Here's the situation regarding the Open University's use of Moodle.

We selected Moodle in October 2005 as the basis for our institional VLE 
after deciding that no commercial system met our requirements.  We had 
been intending to build our own system but thought that Moodle would allow 
us to achieve the desired functionality much more quickly.  An added 
benefit was that we were launching into a vibrant worldwide community of 
developers and users in which we felt we had something to offer at the 
same time as gaining from the enhancements others were making to the 
system.

We then embarked on an extensive programme of adding the required 
functionality to Moodle, tidying up the codebase etc.  In particular we 
commissioned Moodle.com to build a roles and permissions architecture 
which now gives fine grained control over who gets access to what.  For 
example if a student posts a defamatory blog article we can switch off 
that student's access to the blog module while retaining their access to 
the rest of their course.  We also required significant accessibility 
enhancements given the large number of disabled students we have at the OU.

It is probably true to say that there was more to do to Moodle than we 
originally anticipated, that some of the code left a lot to be desired and 
that there were significant gaps in functionality however we now have 
almost all of our courses on the system and 10,000 unique logins a day.  
With over 200,000 students and increasing use by courses of the VLE that 
is set to scale up considerably.

We have 12 full-time developers adding code to Moodle as well as various 
pieces of work currently being outsourced.  This scale of work was 
expected and we remain within budget for the OU VLE Programme.  All the 
non-OU specific code is being fed back to the Moodle community.  We are 
particularly excited at the moment with:

* mystuff - a new eportfolio module for Moodle that is currently being 
tested
* a new wiki module for Moodle that we are building (the existing one is 
not adequate)
* enhancements to the Moodle quiz engine enabling us to decommit from a 
proprietary assessment system
* links to our structured authoring system allowing content primarily 
designed for print to be instantly incorporated in Moodle
* enhancements to the podcasting module currently being outsourced
* an offline version of Moodle we are developing in collaboration with 
Intel

In summary, yes Moodle wasn't fit for our purpose when we got hold of it 
but we knew there was a lot to do to it and while there are pros and cons 
of working with open source products we're in a considerably better 
situation now than if we had chosen any commercial or any other open 
source product - or attempted to build our own VLE from scratch.  It has 
been a very positive experience working with the Moodle community under 
the leadership of Martin Dougiamas and great to be able to just add a new 
feature ourselves rather than having to wait for a commercial provider to 
do so!

Niall Sclater
OU VLE Programme Director
sclater.com



On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 12:52:17 +0100, Wyatt, Tristram 
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I'm not aware of any rumour but it's worth remembering the scale and
>complexity of the OU's existing enterprise systems. Integrating any system
>with that is going to be a challenge.
>
>
>
>Bath University apparently switched without problem, ditto goldsmiths, to
>Moodle.
>
>
>
>Best wishes
>
>Tristram
>
>
>
>  _____
>
>From: Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf 
Of
>Malcolm Ryan
>Sent: 24 April 2007 15:42
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [VLES] Blackboard v Moodle
>
>
>
>
>I wonder if anyone at the OU would like to comment on the rumours I heard
>today from a senior colleague who reported that the OU had 19 people 
working
>on Moodle, that it was considered unfit for purpose and they were having 
to
>re-write huge chunks of the code to make it do what they wanted - I was
>surprised!
>
>Malcolm
>
>Please respond to Virtual Learning Environments <[log in to unmask]>
>
>Sent by:        Virtual Learning Environments <[log in to unmask]>
>
>To:        [log in to unmask]
>cc:
>Subject:        Re: [VLES] Blackboard v Moodle
>
>
>Tim
>
>When we looked at the difference it was the sheer cost that we tried to
>justify, given Moodle works from a quick download and install.  Plus the
>political issues at the time surrounding Blackboard's patent claims put us
>off even more.
>
>The other benefit is that Moodle is so easily customisable.  I'd love to 
see
>all of education move to Open Source where possible on the desktops -
>especially ubuntu.
>
>James
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Virtual Learning Environments [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf 
Of
>Harrison Tim (Staff)
>Sent: 24 April 2007 06:56
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: [VLES] Blackboard v Moodle
>
>If you are looking to upgrade to the enterprise version of blackboard 
where
>does the comparison with moodle fit in? Surely you should be looking at 
the
>additional features that blacboard enterprise offers and justifying those.
>
>I am confused
>
>Tim
>
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Virtual Learning Environments <[log in to unmask]>
>To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
>Sent: Mon Apr 23 15:54:48 2007
>Subject: [VLES] Blackboard v Moodle
>
>Hi all,
>
>Has anyone made a comparison between the above 2 VLE systems?
>
>We currently use Blackboard basic and need to justify upgrading to
>Blackboard Enterprise.
>
>I'd appreciate any thoughts/research from other users.
>
>Thanks from Carshalton College.
>
>
>Susan Jackson
>
>e-learning trainer
>
>020 8544 4411
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Carshalton College
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>_______________________________________________________________________
>Malcolm Ryan (Flexible Learning Co-ordinator)
>School of Education & Training, University of Greenwich, Maritime 
Greenwich
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>AND
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>
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