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."

Transitioning from One Learning Management System (LMS) to Another

Florence Kizza, writing for The Greentree Gazette explores why three different campuses chose to take on the big task of selecting and transitioning to a new campus-wide learning management system:

Renee Aitken, John Primo and Chip Stoll helped me see the matter from their viewpoints. As a newly hired director of the Center of Instructional Technology and e-learning at Ohio Dominican University in 2005, Renee was told that the LMS in their use would no longer be supported. John Primo looked forward to Rose State’s LMS purchase as a consortium deal to maximize purchasing power. And Chip Stoll began to look at other LMS options when the system they were using was acquired by another company.