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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