a chance to explore, and as I continue to explore, I continue to better appreciate Moodle. I hope some of you found my posts educational. I wasn't trying to pick on anyone. Just trying to do a fair comparison.
Many years ago I learned that good "marketing" can sell bad products. I learned this while working for a company that was selling "junk."
Hi all
Rick Jerz wrote:
> I recall at a MoodleMoot several years ago, at the end of Martin's keynote address, he was asked this very same question, (essentially) "Why doesn't Moodle market itself better so that we (schools) can convince our (unknowledgeable) administrators that Moodle is better?" Martin's answer (as best as I can recall was "We don't market Moodle."
Martin convinced me - again! As I wrote earlier that Linus concentrates on his work, I was thinking how is it about Moodle. Got the best answer!
> Marketing costs money and moodle is free, so there is no money for marketing something that is free. Or, (somewhat what Martin said) it is left to the users to convince their schools.
It is not always money. Marketing often means selling (for money) something the customer does not need or want! Free Software is not that.
> My university used to have two products, Blackboard for simple-minded folks and WebCT for the "more demanding." You probably know which one I used. Then, the administrators said "let's get one" and since Blackboard had purchased WebCT and had poor support, they were sold on D2L (via marketing) that D2L would "listen" to needs. D2L didn't, so along came Canvas. Time will tell.
What an Odyssey!
> (Moodle wasn't considered because an administrator said "Blackboard bought Moodle" and my university wanted nothing to do with Blackboard. How's that for wisdom? !!!)
See, we live in times of fake news! That is what happens if you build your system on marketing. (I remember a talk Bill Gates gave many, many years ago, why the founder of Coca Cola is his idol. That guy started his business with a 25 k capital, out of which 24 k went for marketing! May be not exactly right, that is what stayed in my memory.)
I am not saying that FUD can bring an Open Software project down. But if the money went to hard working guys and their families, you carry more Karma (and less frustration)!
> Many years ago I learned that good "marketing" can sell bad products. I learned this while working for a company that was selling "junk."
There you are!
Rick Jerz wrote:
> I recall at a MoodleMoot several years ago, at the end of Martin's keynote address, he was asked this very same question, (essentially) "Why doesn't Moodle market itself better so that we (schools) can convince our (unknowledgeable) administrators that Moodle is better?" Martin's answer (as best as I can recall was "We don't market Moodle."
Martin convinced me - again! As I wrote earlier that Linus concentrates on his work, I was thinking how is it about Moodle. Got the best answer!
> Marketing costs money and moodle is free, so there is no money for marketing something that is free. Or, (somewhat what Martin said) it is left to the users to convince their schools.
It is not always money. Marketing often means selling (for money) something the customer does not need or want! Free Software is not that.
> My university used to have two products, Blackboard for simple-minded folks and WebCT for the "more demanding." You probably know which one I used. Then, the administrators said "let's get one" and since Blackboard had purchased WebCT and had poor support, they were sold on D2L (via marketing) that D2L would "listen" to needs. D2L didn't, so along came Canvas. Time will tell.
What an Odyssey!
> (Moodle wasn't considered because an administrator said "Blackboard bought Moodle" and my university wanted nothing to do with Blackboard. How's that for wisdom? !!!)
See, we live in times of fake news! That is what happens if you build your system on marketing. (I remember a talk Bill Gates gave many, many years ago, why the founder of Coca Cola is his idol. That guy started his business with a 25 k capital, out of which 24 k went for marketing! May be not exactly right, that is what stayed in my memory.)
I am not saying that FUD can bring an Open Software project down. But if the money went to hard working guys and their families, you carry more Karma (and less frustration)!
> Many years ago I learned that good "marketing" can sell bad products. I learned this while working for a company that was selling "junk."
There you are!
With due respect, Martin is incorrect. Moodle does market itself. But in an indirect way. Moodle in Japan is marketed two ways, and these ways are supported by a large, distributed, indirect budget.
- MoodleMoot conference and regional Moodle workshops--promotion of pedagogy and R&D via university professor academic meetings (officially as "Moodle Association of Japan")
- Moodle Partner marketing of Moodle services and content on websites and at other IT conferences
Yes, "indirect." I might call this "word of mouth" marketing. This is how I originally found out about Moodle. I was at some other academic conference, people were talking, and someone mentioned moodle, and that it was free. At that time, I was using Blackbored and looking for a better alternative. I cannot recall ever seeing an "ad" for Moodle, but a Google search gets one going.
Your last line just made my day. Not just in the education sector (I work in the events and entertainment sector too, and it baffles me knowing the people who run / work for some companies how the marketing is masking what a rubbish job they do).
Since my last post or essay, we have made progress with canvas doing stuff. Mainly because we in elearning here are developers too, and are used to tapping our existing MIS system for information. We just need the new one (ProSolution) to be flooded with 18/19 data, be tested with other systems, then we have a meeting with MIS to see how to make it work for canvas so there is some sense of logic that teachers and end users will understand (that team is currently led by someone who is willing to properly consult, and the senior members of it know we can work with their data once we understand it to get the result we need).
Going back over this thread, your comment about 'someone thought blackboard bought moodle' you mean moodlerooms presumably. And since that post of yours, it has been publicly announced that moodlerooms will lose its official partner status purely because it is still part of blackboard. Would love to know how your contact who said the initial rebuttal reacts to it and whether it changes their thinking...
