Need help choosing hosting company. Kindly help

Need help choosing hosting company. Kindly help

by smj jms -
Number of replies: 8

Dear moodle members,

I am a newbie. I had posted in the lounge but only 1 person replied (thanks to him), so I posed this here. Kindly help

We are an educational institution having the following requirements:

1. We have two courses. These will run for the next 6 months.
2. The courses have around a 100 students each. There will be two teachers
 
The main things that we will need are:
1. Ability to give test/quizes. Ability for the student to login, give the test and then log out (with the test saved).
2. Automated grade calculation
3. File sharing with the students
4. Students should be able to access the class material
 
We are novices and do not understand the difference between so many hosting services.
I tried to contact Moodle Partners, but they seem to be expensive.
My question is for our requirements do you think we must pay as much as some Moodle Partners are asking for?
I also looked at siteground.com and it seems to be very inexpensive. Can I take a risk and try this out?
The other two websites that I saw were:
I do not understand how to choose the best option. I have been looking at this since today afternoon! Can somebody help me find the best option please?
We are just beginning our courses and do not want our students to leave the course. Hence it is very necessary that we find an efficient system.
You can also reply to me by private messaging if you would like to help. Thanks a lot.
Kindly reply.
Thanks!
smj
Average of ratings: -
In reply to smj jms

Re: Need help choosing hosting company. Kindly help

by smj jms -

Dear members,

I have been searching the forums and have found the following sites:

1. http://www.liquidweb.com/

2. www.site5.com

3. liquidWeb.com

4. siteground.com

5. www.bluehost.com

which one would you recommend given my above requirements? Please let me know if I should provide any more details of the course.

Thanks. your help will be much appreciated

smj

In reply to smj jms

Re: Need help choosing hosting company. Kindly help

by Eric Hagley -
You might like to look at this
How to choose a hosting company and how to set up moodle using cpanel.
http://otaru-jc.ac.jp/hagley/setingupmoodleonhostingwithcpanel.swf

How to upgrade moodle using cpanel.
http://otaru-jc.ac.jp/hagley/howtoupgrademoodlewithcpanel.swf

Also a quick tutorial on how to download and set up Audacity - software to create audio files.
http://otaru-jc.ac.jp/hagley/dowloadandsetupaudacity.swf


Eric Hagley

In reply to Eric Hagley

Re: Need help choosing hosting company. Kindly help

by Eric Hagley -
A "t" was missing from that address. This is the correct address.
http://otaru-jc.ac.jp/hagley/settingupmoodleonhostingwithcpanel.swf
In reply to Eric Hagley

Re: Need help choosing hosting company. Kindly help

by Panzer Faust -
Hi, thanks for the video.

Now, I'm new in Moodle, and I want to ask you if you know a free web hosting, that supports all the moodle requirements (apache, mysql, php), and have cpanel, because actually I don't want to pay for a domain/hosting. I want to test how moodle works.


Thanks
In reply to Panzer Faust

Re: Need help choosing hosting company. Kindly help

by Eric Hagley -
I believe there are free sites out there but all I've heard is that they aren't very good. If you do a check of the "general problems" forum using free hosting as the search terms you should find them. I doubt they offer free cpanel though.
In reply to Panzer Faust

Re: Need help choosing hosting company. Kindly help

by Jeff Wood -
If you just want to "try" moodle you can download one of the complete packages and install it on your local machine and play.

See
http://download.moodle.org/windows/
or
http://download.moodle.org/macosx/

Jeff

In reply to smj jms

Re: Need help choosing hosting company. Kindly help

by Erlyn Baack -

Hi smj,

The sites you mentioned MAY work for 100 worldwide students all logging on at different times with perhaps ten or twenty concurrent users maximum, but if you plan for more than 20 concurrent users, you will almost certainly have problems with the sites you mentioned, and least periodically.  Any one of these sites will shut you down if you use too many recources periodically.

I recommend that you decide whether your classes are "mission critical."  If the 100 students are paying students, or of your institution gives real credit for the classes you present in Moodle, you will need to go with a Moodle partner.  With a Moodle partner, you will at least get the help you need if you run into problems.