I heard a presentation today from a guy whose institution chose Sakai over Moodle. The point he made was regarding institutional development in Sakai vs. individual development in Moodle. He said that more institutions are involved with Sakai development and that Moodle was/is largely developed by individuals.
How accurate is this claim?
He said that more institutions are involved with Sakai development and that Moodle was/is largely developed by individuals.
Very accurate. You can browse the list of paying partners at the link below:
http://sakaiproject.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=233&Itemid=462
Some big names on that list, so it's not surprising that an institution would be impressed by it.
Steve
I've been using Sakai informally since 2005. I like it almost as much as Moodle. It's different in design and both platforms have strengths. Put simply, Sakai is a bit more like a Drupal-like CMS well-adapted for courses while Moodle was mostly built for learning.
IU has been using Sakai (as "Oncourse CL") as a replacement for their previous IIS-based Oncourse and their "locker" filemanager as well as for project management.
Like Steve describes it, development on Sakai is pretty formal. A key participant in the project gave an IU-wide presentation on Sakai back in 2005. He was describing the development process as more open than typical Open Source (because licenses are less restrictive). At the same time, several key institutions were already investing money (and time) in the project. They had a special type of license as partners in the project. Contrary to the typical FLOSS project, Sakai isn't really meant to be played with by individual software developers. So, in that sense, it's a bit less bazaar and a bit more cathedral than what ESR described, ten years ago.
One strength of Sakai, IMHO, is the workspace/worksite focus. I personally find it more flexible for filemanagement in general, including sharing documents. It has WebDAV support and allows uploaders to add details about copyright and such. It's also pretty clean in terms of announcements and assignments.
So, it's a nice platform for the kind of formal teamwork expected in corporate environments. In fact, project members have been quite explicit about the mission of Sakai outside academic environments.
I would also say that support for Sakai has been pretty efficient, at least at the time I started using Oncourse CL.
There's still a number of reasons for me to prefer Moodle over Sakai, but I would still advise administrators to give Sakai a try to see if it's compatible with learners' needs for the context in which they operate.
IU has been using Sakai (as "Oncourse CL") as a replacement for their previous IIS-based Oncourse and their "locker" filemanager as well as for project management.
Like Steve describes it, development on Sakai is pretty formal. A key participant in the project gave an IU-wide presentation on Sakai back in 2005. He was describing the development process as more open than typical Open Source (because licenses are less restrictive). At the same time, several key institutions were already investing money (and time) in the project. They had a special type of license as partners in the project. Contrary to the typical FLOSS project, Sakai isn't really meant to be played with by individual software developers. So, in that sense, it's a bit less bazaar and a bit more cathedral than what ESR described, ten years ago.
One strength of Sakai, IMHO, is the workspace/worksite focus. I personally find it more flexible for filemanagement in general, including sharing documents. It has WebDAV support and allows uploaders to add details about copyright and such. It's also pretty clean in terms of announcements and assignments.
So, it's a nice platform for the kind of formal teamwork expected in corporate environments. In fact, project members have been quite explicit about the mission of Sakai outside academic environments.
I would also say that support for Sakai has been pretty efficient, at least at the time I started using Oncourse CL.
There's still a number of reasons for me to prefer Moodle over Sakai, but I would still advise administrators to give Sakai a try to see if it's compatible with learners' needs for the context in which they operate.
I don't think that claim is accurate.
Almost all individuals involved in Moodle development work for educational institutions (or have such institutions as clients). And conversely, any institution that commits to helping with development is actually committing one or more individuals.
Both systems have institutions contributing to core development financially too.
Almost all individuals involved in Moodle development work for educational institutions (or have such institutions as clients). And conversely, any institution that commits to helping with development is actually committing one or more individuals.
Both systems have institutions contributing to core development financially too.
Point well-taken that most Moodle developers work for educational institutions (or have such institutions as clients). But how does this work get acknowledged by Moodle (the organization)? And how do Moodle developers at edu institutions account for their work in Moodle -- is it typically acknowledged by their employers that they are simultaneously employees of the institution and developers of Moodle?