"Blackboard no longer a partner; Moodlerooms to be renamed." https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=374037,
and the history "Blackboard acquires Moodlerooms and NetSpot"
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=199248.
and the history "Blackboard acquires Moodlerooms and NetSpot"
https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=199248.
Visvanath, I do find your post both timely and valuable. And it contributes to this overall discussion titled "Canvas vs. Moodle."
In my own view, I see Blackboard struggling more with Canvas than with Moodle. I cannot provide all of the links, but I have seen that Canvas, in the United States, has passed Blackboard in either seats or installations (I can't remember.)
When someone asks, "Why Canvas," my answer is that Canvas is trying to take over Blackboard's market. Canvas I see as being similar to Blackboard, with maybe some frills, but most importantly, it does CRASH like the Blackboard9 product does. Given the choice, I would prefer using a product that doesn't crash. (Visvanath, was it you who posted a URL to a cute video made by students at some university about Blackboard crashing?)
I did read some information from your posted URLs. I came across this one, which I could relate to:
“There’s always been confusion between the Moodlerooms name, which we were allowing them to have. People would often get those confused,” Dougiamas said. “[Blackboard] would often use that to their advantage out in the marketplace.”
Yes, my university, which once used Blackboard and would never do so again, did not include Moodle in its most recent evaluation of LMSs because they thought Moodle was owned by Blackboard, and they knew that they never wanted to deal with Blackboard again. Obviously, my university was confused.
Well, Blackboard is not sitting still. As many might know, Blackboard had two products, both competing for the same market. One is called Blackboard9, the other Ultra. Ultra is the newer "easier to use" product, a bit better (fancier) interface, but less powerful than Blackboard9. I had a chance to explore both products in more detail at the MoodleMoot New Orleans, 2017. At that time, I couldn't see why anyone would want Ultra since it had some serious deficiencies.
I will move the clock forward to today, and upfront apologize that I am not an expert knowing everything about these LMSs. However, I do have a free Blackboard "coursesites" account. Up until December 31, 2018 (meaning the last day of last year) I was able to pick either Blackboard9 or Ultra. As of January 1, 2019, Blackboard 9 is no longer an option, just Ultra (so much for converting Blackboard quizzes to Moodle ). What this says to me is that Blackboard might be trying really hard to drop its Blackboard9 product, get people away from it and encourage Ultra adoption. Ultra is Blackboard's product that will compete better against Canvas. Schools are moving away from Blackboard9 to Canvas, so if Blackboard is to survive, it is putting its "money" into Ultra.
Well, where does this leave us? I am one who believes that the use of LMSs is still new to many instructors. As an entry-level instructor, they want something "simple." Canvas and Ultra are simple and satisfy a big share of the market. Without a doubt, Moodle is much more powerful than these other products, but this "power" is not known until one needs a feature.
Getting back to some of our discussion here, some instructors would like to "check-off" activities. Canvas doesn't quite do this because they see it as an "advanced" feature, and Canvas wants to remain simple. This "keep it simple" strategy has been emphasized to me by administrators in the Canvas Community Forums. Only I and a few others don't see check-offs as "advanced" but rather as "basic." Moodle provides this "basic" feature, and much more. But I know that most of my colleagues using Canvas would not even understand this feature. They might say "Oh, that is nice, but I don't need it."
The canvas community seem very obsessed with that being 'the way' to do things. But it doesn't always seem thought through.
That particular example you give, 'check off' an activity. In theory you can create an assignment, make it that the student doesn't actually submit anything, then the tutor marks them. Which sounds similar to how we used to tell people to try in moodle (though they didn't usually try).
I know it's not as slick (old record there), but there is a way. Seems to be the executive summary of canvas and the way you have to think if you admin it!
Or are you talking about another moodle feature/way of doing things here? Screengrab to clarify?
Sure, I will provide you a screenshot, logged in as a student, to show you how a student uses Moodle checkboxes to keep track of what they have done.
On the MoodleRooms - Blackboard - No Moodle Partner episode, if find it is bizarre that http://moodlerooms.com takes the visitor to this big No Partner claim: https://moodle.com/moodle_partners/moodlerooms-13/.
I know, Visvanath. I saw that too.
So, I guess that since Blackboard purchased Moodlerooms, and now that Blackboard is not a Moodle partner, Moodlerooms cannot us "Moodle" in their name. This apparently must violate Martin's registration.
Oh, I guess the new name should be "EmtyRooms" or "NoRoom" or something like that. Has anyone heard what their new name is? Or do they just call themselves "Blackboard?"
That has been around for a while now. Moodlerooms has been a presence at several Moodlemoots in Oz over the years, but something has changed. NetSpot used to provide Moodle for schools here in my home State, has done since about 2005, or 06 or so, but I heard a few weeks ago that our school Moodles have been ported to AWS. There may be a connection here, too. To be fair to NetSpot, though, my own experience since BB took them over years ago was still good, I had no complaints. I no longer have any connection to senior IT management so no idea what the logic behind the move was. Interesting that there should be a separation now, so I am wondering of the next version of BB will be far more Moodle like...
