Direct link to survey results/analysis.

One interesting graph (there are plenty) is a 10 point scale grade instructors and students were asked to post based on this criteria:

LMS Grade out of 10 
If you could give a grade out of ten (ten being perfect) to WebCT and the LMS you trailed, what grade would you give each system?

Results in bar graph form:

You can read the full survey and results (with analysis) at http://www2.carleton.ca/lmssupport/trial/surveys-and-results/lms-trial-winter-2011-results/.  There are some great stats available.

I had a chance to ask Clarence, Distance Education Coordinator, a few questions about going Moodle via email, you can see our exchange below.

What spurred your move from another LMS to Moodle/Joule?

We began our search for a new LMS in the fall of 2010. It became evident that we did not have a lot of choices. The cost of Blackboard 9 licensing, hardware and administration were more that we could budget. Our faculty was unhappy with WebCT CE 8 and wanted a LMS that was easier to use and had many add-ins like ePortfolios and synchronous teaching tools. The fact that CE 8 was to be phased out by Blackboard in the near future was also a driving force in this process.

What process did you use for reviewing the available platforms on the market?

We put together a LMS review sub-committee of our distance education committee and began the process of reviewing our LMS choices. We did look at Blackboard 9 and built a several sample courses but faculty found the platform clunky and overly complex.

Then we spent several months working with Moodle. The entire faculty was given a sandbox to play with in Moodle 1.9. I did live information sessions and several webinars to give everyone a chance to ask questions about Moodle and to understand our upcoming migration. The response was 100% positive.

The next step in the process was our spring term Moodle pilot. We chose 4 courses migrated these to Moodle and ran the courses during the spring term with 175 students. This was a great pilot we had zero problems, no technical problems with Moodle 1.9 and the students had little difficulty using Moodle compared to WebCT. Many students had courses in both platforms at the same time and said that they preferred Moodle “Because it was easier to use”.

Why Moodlerooms and Joule?

After looking at all our options we decided on Moodlerooms for our hosting vendor to help us with our Moodle migration and to supply Moodle hosting
over the long-term. Our faculty liked the many features of Moodle Joule 2.0 as well as the overall Moodle Joule interface.

We are using the full range of features that Moodlerooms had available for Joule 2.0 this includes Joule Synchronous, Joule Social, eFolio, and many of the plugins supported by Moodlerooms. We are doing of all this at a about one-third of what we would have been paying for Blackboard 9.1.

We chose to go straight to Moodle Joule 2.0 which on Monday the 6th of June will be Moodle Joule 2.1. Many schools are still using Moodle Joule 1.9. We had to work through a few bugs in Moodle 2.0 but the benefits far outweigh any issues with Moodle 2.0. It has features and a workflow that are more user-friendly than the older Moodle 1.9 and much improved administrator interface.

When do you officially go live?

We have been running Moodle Joule 2.0 for three months now and will run our summer courses on Moodle. The WebCT server will be officially shutdown on June 30th.

Here is the link to the Western Nevada College training and development blog for WNC Online: http://wnctraining.org.  Check out the Moodle site here: http://wnc.mrooms3.net/.

A very interesting change is that Blackboard’s family of LMSs (including Angel and WebCT) experienced a 6% drop (from 56% of the surveyed market from 2009 to 2010.  Moodle and Desire2Learn both had increases.  According to the survey results Moodle now commands 10% of the surveyed market.

From the report:

Learning Management System Usage. In 2009, 51 percent of the ITC Survey’s respondents indicated they use Blackboard/WebCT/Angel Learning (27.4 percent use Blackboard, 9.7 percent use WebCT and 13.7 percent Angel Learning) for their learning management system (LMS). In 2010, results indicated a drop of six percentage points for the Blackboard/WebCT/Angel Learning share of the LMS market—down from 56 percent of Blackboard/WebCT users reported in 2008.

Thirty-eight percent of respondents indicated they were considering switching their LMS platform in the next few years. This “one-third” share has been consistent for the past five years of the survey. Sixty-two percent of respondents reported they do not plan to switch their LMS. Sixty-four percent of respondents indicated they restrict the number of LMS platforms their campus will support—this is a drop of 15 percent from just last year, when 77 percent reported they restrict the number of LMS platforms their campus will support.

• Florida International University, USA [blog article]: FIU started evaluating alternative LMSs when the dust settled around the Blackboard/WebCT acquisition.  Longtime WebCT customers they feared changes in pricing and long-term priorities of the LMS SaaS provider.  FIU has been moving to Moodle over the past year; all courses from some departments of the institution will be delivered from Moodle.  Click here to get a glimpse of their theme.
• University of Montreal, Canada [blog comment]: According to an instructional designer at the University of Montreal, they have also taken the Moodle plunge and have transitioned to the open source LMS from WebCT 4.1.   Migration will be completed by 2012, but the Moodle is already up (and quite nice I might add).  Check out the Moodle at https://studium.umontreal.ca/moodle/

This is my favorite quote:

There’s more fun with Moodle. No doubt. I don’t know why that is.  But Vista? Vista seems like getting a new broom. It’s functional, but it’s really not that much fun. Moodle’s like a motorcycle. Whee. Let’s go for a ride.
-Murray Jensen

What I really like about the discussion fora that I use in Moodle is that it really encourages a wide variety of students to participate. Some students, as you know, no matter what you do, are not going to talk in class, and I love how some of my shyest students are so eloquent in the CMS. I would have to figure out how to draw out that student who is uncomfortable speaking in front his peers. To me, it creates another way of giving students voice. Some students, no matter what you do, they’re not going to speak in class, and to me that’s fine, as long as they have other avenues to express themselves.
-Walk Jacobs

1. Macquarie University is moving to Moodle (via Moodle Buzz): Macquarie U in Sydney Australia is moving to Moodle after using WebCT/Blackboard.  Read more about their decision and study at http://www.announcements.mq.edu.au/others/macquarie_university_is_moving_to_moodle
2. Elon University is considering a switch to Moodle from Blackboard (http://www.elon.edu/pendulum/Story.aspx?id=4184): According to The Pendulum the current Blackboard installation is too hefty a fee and a Moodle installation would be a fiscally prudent change for the University.

The presentation is roughly 60 minutes and covers how they evaluated moving to Moodle or upgrading to BlackBoard’s new web LMS, the various factors that contributed to their transition and what they learned.  Shaun and Nic also provide an overview of using Moodle and the various customizations and users they’ve found through slight modifications and integration with the other web services at OU.

According to the presenters they were able to replicate all functions of WebCT and a bit more just by using pieces and modules found through the Moodle.org community.  The only lacking feature (which was added through an available plug-in) was internal email (rectified with the Quickmail block).

The presentation is worthwhile if you’re organization is currently using another LMS or evaluating between another LMS and Moodle.  You may also want to review their comparison study (of Bb, WebCT and Moodle) which covers the features each provides in detail for Instructional Tools, Course Management, Software Administration, and other issues (http://goo.gl/Fplg)

Additional documents and information about their decision making process and experience is available at http://www2.oakland.edu/elis/documents.cfm.

To access the Elluminate recording/presentation please visit: http://alturl.com/ewue

It’s valuable to note that OU also uses Moodle as an ePortfolio system, providing all students with their own editable Moodle classroom that they can edit and keep through the year after they graduate.  This provides an easy upload area for all of their homework, resumes and other materials collected digitally.