Is there a list of institutions involved in Moodle development?
Is there a list of financial contributors who contribute to development?
My understanding of Sakai development is that if involves a more formal relationship with the organization and, because of this, a list of approved developer institutions has been created. To my knowledge, no such formal relationship exists between Moodle and its developers and, thus, no such list exists.
Accurate?
Is there a list of institutions involved in Moodle development?
Is there a list of financial contributors who contribute to development?
My understanding of Sakai development is that if involves a more formal relationship with the organization and, because of this, a list of approved developer institutions has been created. To my knowledge, no such formal relationship exists between Moodle and its developers and, thus, no such list exists.
Accurate?
Peter - yes to both. There are credits in the wiki mentioning key developers, the changelog and roadmap have features with the team names next to them, and there is a donors "honour roll".
And I am sure I am missing some other lists here and there.
I wrote a quite lengthy analysis that was the support for NZ tertiaties to go for Moodle whole-hog. One of the key factors is that the Moodle dev team is a mix of many teams and individuals, each with different interests and goals. Strangely enough, this brings stability and sanity to the project. That mix is the same that makes the Linux kernel community so strong.
(For the original report, google for "lms review langhoff"
)
Sakai, on the other hand, has some funders (thanks to a pay-to-play attitude), but a single-team approach and "steering comittee".
And I am sure I am missing some other lists here and there.
I wrote a quite lengthy analysis that was the support for NZ tertiaties to go for Moodle whole-hog. One of the key factors is that the Moodle dev team is a mix of many teams and individuals, each with different interests and goals. Strangely enough, this brings stability and sanity to the project. That mix is the same that makes the Linux kernel community so strong.
(For the original report, google for "lms review langhoff"
Sakai, on the other hand, has some funders (thanks to a pay-to-play attitude), but a single-team approach and "steering comittee".
You are right - those keywords didn't work, and now they point to this discussion! Ha ha ha. Google's too fast. Here it is ("lms technical report" found it):
http://eduforge.org/docman/view.php/7/7/Shortlisting%20of%20LMS.pdf
I can't say anything else about the Sakai Board (is that the name?). It just seems very strange I am used to projects that are both very fast paced and extremely solid technically (Moodle and Linux).
http://eduforge.org/docman/view.php/7/7/Shortlisting%20of%20LMS.pdf
I can't say anything else about the Sakai Board (is that the name?). It just seems very strange
How do Moodle developers at edu institutions account for their work in Moodle? That's up to them, and it varies. Some of them are just making things work locally (normal IT work), then they contribute the results back to Moodle. Some have taken up "positions" to maintain this or that module officially. You can see a lot of the affiliations here:
http://moodle.org/cvs
The release notes for recent versions have included team names for major features:
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Release_notes
Some of the donors listed here (from the past year):
http://moodle.org/donations
Many thousands of insitutions contribute by using Moodle partners for support services. By doing so they contribute 10% of their services cost to Moodle development.
Finally there are registered Moodle users here:
http://moodle.org/sites
None of these is comprehensive, for various reasons.
http://moodle.org/cvs
The release notes for recent versions have included team names for major features:
http://docs.moodle.org/en/Release_notes
Some of the donors listed here (from the past year):
http://moodle.org/donations
Many thousands of insitutions contribute by using Moodle partners for support services. By doing so they contribute 10% of their services cost to Moodle development.
Finally there are registered Moodle users here:
http://moodle.org/sites
None of these is comprehensive, for various reasons.
I don't think the claim is accurate either. Many of the Sakai partners listed on the reference Steve made are contributing a membership fee only each year and not involved directly in development. Sakai did a terrific job at PR while they were receiving grant money from Mellon. In contrast, Moodle isn't as self promoting so it's not clear how much developer participation there is. The number of schools that have Moodle developers on staff is considerable and growing. It would be an interesting project to identify these folks. It's also worth noting that Sakai was mostly the work of creator and lead developer Chuck Severance at Michigan, who is no longer in that position.