Colin, if you really don't want to "wonder" just create yourself an account at https://coursesites.com. This is somewhat like MoodleCloud. You will have a chance to see what the new BB, Ultra, is like. Oh, nothing like Moodle. It still uses the left side somewhat like the old BB9, and somewhat like Canvas. Here is a screenshot.
Hi Colin
> The cynic in me suggests Moodle's marketing department is not doing a good job. It seems to be unable to articulate Moodle's advantages and possibilities adequately.
The same old question: Success comes from merit or marketing?
> That is why I suggested Chris Kenniburg's brilliant post on building a learning platform be pinned to the first position in this Forum, ...
I can understand you very well. I believe that Chris' work thoroughly covers your area of teaching. But don't forget: Moodle is used in a vast range of szenarios, in szenarios people can not imagine. Generalizing is a problem.
> Having said that, is it possible that a set of documents outlining advantages could be placed into Moodle Docs for downloading?
MoodleDocs is a long story. (Why you call it sad? Alice) Let's not talk about it. (You are long enough here to know, what I mean.) But the point is the same. Even if the docs are well written, will that attract new users? (The existing users will read as reference, we are talking about marketing.)
> The cynic in me suggests Moodle's marketing department is not doing a good job. It seems to be unable to articulate Moodle's advantages and possibilities adequately.
The same old question: Success comes from merit or marketing?
> That is why I suggested Chris Kenniburg's brilliant post on building a learning platform be pinned to the first position in this Forum, ...
I can understand you very well. I believe that Chris' work thoroughly covers your area of teaching. But don't forget: Moodle is used in a vast range of szenarios, in szenarios people can not imagine. Generalizing is a problem.
> Having said that, is it possible that a set of documents outlining advantages could be placed into Moodle Docs for downloading?
MoodleDocs is a long story. (Why you call it sad? Alice) Let's not talk about it. (You are long enough here to know, what I mean.) But the point is the same. Even if the docs are well written, will that attract new users? (The existing users will read as reference, we are talking about marketing.)
OK, the sarcasm of that comment is coming back to haunt me.....
@ Rick, yes, I have heard that comment you attribute to Martin before, and yes, Moodle does engage in marketing, but it is low level word-of-mouth, which can be very powerful. That conversation is driven by Users, and unfortunately, a lot of these people are seriously good in their own fields, but outside that, they struggle to say a complete sentence. It is about communication and I am suggesting that a lot of people, myself included, don't have immediate answers to questions asked. We have to think about them, so I am kind of suggesting that if there was something available to give me a language set, or more accurately a response set, as Visvanath suggests. I can then at least parrot some answers that are reasonable, non-threatening and accurate. I really don't want to come over as a Moodle Evangelical, but I am afraid I do in my enthusiasm, or is that my demand to be obeyed? Or does my impatience with people who cannot see the blindingly obvious wreck the possibility of moving to Moodle? All of the above? Or is it that I cannot really respond to some slick advertising brochure from another LMS organization - I know what I want to say, but not always sure of how to say it to appropriately address the nonsense in the brochure.
One of the things that strikes me that Moodle does differently is that Moodle now has a Research arm. OK, what is being researched? How is Moodle Research reflecting and disseminating what they learn? How does that impact on development of Moodle? (Probably too early, but will it have an impact on what Moodle does?) How can that research be applied by ordinary people, like me to support their discussions on the validity of using Moodle. All I get is "It's too complex.", and then a cold shoulder. Arrggghhhh my own frustration is coming out now.....
@ Visvanath, it is true, the guy who made coke nearly sent the company broke on its advertising budget in its first three years - but it worked. Didn't someone above mention using a slick advertising campaign to sell junk. Look at the last Presidential election in the US - same thing.
In reply to Colin Fraser
Moodle needs more marketing (and research). What kind?
by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Oh dear! Once again I've landed right in the middle of a group of natives, although I was warned by our community manageress that my language is difficult for native English speakers to understand. I should have kept silent! Now too late.
I see the problem. What is marketing after all?
a) A user explaining Moodle's merits to a potential user for no personal gain (word-of-mouth)
b) A local Moodle admin trying to convince an employee/teacher to Moodle, there is personal gain
c) Community work, like producing documentation, helping others on moodle.org, organizing meetings, unpaid
d) Community work, say user groups or meetings, where the time is compensated
e) engaging marketing professionals, for money of course by i. community groups, ii. institutions using Moodle iii. Moodle Partners iv. Other vendors/hosters v. Moodle HQ
f) Lobbying. Giving money for middle men to "funnel" (bribe) powerful people, in state machinery for eg.
e) Threatening institutions with FUD and other sling campaigns, data breach, DoS attacks, etc. (extortion)
f) [more]
When you talk of marketing, could you pl. give the item no.? If there's none pl. add an item to the list.
Yes, the research arm. I too was stymied over it. I think some activity is better than no activity, as long as they not the kind of research the environment scientists produced.
I see the problem. What is marketing after all?
a) A user explaining Moodle's merits to a potential user for no personal gain (word-of-mouth)
b) A local Moodle admin trying to convince an employee/teacher to Moodle, there is personal gain
c) Community work, like producing documentation, helping others on moodle.org, organizing meetings, unpaid
d) Community work, say user groups or meetings, where the time is compensated
e) engaging marketing professionals, for money of course by i. community groups, ii. institutions using Moodle iii. Moodle Partners iv. Other vendors/hosters v. Moodle HQ
f) Lobbying. Giving money for middle men to "funnel" (bribe) powerful people, in state machinery for eg.
e) Threatening institutions with FUD and other sling campaigns, data breach, DoS attacks, etc. (extortion)
f) [more]
When you talk of marketing, could you pl. give the item no.? If there's none pl. add an item to the list.
