BLACKBOARD--COMMERCIAL

WEBCT--COMMERCIAL

MOODLE--OPEN SOURCE

OVERVIEW

General Appraisal

Easy to use, but no support from company. Is buying WebCT and has 80% market share. Company says they will produce a WebCT/Blackboard merged product in 3-5 years--no one really knows what that means.

Difficult navigation, but we're used to it. Good original functionality but no innovation in instructional tools for the past 5 years. Version 4.1 will no longer be supported as Category A after June 2007.

Functionality for teaching is superior to WebCT and Blackboard. Good support from active community. Keeping up with new tools. Icons are clunky but can be changed.

Advantages

Would not have the extra work of course conversions, changing code, and learning a new product. Supports publisher's e-packs.

Half the cost, more functionality, no license restrictions about use, freedom to alter the code to suit our own campus, control over when and what versions to upgrade.

Philosophy of pedagogy, commerce, and support.

Make as much money as possible as fast as possible and eliminate all competition. Encourage relationships with other vendors and products to be sold a la carte to universities.

Make a very healthy profit, but give technical and pedagogical support. Then sell out.

Open source philosophy--free development and discussion. Social constructivist theory of learning.

INSTRUCTIONAL TOOLS

Instructional Tools--

discussion boards,

chat,

quizzes,

surveys,

grade book. 

Standard set

Standard set plus image database and Equation Editor. The Content Module is good for interspersing text and quizzes.

Has 3 formats--weekly, social, and topics.

In addition to the standard set of tools, also has Wikkis (editable hypertext pages), RSS feeds, Instant Messaging, Choice (immediate cumulative survey question), Dialogue (one-on-one); Crossword puzzles, 3 types of assignment tools, and Workshop (peer assessment)

Mail

External

Internal or external

External-one at a time?

Announcement

Text blocks

Text blocks

HTML blocks

File Uploading

Single files, zip files, all web file types.

Single files, zip files, all web file types

Single files, zip files, all web file types.

Content Sharing

File sharing, SCORM and IMS Content packaging, imports quiz questions..

File sharing, IMS Import--has bugs, but works for content module and quizzes, imports quiz questions. Vista has Learning Object Manager.

File sharing, SCORM compliant imports, Metacourse allows course copy, tool by tool, imports quiz questions.

Languages

Expensive language packs

Expensive language packs--not using

Each faculty can change the language of their own course--built-in

COURSE MANAGEMENT

Quiz statistics

?

Item Analysis--standard deviation, etc.

Item Analysis--facility index, standard deviation, discrimination index, discrimination coefficient

Gradebook Manipulation

Add extra columns, may put in calculated formula.

Columns only created by activities, extra column needs assignment, outside activity created and grades put through that. Copy/paste to Excel for calculations.

Reports from Student Tracking

OK--Each student shows each content module page they accessed and number of postings.

OK--Each student shows each content module page they accessed and number of postings.

Excellent--Each student shows each page and activity they accessed and when.

Course content migration from WebCT to another LMS

Software converter--25% of the course

N/A

Software converter does exist, untested--25% of the course.

Publisher's

e-Pack integration

Yes.

Yes.

No, except for quiz question imports in 12 different formats. Some e-Packs could be handled as external link to publisher's (CourseCompass at Prentice Hall and Elsevier server.

Respondus,  Impatica, video, Powerpoint  integration

Add video and .ppt, Impatica easily.

Add video and .ppt, Impatica easily.

Add video and .ppt, Impatica easily.

SOFTWARE ADMINISTRATION

Roles--single or multiple per account

Instructors, students, designers, TAs, tutors, observers, and guests.

Multiple faculty not allowed in one course.

Students, faculty, shared access designers, TAs, system administrators. No multiple faculty allowed in one course.

Instructors, students, creators, administrators, and guests. Multiple faculty allowed in one course.

Admin Interface

?

Administrators have to add themselves to courses manually.

Courses well organized with frames in admin mode. Need to create TAs manually.

Administrator is  automatically in all courses. Courses organized one by one in alphabet style on pages. Search facility.

SOFTWARE/HARDWARE MANAGEMENT

Scalability--how much work to create course, populate with students, and archive for each semester

It would probably work as well as WebCT

It works well on Linux with the 5000 courses we put in now.

PHP/Apache applications like Moodle scale in that as you add users, you add more servers. On CSU Humboldt's server, a Dell dual 2.8Ghz with 3GB of RAM, they currently have 200 courses with ~2800 active students, average 20-30 students/course though one has1047.

A good example of a large Moodle implementation is the New Zealand VLE. They have over 40,000 users on a 4 unit cluster, two running php and one running PostgreSQL, sharing a raid array.

Integration with Banner  plus manual modifications for course and account creation

Live integration probably possible.

Live integration via Luminis. Via LDAP is also possible. Anything not in Banner, non-credit courses, and TA accounts, has to be added manually.

Integration is via LDAP, a standard function provided with Moodle 1.5.2 Banner SIS pushes enrollment and course data live to a LDAP directory server, which then populates Moodle's course database. You can also automate enrollment with the external database or flat file features.

Server hardware, database, and operating system

SQL Server on Windows, Oracle, and MySQL, Apache or IIS, Linux

4.1 isn't a relational database (unlike most LMS). Perl and Apache, Linux.

WebCT Vista and upgrades will move to Oracle.

MySQL or PostgreSQL, Operating System, Apache or Windows Server (IIS),

PHP 4.3.x or PHP 5, Linux

OTHER ISSUES

Costs

Similar to WebCT. Will be moving customers along the path of their equivalent to WebCT Vista.

Version 4.1

$34,000 license plus $15,000 support this year. The higher end version is Vista-- $83,600 license plus $200,000 for hosting on Oracle plus $28,000 for Oracle license plus $50,000 implementation fee.

No license fee. Need a PHP developer.

Other local universities

Kettering University, Central Michigan University, Wayne State,

Grand  Rapids Community College, Lawrence  Technological University

Eastern Michigan University (Vista)

University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, Michigan Lutheran Seminary, CSU Humboldt, CSU San Francisco Hope College, Earlham College, Lake Forest College, and St. Olaf College

Section 508 Compliant

Yes, alt tag on images, data tables for screen readers.

Yes, alt tag on images, data tables for screen readers. Also high color contrast option, content readable without style sheets, keyboard access to chat tool, etc.

Yes, alt tag on images, data tables for screen readers.