E-learning Market 'Moodling On Over' Toward Open Source

Linda Briggs, writing in Campus Technology, thinks that "[w]ith open source products maturing, Blackboard's ongoing lawsuit with Desire2Learn, and more and more functions linked to learning management systems, it can be a tough time for institutions to standardize on an e-learning platform." She's right. And, among her surprising finds in this interview with Gartner Research Director Marti Harris, is not the growth in campus interest in Open Source, but the fact that more interest is currently being shown in Moodle, not Sakai! "Moodle is, in many ways, shrink-wrapped and ready-to-go open source, so that's part of the attraction. From what I've heard from clients when they do a side by side comparison with other commercial apps, Moodle does very well. The open source part of it isn't really the issue. They just like the features and functionality."