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Course Platform Evaluation Report
show details | show criteria descriptions
| Products | Moodle 1.5.2Martin Dougiamas and open-source community: http://www.moodle.orgMartin Dougiamas is the originator, lead developer, project manager and release manager of Moodle, present on moodle.org since 2002. Moodle.com was launched in 2003 to offer commercial service by Moodle Partners (Swiss Moodle Partner: mediagonal AG, Fribourg). Last major evaluation update: August 2005 About product About producer Strengths Weaknesses | |
General | ||
Multilinguality | The Moodle interface is available in many languages, including French, Italian and German. Users can choose their preferred language for the navigation interface. Moodle also offers the possibility to create multilingual content for resources that are edited within Moodle (text, html). It takes a bit more effort when editing, but is not too complicated to accomplish. (For any multilingual text, one enters the text in both languages, separating them out with special markers.) | |
Student's Environment | ||
Ease of Use | Generally very easy to use and navigate. | |
Compliant with common web technology | No apparent problems on Windows Firefox 1.0.4.0, Windows Internet Explorer 6.0.2 or Macintosh Safari 1.3 | |
Functional environment | Navigation is mostly straight forward. Student can easily set language and visibility of elements. Breadcrumbs are not always intuitive, since links to a resource have a path that shows the type of activity instead of the part of the course the resource is located in.
(For example, Moodle shows Main Course > Forums > A Specific Forum instead of Main Course > Topic 6 > A Specific Forum) | |
Tutoring and Didactics | ||
Ease of use | The different options available for creating and managing a course are mostly very straight forward. What is not described well in the Teacher's Manual has to be learned at the moodle.org forums, or gleaned from the examples provided with the Demo course. | |
Communication | Forums are a mainstay of Moodle. There are 3 different types of forums: standard open forum, one topic per user forums and single-topic forum (like news). Groups can be formed, yet determine only the visibility for a course or an activity (whether or not one group can view another group's work). Document upload and download is possible. A wiki could be used for collaborative work on a text (as long as the editing were timed well enough to make sure group members didn't write over eachother's contributions). | |
Student management | A teacher can enroll students that are already in the system in their course. Administrators can use file upload to enroll students in courses and in groups. Self enrollment by students is possible. The new meta-course feature allows easier enrollment of the same students in several different courses. | |
Activity tracking | Logs and activity reports offer possibilities that are easily accessible. The course can be monitored rather closely, if desired, or just checked occasionally. | |
Course Development | ||
Ease of Use | Moodle offers 3 models of course structure that are quickly recognized: by week, by topic or social. Adapting one or the other model is not complicated. The weekly and topical structures resemble the syllabus approach; the social model is more like a seminar, as it is based solely on discussion as the main structuring element. | |
Flexible Development Framework | Adding functionality to Moodle is possible and encouraged. Links to external, dynamically generated pages work within Moodle. A formal API doesn't seem to be complete; rather, the Developer's Manual provides a template for activity modules, with instructions in a readme file. A resource named Core API exists, but is not yet complete. | |
Developers support | The Moodle community is large and active. The main developer is quite present in the forums at moodle.org. Documentation is pretty good, though not complete. Documentation includes a Student Manual, a Teacher Manual and a Developer Manual, though they are not always up to date. | |
Compatibility with common web authoring tools | HTML pages or other files can be uploaded from within Moodle only, or linked from Moodle and displayed either in a pop-up window or in a frame. WebDAV is not yet implemented. Style sheets are used throughout. | |
Assessment | Many quiz types are available from within Moodle. You can create questions with the built-in quiz editor. Questions can be read from a text file, in several different formats (including questions created from WebCT and Blackboard), plus a module for importing HotPotatoes Quizzes is available. | |
Support for e-learning standards | Moodle includes a module for uploading SCORM packages (.zip files) that simplifies the upload/unzip process. The uploaded scorm's structure is displayed next to the content, which is opened in an iframe. The version 1.5 release notes state that the SCORM module is now fully conformant with the SCORM 1.2 standard. Quizzes can be exported to IMS QTI 2.0. | |
Adaptable look and feel | The overall look and feel can be changed using what Moodle calls themes. Logos can be added, and style sheets modified to make minor changes easily. Individual courses can have their own themes that differ from the entry page or from site level theme. Styles can be changed at the course element level also, as these use style sheets too. Users can also choose their preferred theme if the site has been configured to allow it. | |
System & Administration | ||
System management | Installation is not difficult. Moodle can apparently be used for large institutions (40,000 students). The latest version offers an https login page. | |
Administration | One server - multiple institutions is not a default option. However, it can be done without too much work. Moodle has been shibbolized for use with Switch AAI login. | |