Comparisons and advocacy

wow...

It's a tough question. We moved away from phpbb due to spam issues a couple of years ago, and when invisionboard went pay-for we switched to moodle for our work.

The most important thing when considering the switch is to try not to see the moodle forums as a single entity. They are, by their nature, part of a greater whole, and a simple comparison of the features will, i think unfairly, prejudice you against the moodle forums. The tracking, for instance, can be done in various ways, not immediately apparent by looking at the forums in isolation.

The best thing to do if you'd like a precise comparison is post the things that you would like to be able to do and maybe we can explain how that would be accomplished with moodle. Some of the functionality might be better accomplished in the assignment module or somewhere else...

As for replacing the moodle forums with phpbb... it may be technically possible, and i leave room to be corrected by those here more knowledgeable... but i wouldn't consider it as an option.

good luck.

Hi Pete,

1.  The main difference in Moodle forums from phpBB forums is that Moodle allows you to split up your forums and place forums here and there according to topic or according to week.  In a sense, phpBB is tool-centred while Moodle is topic or task-centred.  So visually, students see a topic with various activities (including forum), rather than go to a forum area.  As far as features go, phpBB has some nice features you will not see in Moodle (sticky postings, assigned moderators, poll/forums,  highlight-and-reply, merge).  Moodle forums also have some special features (activity report integration with posting count, word count)

2.  No, I doubt you can easily move a  phpBB forum  into Moodle, because the structure is so different.  A good programmer might make a migration tool,  but that would take a lot of work.