Hannah Reeves's List: CMS/LMS Research

The LMS community in SUNY was shaken up with the discontinuation of WebCT by Blackboard (Bb), and the migration of the SUNY Learning Network from Lotus Notes to Angel. As a result, SUNY Delhi, as both a WebCT and SLN client, faced a double migration. CIS undertook an assessment of current LMS functionality, teaching and learning practices, industry standards and trends as well as cost, and identified Moodle as the preferred platform. Grant Primary drivers and benefits include:

 
 
• Lower Cost of Ownership
   The adoption of Moodle has resulted in significant annual savings: $38,362 versus The SUNY Learning Network (Angel), $49,433 versus Bb Basic and $76,333 versus Bb Enterprise. 
   
  • No Licensing Fees
     As an open source application Moodle requires no licensing fees to operate. A three year cost analysis revealed licensing fees of $60,507 for Angel, $49,300 for Blackboard Basic and $130,300 for Blackboard Enterprise and $0 for Moodle.
   
  • Lower Remote Hosting Fees
     CIS is hosting Moodle through a third party provider. A three year cost analysis revealed hosting fees of $81,579 for Angel, $126,000 for Blackboard Basic or Blackboard Enterprise and $9,000 for Moodle.

• • In a recent survey, Gartner found "clear movement in the market" toward more open-source platforms in 2007--26 percent of platforms on surveyed campuses were on open source e-learning system such as Moodle or Sakai, and Gartner projects that number will grow to 35 percent by the end of 2008. SUNY Delhi joins large and small campuses who are migrating to Moodle:
     Adelphi University, Bowling Green State University, Brandies University, Brooklyn College,  BYU, California State University System, Cornell, Excelsior College, Grambling State University, Idaho State University, LSU, Michigan State University, Minnesota State University, Montclair State University, Ohio State University, Purdue, Quinnipiac University, Sage Colleges, Smith College, SUNY College at Oneonta, Temple University, UCLA, University at Albany, University of Florida, University of Minnesota, University of Nebraska, University of New Mexico, University of Texas San Antonio, University of South Dakota, University of Washington,
   
  • Moodle has doubled it's market share in the past 12 months and now has the highest share after Blackboard/WebCT... ...to name a few.
   
   
 
• Adoption

Now, why would you want to do that without the full coolness that is Wave? It’s simple: control. If you’re heavily open education-oriented and tend to have an allergic reaction to anything remotely institutional, then you probably think I just wrote a dirty word. But if you’re more old-school (and I am), then you believe that there is still a role for a teacher to structure learning experiences and assess learning outcomes. As a result, there are times when you want to control permissions, when you don’t want everything to be editable to everyone, when you want to steer a conversation or process in a particular direction. In those cases, the Wave Server as currently being demonstrated will not provide the necessary structure. It is possible that Google will implement fine-grained permissions structures in future versions, but I doubt it. They aren’t trying to create a content management or workflow app. More likely, they will meet these needs through a combination of separation of APIs that can be used by others to develop other capabilities and, more straightforwardly, through export. You produce a document in a Wave, you export it to a web page or an XML document, and you manage it in some other system.

And if you’re a believer in LAMS-like learning design, as I am, then there are times when waves are exactly the opposite direction of where you want to go. I believe that half of good teaching is sequencing experiences such that students are more likely to learn in deep and meaningful ways. (The other half is getting to know your students’ strengths, needs, goals, and progress so that you can ensure the sequencing you are doing will benefit them.) Wave is not designed for that at all. To the contrary, it is designed to get out of the way of free-form communication.