Yes, the research arm. I too was stymied over it. I think some activity is better than no activity, as long as they not the kind of research the environment scientists produced.
In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera
Re: Moodle needs more marketing (and research). What kind?
by Rick Jerz -
Your post made me think a little more. I don't recall any LMS product taking out TV adds, not even during the (US) Superbowl.
I seem to think that people who want "marketing" might actually be asking for a "sales force." This means that when a school might be interested in a LMS product, someone shows up on their steps wanting to convince them to "buy" a product. But once again, there is nothing to "buy" with Moodle, which gets me back to Martin's perspective.
Of course, there is always "support," which is where Moodle Partners fit in. So schools who recognize that they want a product and support must be wise enough to contact a good Moodle partner. (I do not know anything about Moodle Partners, except that Blackbored might still own Moodlerooms.)
In reply to Rick Jerz
Re: Moodle needs more marketing (and research). What kind?
by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Rick
Have I killed the discussion? Once it gets clearer what we are talking about, then there is less to talk about. Don't you agree?
Following up on the list of potential "marketing" activities, you said:
> I seem to think that people who want "marketing" might actually be asking for a "sales force." This means that when a school might be interested in a LMS product, someone shows up on their steps wanting to convince them to "buy" a product.
It this my item e) "engaging marketing professionals" or a new item? Could you be more specific? Are they supposed to appear physically? Who pays for the trip? Don't they need an invitation?
The preposition I put forward was:
o) No organized marketing.
Don't misunderstand. This doesn't forbid spontaneous "marketing", from any party involved, as long as the motives and the money are transparent. For example "moodle marketing itself" as Don reported in https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=368215#p1495537 .
> I don't recall any LMS product taking out TV adds, not even during the (US) Superbowl.
Neither do I. I don't know the (US) Superbowl, but don't expect to see a "Use LibreOffice!" banner in the Wimbledon court in the near future!
Isn't is kind of obvious, considering the license (GPL3) of Moodle? Pl. notice that I'm not talking about a Moodle Partner putting an ad, just the software.
Then there is a fundamental question to the end. Why do you want others, apart from your institution, basically the rest of the world, to use Moodle? Moodle isn't a religion, or is it?
Have I killed the discussion? Once it gets clearer what we are talking about, then there is less to talk about. Don't you agree?
Following up on the list of potential "marketing" activities, you said:
> I seem to think that people who want "marketing" might actually be asking for a "sales force." This means that when a school might be interested in a LMS product, someone shows up on their steps wanting to convince them to "buy" a product.
It this my item e) "engaging marketing professionals" or a new item? Could you be more specific? Are they supposed to appear physically? Who pays for the trip? Don't they need an invitation?
The preposition I put forward was:
o) No organized marketing.
Don't misunderstand. This doesn't forbid spontaneous "marketing", from any party involved, as long as the motives and the money are transparent. For example "moodle marketing itself" as Don reported in https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=368215#p1495537 .
> I don't recall any LMS product taking out TV adds, not even during the (US) Superbowl.
Neither do I. I don't know the (US) Superbowl, but don't expect to see a "Use LibreOffice!" banner in the Wimbledon court in the near future!
Isn't is kind of obvious, considering the license (GPL3) of Moodle? Pl. notice that I'm not talking about a Moodle Partner putting an ad, just the software.
Then there is a fundamental question to the end. Why do you want others, apart from your institution, basically the rest of the world, to use Moodle? Moodle isn't a religion, or is it?
In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera
Re: Moodle needs more marketing (and research). What kind?
by Rick Jerz -
Hi Visvanath,
I appreciate the conversation. I will try to bring it back to a point where I think it began.
A moodle proponent says "My school wants to change it's LMS. They are not considering Moodle because no one from Moodle is available to come to my school to make a proposal as to why Moodle should be considered. Why doesn't Moodle do a better job at marketing their product?"
The answer (via my own interpretation of Martin's comments, and others): "1) Moodle doesn't market its product because Moodle is open-source. 2) Contact a Moodle partner. A Moodle partner can provide both the product (i.e., a server) and support. 3) Have users of Moodle explain the benefits of Moodle to your school." (Some schools do not trust #3.)
As an analogy, I live in the country and sometimes there is a need to cut down an old tree. If I were a school, some school might say "let's get bids from three companies who can come in and cut down this tree." However, I would say "I can pull out my chainsaw and cut it down myself." Some schools would probably say "You can't do that!" (My response would be... "I already have. You are wasting time."
In reply to Rick Jerz
Re: Moodle needs more marketing (and research). What kind?
by Visvanath Ratnaweera -
Hi Rick,
sorry, I can not answer that. Hope an "authority" would help.
Only thing, again we have a language issue. You wrote:
> 1) Moodle doesn't market its product because Moodle is open-source. 2) Contact a Moodle partner. A Moodle Partner can provide both the product (i.e., a server) and support.