It's also worth noting that Sakai was mostly the work of creator and lead developer Chuck Severance at Michigan, who is no longer in that position.
Not sure the point of that statement, but if this is the same person he seems to still be very much involved...
http://www.dr-chuck.com/csev-blog/
Steve
Hmmm... Interesting. The blog sure makes it sound like he's still heavily involved in the project, but his bio indicated he is indeed not in the position he was (http://www.dr-chuck.com/dr-chuck/resume/bio.htm)...
It was kind of interesting going through the blog, how many times "Moodle" appeared in close proximity to "Sakai". Sounds like there are many people out there doing a comparison.
mike
It was kind of interesting going through the blog, how many times "Moodle" appeared in close proximity to "Sakai". Sounds like there are many people out there doing a comparison.
mike
What I found interesting about the proximity of "Sakai" and "Moodle" text in these posts was the number of times they were compared. I haven't looked at Sakai in a while so I'm thinking I may need to look at it again.
When I looked at the older versions (~1 year ago), I always thought that Sakai may have been a good supporting application with Moodle. It seemed to focus on more of the "portal" functions that Moodle didn't. Perhaps that is no longer true?
<offtopic>
(Not sure why you felt the need to jab "Moodle insiders" in this context, but fair enough. In any case, I did a search for "Sakai" in this forum and the "Using Moodle" forums, and couldn't really find any disparaging remarks about Sakai. I only looked at posts from this year though. There may be some older ones.)
</offtopic>
mike
When I looked at the older versions (~1 year ago), I always thought that Sakai may have been a good supporting application with Moodle. It seemed to focus on more of the "portal" functions that Moodle didn't. Perhaps that is no longer true?
<offtopic>
(Not sure why you felt the need to jab "Moodle insiders" in this context, but fair enough. In any case, I did a search for "Sakai" in this forum and the "Using Moodle" forums, and couldn't really find any disparaging remarks about Sakai. I only looked at posts from this year though. There may be some older ones.)
</offtopic>
mike
Not sure why you felt the need to jab "Moodle insiders" in this context, but fair enough.
Probably because I'm in my ivory tower awaiting my monthly check from taxpayers and had nothing better to do than bitterly grind an ax
"...and couldn't really find any disparaging remarks about Sakai."
Did I say anything about disparaging remarks about Sakai?...hummm...as soon as I get time I'll have to search the forums and look for where I said that.
Steve
As someone who did talk about the two projects, I actually wonder how my impressions have been taken. Especially since it's quite possible that I wasn't clear.
I've used Sakai as a (full-time) visiting lecturer at IU South Bend ('04-'05) and as a graduate student at IU Bloomington (using Sakai occasionally). I didn't have that much of an occasion to put it to thorough testing, but I quite enjoyed Sakai from what I could see. I also enjoyed discussions about the project from members of IU's Sakai team. Curt Bonk also has interesting things to say about Sakai, though people may have taken some of his comments the hard way.
I had seen Moodle before (2003), through searches about Open Source, Open Access, and "Open Knowledge Initiative" in learning contexts. But it's only in the Fall of '05, while I was preparing for my first courses at Concordia that I really examined Moodle.
Since the beginning, I noticed the involvement of dedicated teachers and I felt home. People like Frances, Nellie, A.T., Don (and many other Lounge participants) have helped me think about learning. Whether or not this thinking went through Moodle wasn't that important. But the learning thoughts did go well with Moodle.
Maybe I'm just too much of a social scientist but I do see the two projects in social terms that I then apply to teaching. I perceive Moodle to be compatible with community building. Not only because of its design (constructionism and all that) but because of how welcoming the Moodle community is. Sakai, Claroline, Blackboard, and WebCT may have groups of dedicated users. But the Moodle community happens to be quite compatible with my teaching.
