Dear community,
Since I´ve been looking for an e-learning management product I have been watching moodle progress but I feel very concerned about using the product. I signed in some discussion forums and I receive dozens of messages regarding Moodle problems, issues etc....
Why does Moodle have lot of problems reported by users? Why people are facing many problems?
Thanks guys!
Regards
I suspect that this is largely due to the Moodle community being a supportive open source community where you get to hear about everyone's problems. Many of the problems are to do with the users, rather than Moodle, and those that aren't generally get fixed rather rapidly.
Compare this model with the situation faced by people using VLEs produced by major companies: any problems are reported to the company, and you are then at their mercy as to when - if ever - that gets fixed.
I think that this is a very healthy model or development and support, and I know which I'd rather be a member of.
Richard
A healthy model - im not so sure of that, but I agree it is an excellent product and better than Learnwise and Teknical who quite frankly produce products that do not compare or work!
My problem is that it is a case of “too many cooks” as far as development goes, this means that ILT people – the majority of whom have little or no relevant technical experience end up installing third party programs that cause problems, the IT department then has to try and solve this.
In my experience I have managed to solve some problems through the forums but anything complex is not replied to. Eg my recent query was ignored on the forums because I listed all the things I had tried – I did this to stop the usual unhelpful posters who state the obvious e.g. is Mysql started etc.
I believe that as Moodle becomes more complex the “meddlers” will become out of their depth and that Moodle will then be left to experienced IT people and the product will then gain the higher level of respect it deserves, as the number of posts to forums to resolve problems that are not problems will go away!
Thanks
Hi, i fixed the problem myself regarding the logs and statistics.
Basically i deleted all the tables relating to stats and copied the tables from a new install and the tables then rebuilt in Mysql.
Then i copied the old logs back and ran a repair on the tables.
This fixed the problems and stats etc work fine.
Thanks for the offer to help.
Neil.
I'd agree with the points made by Jason and Richard. Most of the 'problems' posted here are to do with users not quite understanding a setting in Moodle, or not knowing how to configure their server/firewall/proxy/whatever to allow Moodle to work properly.
One of the strengths of Moodle is that it's so easy to install and use that you don't need to be an IT techie to do it. This can sometimes cause problems because it lures non-techies into the murky world of PHP, Apache and the Internet, where they can get out of their depth and so they call for help on these forums. Some of the apparent volume of problems is caused by the same questions being asked many times, usually by newbies (check $CFG->wwwroot, people!!!! 
), but we were all newbies at some time, and it's no hardship for us 'old hands' to drop a quick reply pointing them in the right direction.
Two cases from my own experience illustrate why Moodle is such a popular choice as a VLE compared to some of the commercial products.
1. Our college tried LearnWise, and they couldn't get it to work at all. Even the manufacturers couldn't get it to work for us, though it didn't stop them charging us a thousand pounds for trying or billing us for the time it was installed on our server. Once the VLE project was handed to someone else and she brought me in on the techie side we decided to bin LearnWise and go for Moodle, and we've never looked back.
2. I identified a problem with the Object module in Moodle (in fact it wasn't the Object module which was at fault, the module wasn't able to handle incorrectly-written paths in some of the NLN materials), posted the problem to the forum (http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=28815#p143035) and Helen Foster, one of the developers of the module, posted modified versions of the necessary files, which could handle the incorrectly-written learning materials, to the board less than eleven hours later. Now that's service!
My advice would be to go for Moodle. With a very few exceptions, any problems you come across should be solveable by asking the wonderful people on these forums!
Chris
I would disagree with statements that most problems are user problems...there are a lot of user problems reported, but I've been using this software for a long time and at no time in the history of Moodle has there been more "Moodle problems" than now.
In my opinion, the cause is simple...there seems to be a huge rush now to push out new features, even when current features are buggy and new versions are released before current versions are stable. Rhetorical question--how many people around here break out in a cold sweat at the thought of upgrading now? That wasn't the case just a little over a year ago.
The problem is explained very well here: http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2005/06/featuritis_vs_t.html
I realize this is not a "popular" view around here, but that doesn't make it any less true...in my opinion.
Steve
Actually I'd like to add one further point here that I feel is probably relevant to this discussion and which may be contributing to this false impression that Moodle is a troublesome app.
I love Moodle and think it's an excellent product, but...Moodle doesn't have anywhere near enough documentation for an app of its complexity. The Moodle wiki should have a lot more information than it currently does and it could be structured a lot better in some cases.
Because of the lure of instantaneous personalised answers, Moodle's user forum seems to have lately become the focus of where people go for solutions to issues they are having. But how many times lately are we seeing people posting over and over again what are essentially the same old issues? Yes they eventually find answers on the forums, but what really should happen is that useful information that percolates up out of the forums should be regularly transferred to the Wiki so that it can be the first place to look for support on any issue. This just doesn't seem to be happening.
Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of great info in the Moodle wiki already. However, many times over the past few months when setting up two Moodle sites (one Apache, one IIS) I've searched the wiki without success for answers and only found what I needed on a forum post somewhere. And in many cases I found numerous forum posts on the same issue over a number of years, yet the issue isn't well documented in the wiki.
As a professional technical writer with many years in software development I can tell you from experience that if the user documentation doesn't keep pace with the app development, the inevitable result is that end users become disenchanted as soon as they reach for help.
"I've searched the wiki without success for answers and only found what I needed on a forum post somewhere. And in many cases I found numerous forum posts on the same issue over a number of years, yet the issue isn't well documented in the wiki.
As a professional technical writer with many years in software development..."
So I'm sure would you have passed a couple of hours to perform adequate transfert to the Wiki on that issue ?
No... just kidding.
You're right about universal good practice rules, but don't forget that overall state of the application is dued to involved people who are just giving the time they have... people often don't dare enhancing this or that point, maybe because they just feel too humble for that.
I spend between three and five hours a day on Moodle code, and don't feel I know just 5% of it, and I'm far to understand all Martin's, Tim's and HQ deep architectural concerns !! How would a quasi end user can have such solid view ?
Actually, you raise a valid point. I haven't been bold enough to dive in and add information to the wiki, not because I cannot write this type of information, but because I felt I wasn't qualified to write about Moodle on behalf of Moodle. (I've only just started using it.)
In my working history there was always a very defined hierarchy of responsibilities and it wasn't just up to anyone to dive in and alter product documentation. There were always people that "owned" every part of the app, including the doco, and woe betide anyone that walzed in uninvited and changed something without express permission.
However, I keep forgetting that this is open source software and the rules are different.
So can someone please clarify on behalf of Moodle:
I agree with both John and Koen. Moodle docs needs a lot more content,...but it also needs better structuring.
Without constant restructuring and 'cleaning up', wikis tend to grow organically over time, like briar bushes of information, to the point where they become difficult to navigate. 89 first level categories in Moodledocs might seem a bit overwhelming to a first time user. And in practice, most people diving for doco are newbie users.
I suspect the reason that the search from the Moodle home page is better than the wiki search block is that it's powered by Google and uses their proprietary page-rank, whereas the search block in the wiki is more of a standard keyword search. Keyword search works best when the same keywords are widely used to mean the same things.
I don't think I'd agree with Koen's statement: "if the internet was structured, search engines would not be necessary." The main reason the Internet has become so dependent on search is that it has become so huge. The larger the information repository, the more search-driven its users become. Even if they knew how to drill down to something, if search is quicker, search wins.
Furthermore, even if the Internet had a beautifully logical structure, it would only be beautifully logical to the person that designed the structure. Let's face it. Everybody has a slightly different way of thinking and ordering things in their mind. Information architects will readily tell you that there are any number of ways to structure information and the one you go with depends very much on your specific target audience. The more diversified the audience, the harder it becomes to find a structure that fits. It becomes a compromise instead.
Since Moodle's audience covers a lot of different people from different disciplines, there will never be one single information structure that would seem intuitive to everybody. It will work for some and baffle others.
So the trick is to make the documentation more search-friendly while still giving people that are not so search-driven a variety of logical structures to choose from.
OK. I see what you mean. Just took a look at the categories page and counted 88 there. Perhaps I'm missing something, or just don't know where to look, but if these are not first level categories, and there is in fact a hierarchy of categories, how is this shown in the wiki?
Yes I would like to get involved in improving the doco. If my site moves Moodle into their Production server base (as seems to be happening now) then it is in my best interest for the person coming after me to know how it all works too.
If you find a helpful discussion in one of the forums, but don't have time to transfer the information to the documentation, you can just add a "see also" link to the discussion on the appropriate page in Moodle Docs.Hi, I use Sharepoint as an Intranet and Moodle as a VLE - both are excellent and i have never seen the problems you state on Sharepoint. I believe you either installed it incorrectly (unlikely) or your active directory or DNS settings are incorrect - I suspect you get a large number of issues aside of Sharepoint on your network. Or perhaps you do not work directly in IT and do not understand how to integrate Sharepoint in Active directory?
The short answer is:
Moodle is software and all software have problems.
A better answer:
I have used blackboard and WebCT for about 4 years and despite the problems with moodle, I would never go back to Blackboard or WebCT, because at least with moodle I know can see and hopefully fix the problems myself, while with Blackboard or WebCT I would have to tons of bureaucratic red-tape to fix anything and, believe me, Blackboard and WebCT have probably more problems than moodle. They just hide it under lots of red-tape under bureaucratic departments created just for supporting their monstrosities of unstable and badly designed software. At least with moodle, you can do something yourself. With WebCT or BB, you need to beg someone to do it for you and almost always you need to expect either a compromise, a work around, or nothing at all.
I found out that while Moodle is free it is free as in puppy. Meaning you still need to put time into it to do what you want. You need to do research on forums, find consultants and keep at it. It's a great program but does not offer call-in technical support like it's costly competitors.