For me the "product" is the software Moodle. Managing a server for a customer and/or providing support are _services_. Just for the record, not terribly important.
sorry, I can not answer that. Hope an "authority" would help.
Only thing, again we have a language issue. You wrote:
> 1) Moodle doesn't market its product because Moodle is open-source. 2) Contact a Moodle partner. A Moodle Partner can provide both the product (i.e., a server) and support.
For me the "product" is the software Moodle. Managing a server for a customer and/or providing support are _services_. Just for the record, not terribly important.
In reply to Visvanath Ratnaweera
Re: Moodle needs more marketing (and research). What kind?
by Rick Jerz -
I was trying to keep this as much an apples to apples comparison. I could be wrong, but I think when the other LMS companies sell their products, they always provide (at least) a minimum level of support.
"... LMS companies sell their products, they always provide (at least) a minimum level of support." hahahahaaaa!!!! The emphasis is on the word "minimum" - support costs money and eats into profits.
Your earlier copy of a post:
A moodle proponent says "My school wants to change it's LMS. They are not considering Moodle because no one from Moodle is available to come to my school to make a proposal as to why Moodle should be considered. Why doesn't Moodle do a better job at marketing their product?"
<style="developing rant">This indicates that administrators want to be spoken at, they want it all handed to them on a platter, essentially intellectual laziness I suggest. Little wonder fancy brochures and slick sales reps acquire business for poor products. Why talk to an actual user with no idea of the background to the decision, without any real expertise in the bureaucratic processes? What is their opinion worth? Now, if it was someone in a position of authority, someone who knows the bureaucratic processes, well, they are worth listening to. Trouble for me is that people like this often talk the talk, but they just can't walk the walk. They get sucked into a particular regime, like the Apple For Schools Program, or Microsoft Certification, and this stifles inquisitiveness in other products, other, possibly better, methods or tools. Look at Dave Perry's comment from 9 April, this is classic bureaucratic-proprietary business methodology. Suck in a leader and everyone falls into line. ...[EDITED/Redacted]... I run into this all the time and find it disappointing.</unending>
Hi Colin
You wrote (I wish you haven't ;
:
> Didn't someone above mention using a slick advertising campaign to sell junk. Look at the last Presidential election in the US - same thing.
Except that the campaign was outsourced abroad.
;-P
Did you say they sold junk? The kind of selling made me add the following two items, to our list:
>> f) Lobbying. Giving money for middle men to "funnel" (bribe) powerful people, in state machinery for eg.
>> e) Threatening institutions with FUD and other sling campaigns, data breach, DoS attacks, etc. (extortion)
The story is more crooked (than H.C.):
- under f) the lobbyist M.C. was no registered lobbyist. (Read the breaking news about selling access to the Ukraine.)
- under g) the story of Qatar. Their fate fluctuation according to their "investments" on a royal family.
P.S. This is a reply to https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=368215#p1495628, in case the Mod decides to split the thread.
You wrote (I wish you haven't ;
> Didn't someone above mention using a slick advertising campaign to sell junk. Look at the last Presidential election in the US - same thing.
Except that the campaign was outsourced abroad.
;-P
Did you say they sold junk? The kind of selling made me add the following two items, to our list:
>> f) Lobbying. Giving money for middle men to "funnel" (bribe) powerful people, in state machinery for eg.
>> e) Threatening institutions with FUD and other sling campaigns, data breach, DoS attacks, etc. (extortion)
The story is more crooked (than H.C.):
- under f) the lobbyist M.C. was no registered lobbyist. (Read the breaking news about selling access to the Ukraine.)
- under g) the story of Qatar. Their fate fluctuation according to their "investments" on a royal family.
P.S. This is a reply to https://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=368215#p1495628, in case the Mod decides to split the thread.
Hahahahahaaaaaa!!!!! Very funny, but it is actually quite sad; and likely far more accurate than most of us would be comfortable Visvanath
I just ran across this article from the British Psychological Society, makes for interesting reading.. [I'm doing something else too..]
"Very funny, but it is actually quite sad"
Exactly. Was it two weeks ago, those sheep (in Michigan?) cried "Nobel, Nobel"? Yes, very funny. They must be actually quite sad today, listening to that love letter to Pyongyang. I hope, they can at least take home a commemorative coin.
Yes, psychology, that is what the others (we) need. And as you wisely discovered, something else to do too.
Exactly. Was it two weeks ago, those sheep (in Michigan?) cried "Nobel, Nobel"? Yes, very funny. They must be actually quite sad today, listening to that love letter to Pyongyang. I hope, they can at least take home a commemorative coin.
Yes, psychology, that is what the others (we) need. And as you wisely discovered, something else to do too.
It's amazing to me how much the popularity of Canvas is hype and bandwagon thinking. I am currently taking a course on Canvas as a distance student, and I am amazed that anyone would choose Canvas over Moodle.
Take this screenshot right here: https://nimb.ws/cOtN59 I am working my way thru those lessons. Does ANYONE see ANY indication of WHERE I might be in terms of my progress? Which of those objects have I completed and which do I still need to do? There is no indication at all! Every time I come back, I have to file thru these objects to see which one I need to work on next. Is Canvas really this bad? Did the instructor of this course forget perhaps to activate something which would do this or does Canvas just not do this? (I'm not an expert with Canvas)
On the other hand, Moodle has the beautiful little checkboxes which at a glance tell you which sections you've completed and which still need to be done. https://nimb.ws/qBaGY1
Now compare those two screenshots. Would anyone seriously argue that Canvas has the better look and feel??! and the Moodle site I am using there is just using a stock theme. No customizations at all except for color.