So... My own reasons for "comparing" the two platforms... I've used them both and comparing experiences is often a good way to think about potentialities. While I do have some connections with IU, I'm fairly "disinterested" in the whole situation.
I've used Sakai as a (full-time) visiting lecturer at IU South Bend ('04-'05) and as a graduate student at IU Bloomington (using Sakai occasionally). I didn't have that much of an occasion to put it to thorough testing, but I quite enjoyed Sakai from what I could see. I also enjoyed discussions about the project from members of IU's Sakai team. Curt Bonk also has interesting things to say about Sakai, though people may have taken some of his comments the hard way.
I had seen Moodle before (2003), through searches about Open Source, Open Access, and "Open Knowledge Initiative" in learning contexts. But it's only in the Fall of '05, while I was preparing for my first courses at Concordia that I really examined Moodle.
Since the beginning, I noticed the involvement of dedicated teachers and I felt home. People like Frances, Nellie, A.T., Don (and many other Lounge participants) have helped me think about learning. Whether or not this thinking went through Moodle wasn't that important. But the learning thoughts did go well with Moodle.
Maybe I'm just too much of a social scientist but I do see the two projects in social terms that I then apply to teaching. I perceive Moodle to be compatible with community building. Not only because of its design (constructionism and all that) but because of how welcoming the Moodle community is. Sakai, Claroline, Blackboard, and WebCT may have groups of dedicated users. But the Moodle community happens to be quite compatible with my teaching.
So... My own reasons for "comparing" the two platforms... I've used them both and comparing experiences is often a good way to think about potentialities. While I do have some connections with IU, I'm fairly "disinterested" in the whole situation.
I'm making the comparisons because I've been asked to do so by my employer. We are looking at alternatives to our Bb implementation and want to explore open source. There really are only two legitimate players in the open source LMS world: Moodle and Sakai. In examining their options, UCLA came to the same conclusion, i.e., Moodle and Sakai are the only two legitimate open source options. UCLA chose Moodle.
I've yet to come across any institution that looked at both Moodle and Sakai as thoroughly as UCLA did and chose Sakai over Moodle. Does anyone know of such an example?
I spoke to someone recently whose university chose Sakai, but it was clear from my conversation with him that he had not done much investigation into Moodle.
I've yet to come across any institution that looked at both Moodle and Sakai as thoroughly as UCLA did and chose Sakai over Moodle. Does anyone know of such an example?
I spoke to someone recently whose university chose Sakai, but it was clear from my conversation with him that he had not done much investigation into Moodle.
It was kind of interesting going through the blog, how many times "Moodle" appeared in close proximity to "Sakai". Sounds like there are many people out there doing a comparison.
Given that Moodle and Sakai are, arguably, the only two viable open-source LMS options, I think such comparisons reflect the fact that there's a strong interest in alternatives to proprietary systems like Bb. UCLA considered both Sakai and Moodle in their extremely thorough evaluation and decided to adopt Moodle, but also elected to keep their toes in the Sakai waters to evaluate future developments. From what I understand about Sakai, the latest release has a number of new features which now rival Moodle. The consistent critique that I've heard voiced about Sakai is that it not as feature-rich as Moodle and not ready to go "out of the box" in the way that Moodle is.
Given that Moodle and Sakai are, arguably, the only two viable open-source LMS options, I think such comparisons reflect the fact that there's a strong interest in alternatives to proprietary systems like Bb. UCLA considered both Sakai and Moodle in their extremely thorough evaluation and decided to adopt Moodle, but also elected to keep their toes in the Sakai waters to evaluate future developments. From what I understand about Sakai, the latest release has a number of new features which now rival Moodle. The consistent critique that I've heard voiced about Sakai is that it not as feature-rich as Moodle and not ready to go "out of the box" in the way that Moodle is.