Take this screenshot right here: https://nimb.ws/cOtN59 I am working my way thru those lessons. Does ANYONE see ANY indication of WHERE I might be in terms of my progress? Which of those objects have I completed and which do I still need to do? There is no indication at all! Every time I come back, I have to file thru these objects to see which one I need to work on next. Is Canvas really this bad? Did the instructor of this course forget perhaps to activate something which would do this or does Canvas just not do this? (I'm not an expert with Canvas)
On the other hand, Moodle has the beautiful little checkboxes which at a glance tell you which sections you've completed and which still need to be done. https://nimb.ws/qBaGY1
Now compare those two screenshots. Would anyone seriously argue that Canvas has the better look and feel??! and the Moodle site I am using there is just using a stock theme. No customizations at all except for color.
Chris, if you are able to log into the Canvas Community website, you will see discussion here, https://community.canvaslms.com/ideas/11726?commentID=133743&et=watches.email.idea_comment#comment-133743 of how clueless Canvas is about the ability for students to keep track of where they are. Both I and others have tried to tell Canvas about the need for this feature, how it exists in both Moodle and D2L, and yet they are clueless.
What you are staring at are Canvas "modules" which parallel Moodle's activities and resources within a topic. But some teachers don't use modules (I don't know why), and my guess is that their courses are in a bigger mess.
What is worse is that the "beauty" of what you are seeing is only skin deep. If you dig into the features of each item in the Canvas module, there are vast differences with what one can do. Some would argue that your screenshots show how both products are "the same" or "similar." There's an item here, and an item there. See? The same.
We are about half way through our first year with canvas as the live vle (moving people off moodle where possible, especially thanks to turnitin breaking due to issues at their end and a failure to warn admins of the damage one different setting between v1 and v2 plugins can do).
Canvas offers a data warehouse, powered by amazon redshift, where you can get access to the data canvas has. It's postgres based, so we're poking at it using a free tool (dbeaver, ace discovery) and a trial of Tableau (which we have paid for, but IT haven't deployed the client or server installs yet). The database is a bit of a mess, certainly compared to moodle's, but the way it logs things ('requests' is their table name) makes it hard to do the 'how long did they spend on their activities' which for funding returns we need to start being able to compute via queries. Apparently we are the first college in the UK to take this option, so if we can get anything useful and compliant out of it we're doing well...
Modules view to me is purely for organising it behind the scenes and control the flow of activities, pages let you do graphical stuff. I also find it weird that completion tracking (or canvas' attempt at it) is set on the module settings screen and not per activity. But as you say, they frequently don't listen to requests - especially from us admins.
Our new(ish) boss got one of the UK bigwigs to come and have a meeting with him late last year - he gave him a long list of things we have issues with, and pointed out that as it stood me and the rest of my team weren't impressed on the whole and they had some work to do. I'm direct with him about things I dislike about it, and half the time even he as an advocate of it agrees with me!
I know this isn't a canvas forum, but answering this question of yours...
Does ANYONE see ANY indication of WHERE I might be in terms of my progress?
If a teacher on that page has set up the Module Prerequisites (send them this doc if not):
https://community.canvaslms.com/docs/DOC-13134-415261967
Then it should track progress the way a teacher wants. Here's one I knocked up as a tryout (I couldn't find any ready made examples, which surprised me):
This module has all requirements added (click ... Edit on the module as a tutor). You have to View the powerpoint, and get at least 3/4 in the quiz. Using the Test Student view, I've opened the powerpoint but NOT attempted the quiz. So I get the red 'in progress' marker top right and just a tick next to the powerpoint. I have flagged that it would help if the icon would show what app the file was for, if it knows - that's one of the things I miss from moodle.
But it's not intuitive, I had to ask someone with more canvas experience how you did it.
But this method (and I am not the expert) seems to "force" some form of sequential completion. In Moodle, you can decide just to show a checkbox and simply "Students can manually mark the activity as completed."
In my own courses, I don't force sequential movement through activities. I allow students to decide what they want to do first, second, etc. Therefore, I almost always set activity completion to "Students can manually mark the activity as complete." This is the feature that Canvas lacks, just a simple check-off box. Going back to your earlier screen show, aren't you allowed to jump around a little in your course? Or must you complete tasks in order?
I guess that I don't use "forced sequential activity order" is because I somehow don't see "learning" happening this way. Take for example, a book. What would it be like if someone said "you can't flip to chapter 3 and look at it until you have read chapter 1? However, sure, I understand that in some courses a "forced" order is what might be best. So when Canvas says "you must force order to show some kind of "check-off" symbol, I just don't see it.
For a product (Canvas) that claims to be simple, try to understand their documentation for using their "requirements" feature!
When setting up the completion on canvas, you don't have to specify the order. The example I knocked up could have been done in any order.
I think what I was trying to cover was what benefit does modules view have to the student vs doing pages, and I've seen plenty of elearning things where (where the online is online only) the tutor wants you as a student to do it in a certain order (although yes you're right it doesn't always HAVE to be sequential, and it's not always enforced by the platform, whichever one you use).