ISTR Chuck mentioning that a popular "feature request" he got was to make Sakai as easy to install and to develop for as Moodle
In any case, the proof of the pudding for me came once that I got asked to look at Sakai in depth. Their website follows the excellent practice of using Sakai itself to coordinate the Sakai community as we do here.
Registration was easy, but after that I had a lot of trouble to join the appropriate course (the name was confusing... "workspace" I think?). Eventually I figured out a way to do it, and then joined a forum. The forum was _extremely_ painful to use, specially in comparison to competing LMSs (Atutor and Moodle were heaps better). I was there for a few months. This drove home the message -- just _using_ Sakai was a good indication of where things were at.
Note: this was 3 years ago. Sakai may have gotten better. Moodle has definitely gotten a ton better.
If you really care, stop reading 2nd hand accounts and try to use Sakai for something real (like learning about Sakai and participating in its community ).
If you find something cool on the Sakai side, come back and tell us about it too!
In any case, the proof of the pudding for me came once that I got asked to look at Sakai in depth. Their website follows the excellent practice of using Sakai itself to coordinate the Sakai community as we do here.
Registration was easy, but after that I had a lot of trouble to join the appropriate course (the name was confusing... "workspace" I think?). Eventually I figured out a way to do it, and then joined a forum. The forum was _extremely_ painful to use, specially in comparison to competing LMSs (Atutor and Moodle were heaps better). I was there for a few months. This drove home the message -- just _using_ Sakai was a good indication of where things were at.
Note: this was 3 years ago. Sakai may have gotten better. Moodle has definitely gotten a ton better.
If you really care, stop reading 2nd hand accounts and try to use Sakai for something real (like learning about Sakai and participating in its community
If you find something cool on the Sakai side, come back and tell us about it too!
Good Afternoon,
Dr. Chuck resigned his position as the Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation a couple of years ago, and I believe it went into effect last summer. The current Executive Director is Michael Korcuska at UC Berkeley. Hopefully, he will help make Sakai much less U Mich-o-centric and a more useful tool in general. We shall see...
Charles Severance has always been very interested in Moodle, from the early days of Sakai. When Martin D first visited the US in the Summer of '05, we all had lunch together in DC...after which Dr Chuck shot a quick video of Martin outside Union Station, and I got in trouble for making everyone walk too far (and here I thought Australian people liked to walk about a lot. Must be more Hollywood deception.
) You can find a copy of the video at:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~csev/media//2005/martin/martin.htm
jon
Dr. Chuck resigned his position as the Executive Director of the Sakai Foundation a couple of years ago, and I believe it went into effect last summer. The current Executive Director is Michael Korcuska at UC Berkeley. Hopefully, he will help make Sakai much less U Mich-o-centric and a more useful tool in general. We shall see...
Charles Severance has always been very interested in Moodle, from the early days of Sakai. When Martin D first visited the US in the Summer of '05, we all had lunch together in DC...after which Dr Chuck shot a quick video of Martin outside Union Station, and I got in trouble for making everyone walk too far (and here I thought Australian people liked to walk about a lot. Must be more Hollywood deception.
) You can find a copy of the video at:http://www-personal.umich.edu/~csev/media//2005/martin/martin.htm
jon
Many of the Sakai partners listed on the reference Steve made are contributing a membership fee only each year...
Should Moodle adopt a membership system in those countries where it makes sense?
In Japan, one major elearning platform is a free, hosted system called TIES. It is a registered not-for-profit organisation initially started by one university. Several hundred universities have signed up as members, contributing various levels of fees up to US$20,000 for board-level participation. This funds the shared servers and development. Our university pays the $20,000 each year for TIES and uses it with about 10-20 courses. However, we pay nothing for Moodle although we use it actively with 70 courses this semester. It would make sense in Japan to adopt a membership system for Moodle, perhaps administered by a not for profit consortium of moodle community members. With such a Japan-based NPO, our school would likely pay an annual fee. The membership fee would provide no special services, only preferred access or influence in developer meetings. I wonder if anyone else in other countries have had similar thoughts.
Don
Hi Don,
Just a few quick thoughts as I do not have any concrete details on how this would happen. Also, MD might have say on anything that is organized in any official manner.
The first is that TIES, AFAIK, operates in Japan only. Any similar model applied to Moodle would give contributors less 'bang for the buck' as they would potentially compete for influence from other 'donors'.
The second is that a layer of organizational bureaucracy of an NPO is a logistic concern including how monies get back to Moodle after expenses of this NPO. Do portions of contributions get 'lost' in operating expenses, including salaries?
Bill
Just a few quick thoughts as I do not have any concrete details on how this would happen. Also, MD might have say on anything that is organized in any official manner.
The first is that TIES, AFAIK, operates in Japan only. Any similar model applied to Moodle would give contributors less 'bang for the buck' as they would potentially compete for influence from other 'donors'.
The second is that a layer of organizational bureaucracy of an NPO is a logistic concern including how monies get back to Moodle after expenses of this NPO. Do portions of contributions get 'lost' in operating expenses, including salaries?
Bill
IMHO, they can get significantly more influence by contributing code (as many NZ unis have done by proxy) and/or by funding Moodle.com (or MPs) for specific development they want.
It may be a good idea to band together groups of tertiaries to fund specific things, but this can be done in an ad-hoc manner... (I've seen this happen, and often encouraged it, in the NZ space...).
Because of cultural or political patterns it may fit well in some countries and not others. It may be a project managed from an existing corporate body that already organises the unis/tertiaries.
As far as I've seen that overall the moodle space is quite flexible and dynamic with these things...
It may be a good idea to band together groups of tertiaries to fund specific things, but this can be done in an ad-hoc manner... (I've seen this happen, and often encouraged it, in the NZ space...).
Because of cultural or political patterns it may fit well in some countries and not others. It may be a project managed from an existing corporate body that already organises the unis/tertiaries.
As far as I've seen that overall the moodle space is quite flexible and dynamic with these things...
Thanks, Bill and Martin, for your thoughts. I have been involved in not-for-profit organisations in Japan for a number of years, and culturally things work differently here than in North America, Australia, NZ and other places with a strong donation culture. People here will almost never donate. But they love to be a member. And those membership fees are actually the same as donations.
So I think that explains why my community development group suddenly gained legitimacy and more funding when it adopted a membership system, and why TIES grew so explosively in Japan with its system. I have been asked by some school directors, "Doesn't Moodle have a university consortium?" In July, our next round of budget plans for 2009 begin, I would love to propose a 500,000 yen membership fee for the Moodle Community Japan (NPO).
Of course, it would take more time than July to organise and someone like Harashima sensei would have to work on it. But it would not require staff or much overhead unless we wanted it to. In the NPO that I am board member of, we are only required legally to provide an audited statement by an registered accountant and conduct annual meetings as most not-for-profits do.
More importantly, we would need to think about what would the members want to do with funds? Would it fund urgent development concerns for Japanese universities? How much would go to global efforts? How could it help Moodle partners? Much significant expense to promote Moodle in Japan has been paid personally by Moodle Partners, like Bill has done so earnestly, when it really should be a shared expense by all of us using Moodle here.
So I think that explains why my community development group suddenly gained legitimacy and more funding when it adopted a membership system, and why TIES grew so explosively in Japan with its system. I have been asked by some school directors, "Doesn't Moodle have a university consortium?" In July, our next round of budget plans for 2009 begin, I would love to propose a 500,000 yen membership fee for the Moodle Community Japan (NPO).
Of course, it would take more time than July to organise and someone like Harashima sensei would have to work on it. But it would not require staff or much overhead unless we wanted it to. In the NPO that I am board member of, we are only required legally to provide an audited statement by an registered accountant and conduct annual meetings as most not-for-profits do.