Also, one of the 'what you have to do to complete the activity' options, for any item, is to specify 'mark as done' - e.g. on the powerpoint, when the powerpoint is open, you get a 'mark as done' button top right while you have that item open. Our CEO has done this for part of her ceo news page, you have to tick that you have 'read' the strategic plan before you can see the SLT meeting minutes docs that she posts (not that I read them, but the principle says it can be done).
I looked at my Canvas, which made me believe that sequential order is a must. But we are still talking two different things: does the system check the box for you automatically when the student does something, or does the student have control? In your example, it seems that you do not have control, right?
I happened to make it automated 'have they completed this activity or not' in my example, that's right.
Here's a screengrab of what a student sees on an activity where completion is set as 'student can mark as done themselves':
Well Dave, maybe your Canvas can do this, and maybe mine can too. But I don't see "student can mark as done themselves" when I edit a module. I see what is shown below. Also, this choice (shown below) is only at the module level, which would be equivalent to Moodle's "topic" group. I do not see where one can add a "Mark as done" at each activity or resource. But tell me more, where do you find the "Mark as done"? Might it be allowed for only certain kinds of items in a Canvas module? When I search Google for "Mark as Done" it appears to me that this might only be allowed for "Pages" and maybe not anything else. But I could be wrong. If I am right, wouldn't that be a bit "weird" in Moodle, that students could only mark a page as done, and not an Assignment, Quiz, URL link, Forum, or anything else? I have seen this before in Canvas where a feature, like groups, can only be applied to certain activities.
Yes, although we are talking Canvas in a Moodle discussion, I think it is fine to help everyone better understand how LMSs operate, and by seeing how other products do things we might find improvement opportunities for Moodle.
Rick, I like your comments and I want to encourage Canvas support and comparison here on these forums. For Moodle to improve, it needs to adopt the specific strong points of Canvas and other LMSs. So when you find a something better, make a tracker item and explain what is better. Then post the tracker number here so that we can vote for it.
Hi Don,
Yes, for any product or service to survive, you need to know what the competition is doing. In engineering, this is sometimes referred to as "reverse engineering." But it is also, more simply, being aware of the major features of your competitor products.
I used BB a lot in the past. My old school was a BB site. Yes, I would always get asked: "Why aren't you using BB?" So, I had to stay aware of its features. I actually knew BB better than our internal support staff.
Now, at my current school, they use Canvas. Yes, I do always get asked: "Why aren't you using Canvas?" So, I had to stay aware of its features. I am not an expert on Canvas, but I do have to stay aware of its feature, or lack of features, to "defend" what I am doing with Moodle.
What surprises me is that the Canvas development and programming staff seems to be ignorant of what Moodle can do. Realistically, they don't care. They just claim that Moodle is hard to learn and has too many features, e.g., like being able to simply change (override) a final grade. Why would an instructor ever want to change a final grade???
No getting away from this kind of intellectual laziness I suspect, Rick. But having said that, I might be just as bad. My license expires at the end of the year and I am just not sure I want to continue in the current "Look at Me" atmosphere that has developed here so I'm really not looking any more. But you never know....
Colin, I wasn't sure from your reply. Do you mean that you have a license for "Blackboard 9" that will be expiring at the end of this year? One can explore Blackboard Ultra for free, from what I can see from Blackboard's "coursesites" website.
As I read about Blackboard's $1 Billion debt, and see their difficulties, this really makes me think back to "Lotus 1-2-3," the PC-based spreadsheet that probably had about 80% of the spreadsheet market around 1989, or so. What happened to Lotus 1-2-3?
It is easy for companies who have a significant share of a market to get lazy about product improvement and innovation. We all know that Blackboard's historical approach was to purchase competitors, then kill the product. Yep, they always talked about integrating the "best features" from the products that they bought, but this never happened. (WebCT, Angel)
So, my guess is that their debt is due to legal issues, and marketing expenses, but not due to product development (and programmers.)
Time will tell.
Sorry, for not being clear Rick. Here, all teachers are registered by the State for a period of three years. My registration expires January 2020, and I am seriously considering not renewing, dealing with so many precious princesses is wearing - and I am not talking about students. I suspect I am already extracting myself from a number of areas, and further investigations of things like Canvas, don't seem to hold the same attraction they did just a few months ago. I am vastly more cynical about motivations than I was and am assigning most decisions and changes to either to the self-promotional "Look at me! I did this!" or the intellectual barrenness of "We must do something, this is something, therefore we will do this." (Gawd, I am starting to sound like my father!... ) I suspect this is also a form of intellectual laziness, in its own way, the same as what I am complaining about.... But, I still have things I would like to do here so this will keep me going, just cutting out some of the extraneous nonsense and concentrate a bit more on Moodle.
And how about those who sing the music they learned in (from) the lobby?
I've used Moodle, I've moved to a new, cheap and beautiful system,
I still use Moodle because I have a lot of experience in it, but I prefer the( arcourse) platform for small business, it offers a very easy dashboard
I guess you mean the LMS mentioned in your other post:
Arcourse is a proprietary LMS available only in English and Arab languages.
Moodle is currently translated into 120+ languages.
Moodle is open source
and there is a free hosting available for teachers at https://moodle.com/moodlecloud/
Moodle is currently translated into 120+ languages.