More importantly, we would need to think about what would the members want to do with funds? Would it fund urgent development concerns for Japanese universities? How much would go to global efforts? How could it help Moodle partners? Much significant expense to promote Moodle in Japan has been paid personally by Moodle Partners, like Bill has done so earnestly, when it really should be a shared expense by all of us using Moodle here.
I agree that a membership fee for an open source project is more or less a donation.
Personally I would really prefer not to manage a membership scheme myself (I did consider it deeply several years ago). I like the idea that Moodle users can be regarded as "members" without imposing any fee (yet they can still donate or register their site if they really want to). There are complications as you described for how to apply "membership money".
We also already have a business model that overlaps with membership in many ways. Universities who want an accountant-friendly way to contribute usually take out support contracts or other services with Moodle Partners. On top of getting something specific and definable out of that support relationship, they are helping those partners have funds for things like local promotional activities that they are responsible for, plus they know at least 10% goes straight to the Trust for development. Also, even if insitutions never take anything of this up, there are many other opportunities to contribute through writing papers or code or documentation etc. You're a sterling example of this, Don.
If PR is the goal, then perhaps we could improve the donations page to separate Universities and other big institutions who really want to be seen as supporting the project from the casinos who are just paying for Google juice. Or maybe we can improve the list of registered sites to make it easier to see the giant sites.
Personally I would really prefer not to manage a membership scheme myself (I did consider it deeply several years ago). I like the idea that Moodle users can be regarded as "members" without imposing any fee (yet they can still donate or register their site if they really want to). There are complications as you described for how to apply "membership money".
We also already have a business model that overlaps with membership in many ways. Universities who want an accountant-friendly way to contribute usually take out support contracts or other services with Moodle Partners. On top of getting something specific and definable out of that support relationship, they are helping those partners have funds for things like local promotional activities that they are responsible for, plus they know at least 10% goes straight to the Trust for development. Also, even if insitutions never take anything of this up, there are many other opportunities to contribute through writing papers or code or documentation etc. You're a sterling example of this, Don.
If PR is the goal, then perhaps we could improve the donations page to separate Universities and other big institutions who really want to be seen as supporting the project from the casinos who are just paying for Google juice. Or maybe we can improve the list of registered sites to make it easier to see the giant sites.
When I read the post that was testing the waters of a NPO, I knew that would get a cold shoulder around here, but to jump from "Non-Profit-Organization" to "Membership Schemes".....funny I agree though...you do have a lot better scheme than an NPO membership scheme, so I don't blame you for not wanting to entertain this idea.
I suggested something similar years ago and still think this would be a very workable and cost effective solution for many smaller organizations. I only got a couple of responses then, but am still willing to help with something like this if others are interested.
http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=33341
Steve
If PR is the goal, then perhaps we could improve the donations page to separate Universities and other big institutions who really want to be seen as supporting the project from the casinos who are just paying for Google juice. Or maybe we can improve the list of registered sites to make it easier to see the giant sites.
I don't think it's PR necessarily. Rather, I think the issue is simply trying to paint an accurate picture of what Moodle is, how it is developed, how it's supported, etc. I raise this because I'm interested in seeing Moodle thrive. However, based on a recent conversation I had with the guy whose institution chose Sakai over Moodle, there might be a misperception about Moodle's development process, esp. as to how it compares to Sakai. It might be to Moodle's advantage to spell out how its process differs from Sakai and why members of the Moodle community prefer this method. Then, when other institutions make the comparison, they can look at clear, accurate information and make informed choices.
I don't think it's PR necessarily. Rather, I think the issue is simply trying to paint an accurate picture of what Moodle is, how it is developed, how it's supported, etc. I raise this because I'm interested in seeing Moodle thrive. However, based on a recent conversation I had with the guy whose institution chose Sakai over Moodle, there might be a misperception about Moodle's development process, esp. as to how it compares to Sakai. It might be to Moodle's advantage to spell out how its process differs from Sakai and why members of the Moodle community prefer this method. Then, when other institutions make the comparison, they can look at clear, accurate information and make informed choices.