Moodle is open source
Yes , I try that cloud
It is an ideal solution
But some tools arcourse is good
Group form like Facebook
Sms mobile
View user image directly before do the test
Some tools display another way
Arabic language in modle not complete
I use moodle and arcourse
Each LMS has its good points and its not so good points. All we have to do is to have an employer who will select an LMS, then not promote it for it considered to be rubbish. Alternatively, we can get an SMS, use it, try to use it as an LMS and that too will suit a very superficial need, but everyone uses it. Which is better, something considered rubbish or something that everyone uses?
Simple fact, we detest being stretched too much. We hate too much choice, we despise being made to do more than is necessary (unless it offers some additional gratification to suit our needs) so it doesn't matter which LMS we use, or even if we use an LMS, which many, many educators do not, or if they do it is a bare minimum to keep their boss off their back.
Arcourse is another proprietary app that will have the same flaws in its pedagogy as the other proprietary apps and they are unlikely to be fixed. It will have some good features, but it will also be too simple in some areas, too complex in others. It might run with minimal intervention, but it will need tech support at different points, which may, or may not be available at that time. The manufacturer of Arcourse wants to make a profit, and is, like every other proprietary company, requiring to make a profit heedless of where the payment is coming from,. They also cut costs by reducing service levels, demanding a premium fee for development, increasing prices and a range of other common business techniques.
How do these things stack up against Moodle?
Simple fact, we detest being stretched too much. We hate too much choice, we despise being made to do more than is necessary (unless it offers some additional gratification to suit our needs) so it doesn't matter which LMS we use, or even if we use an LMS, which many, many educators do not, or if they do it is a bare minimum to keep their boss off their back.
Arcourse is another proprietary app that will have the same flaws in its pedagogy as the other proprietary apps and they are unlikely to be fixed. It will have some good features, but it will also be too simple in some areas, too complex in others. It might run with minimal intervention, but it will need tech support at different points, which may, or may not be available at that time. The manufacturer of Arcourse wants to make a profit, and is, like every other proprietary company, requiring to make a profit heedless of where the payment is coming from,. They also cut costs by reducing service levels, demanding a premium fee for development, increasing prices and a range of other common business techniques.
How do these things stack up against Moodle?
Lots of great info in this post. I'll chime in for a bit. Long time Canvas user. Just getting back into Moodle after a hiatus, now on 3.7.
Wow. I'll tell you, Moodle gets the advantage right now, imho, for just these two things:
Tags and Competencies.
These can be be added to virtually any item. That's huge for teachers and admins alike, and it's something that Canvas does not have yet. Canvas is a great system, but at times lacks in ways that are surprising.
Ben, interesting post. In my own case, I don't use either Tags or Competencies but your post is causing me to look into them. Is there any way that you can post a very short description of how your teachers use these? I want to learn.
Now, don't hold your breath thinking that Canvas will add these features in the near future. I have been told a number of times in the Canvas Community forums that Canvas management wants to keep Canvas simple, and I doubt that Tags and Competencies are simple features. (I am impressed that you have some non-simple-minded teachers at your school. )
Now, don't hold your breath thinking that Canvas will add these features in the near future. I have been told a number of times in the Canvas Community forums that Canvas management wants to keep Canvas simple, and I doubt that Tags and Competencies are simple features. (I am impressed that you have some non-simple-minded teachers at your school.
Hi, Rick!
I'm just dipping my toes into Moodle again. I haven't used it since 2 point something, and re-learning it for my own professional development purposes. I do work actively in Canvas, and love it. That being said, there are things here in Moodle 3.7 that immediately stand out, specifically, competencies and tags.
Apparently, competencies have been around since v3.1. So those are new to me and I'm anxious to start trying them out. Every resource and activity I've seen so far, has the capability to add a competency to it.
Here's a vid I'll be watching tonight before I start to explore.
In Canvas, we have Outcomes. You can align outcomes with gradable items, and depending on the grade students get, their achievement toward the outcome is reflected in a visual that helps teachers quickly see if students have met the desired outcome, are nearing it, or need help. I believe Moodle has similar functions.
But a question I've been asked by teachers and dept. admins, is, "how can we prove to an accrediting body, or third party that we are teaching to a competency? Can we align static items like pages and videos to outcomes?" No. Unfortunately, not yet. But here's Moodle offering the opportunity to add those to each resource and activity you create. I'm very curious to see how those, can be reported on.
Similar with Tags. In Moodle, it looks like you can set up tags on the admin level, and then teachers can tag assets like resources and activities in the course. So you can have a tag by subject, link that to your related assets, and make all of those searchable to your students. Great tools.
As I'm exploring I also see that you can mark individual resources as being completed, set dates to remind students to complete those resources.... it's very granular, but not in an overwhelming way. These are things that teachers expressly want and tools that can help the students progress in their learning... and are presented in a very clear fashion.
BTW: I do also have to note that the Boost theme is really clean. It's a huge improvement.
Okay, Ben, thanks for your reply.
I have never used competencies or tags, but all of this is intriguing.
This summer, I finally had one of my courses "certified" by Quality Matters (QM). QM is big on objectives, but somehow, competencies never came up. Well, keep exploring.
I use Boost, too. I have applied a lot of CSS to give my Moodle the look that I wanted.