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Moodle

Score7.7 out of 10

244 Reviews and Ratings

What is Moodle?

Moodle is an open source learning management system with hundreds of millions of users around the globe and translated into over 100 languages, used by organizations to support their education and training needs.

Media

Moodle offers activities and resources to create courses.
The course dashboard shows the courses which an student is enrolled in.
Inside a course view shows the course complete index of activities and resources.
The course view can be customised to be cleaner allowing the student to focus on learning.
Moodle Workplace includes all features in Moodle LMS and other exclusive features like multi-tenancy, dynamic rules, and report builder.
Programs help users stay up-to-date with compliance, and help with designing learning paths for a teams so that they can develop the right competencies. Certificates can also be issued to validate learning and compliance.
Dynamic Rules help to avoid the tedious tasks and create and manage automated rules for several groups of users. Learning experiences based on location, department, position, roles and other criteria are available.

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Top Performing Features

  • Compliance management

    Users can identify potential risks and ensure that requirements are met and that certifications are up to date.

    Category average: 8.8

  • Learning reporting & analytics

    Provides insights into course completion, engagement with learning content, etc.

    Category average: 7.7

  • Course authoring

    Users can develop and assemble online learning content.

    Category average: 7.8

Areas for Improvement

  • Social learning

    Includes features for collaboration and knowledge sharing among peers.

    Category average: 7.6

  • Gamification

    Presents course material in a game-like format to increase engagement and enjoyment.

    Category average: 6.6

  • Mobile friendly

    Students or employees can access content from mobile devices. Course authors can develop responsive learning content.

    Category average: 7.1

Comprehensive and powerful tool, needs UX improvements

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

As a teaching assistant at the university, I found Moodle to be an invaluable tool for facilitating communication with students, distributing and collecting class materials, and supporting remote teaching through its “Classroom” feature. We also integrated CodeRunner for automatic exercise correction in Java, this feature was used for the weekly assignments and it proved particularly useful for secure exam sessions. Moodle’s comprehensive features significantly enhanced our teaching and administrative efficiency in such a setting when we have to collect hundreds of assignments each week and grade them.

Pros

  • Group students
  • File uploads including cutoff date
  • Forum
  • Grading

Cons

  • Classroom is not 100% reliable
  • Copying content from one semester to the other was not straightforward
  • Coderunner is not very intuitive, building exercises can be tricky sometimes
  • Outdated UI, especially on Mobile
  • Difficult to find specific settings, online documentation is sparse

Return on Investment

  • All content in one place
  • Keep track of previous years material
  • Improved communication between students and with staff
  • Better feedback on homework upload for students

Alternatives Considered

Google Classroom

Other Software Used

Microsoft Teams, Google Workspace, Slack

Moodle More Than Gets the Job Done

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I have used Moodle in my work over the last 15 years at a variety of organizations. In one case, we had a local instance on our own server, which worked fine. It just requires diligence in upgrading versions.

I have also used Moodle through a Moodle partner for much larger scale deliveries to 20-30 thousand users.

Pros

  • Moodle provides data for days. You can find out whatever you need to make informed, data-driven decisions about outcomes and forecasting.
  • Moodle integrates with other platforms very well via LTI with gradebook pass back, plug-ins, and commerce.
  • Moodle has a robust completion tracking and gating function for learning paths.
  • Moodle does a great job of announcing pre-release updates, limiting functionality changes/surprises.

Cons

  • Moodle's last update was a little challenging because it was a pretty big change. However, they did share pre-release information early and often.
  • The interface can be considered a little dated, but it is part of the trade-off for such a work horse of a system.
  • The gradebook can be challenging. For very simple gradebook structures, it is fine, but when there are a number of weights, the learning curve can be a little frustrating.

Return on Investment

  • Moodle has allowed for successful delivery of learning/training with limited hurdles, creating an atmosphere of ease for the user. This keeps branding positive and keeps people coming back.
  • Moodle's administration area reduces workload for L&D/Education staff by at least 50% compared to most systems. This allows staff to be more efficient and spend less time fighting with the LMS.
  • Moodle makes it easy to create templates for consistency. This keeps designers on track with the branding, which is crucial.

Alternatives Considered

Tovuti LMS, D2L Brightspace, Canvas and CadmiumCD

Other Software Used

CourseArc, Articulate Storyline

Review from a GTA

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Moodle as a Graduate teaching assistant to share materials with students, as well as other activities, submission links for assignments, reading lists, a wide range of medias. Every specific course is organised on a Moodle page in our university, and this is a great tool to organise a Master degree.

Pros

  • Dealing with Submissions
  • Allowing for a wide range of media uploads
  • Allow for a good organisation of different labels and sections

Cons

  • Some activities like the workshop are difficult to grasp
  • Group assignments and limitations are not always working well
  • Some settings are quite mysterious and not very useful

Return on Investment

  • During Covid it ended up being essential
  • Allows to track work from home efficiently
  • allows students to expand some of their interest beyond class

Alternatives Considered

Miro

Other Software Used

Microsoft 365, NVivo

A simple and useful online method for distant learning

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I've been using Moodle for more than two years, and I'm happy of it. Its continual development and capacity to provide a paid rollout demonstrate how much this learning management system has advanced over time. Look no farther than Moodle if you're just beginning your adventure into e-learning and want an LMS that is simple to use, free, and has a vibrant community.

Pros

  • Online quizzes
  • LDAP integration
  • Certification system

Cons

  • Windows Server Installation is not stable like linux environment
  • Online "Scorm editor" module should be great
  • There is no Integration option with data visualization application

Return on Investment

  • Oversized and bulky user interface
  • There is no option to automatically create user accounts (self-register)
  • The program lacks a fully working mobile application like those provided by competing learning management systems like Blackboard and Canvas.

Alternatives Considered

Blackboard Learn, Canvas LMS, Google Classroom and TalentLMS

Other Software Used

LimeSurvey, Koha Open Source Library System, WordPress, Zimbra Email & Collaboration, Proxmox VE, Blackboard Learn, Google Classroom, ABP Commercial, MongoDB, SQLite, PostgreSQL, Canvas LMS

Moodle in a Mid-Sized Company - Great Value

Pros

  • Course-driven learning delivery.
  • Reporting and status on learner progress.
  • Supporting asynchronous learning.

Cons

  • The interface is getting a little long in the tooth.
  • Some functions require drilling down multiple levels.
  • Reporting is basic, and requires a lot of manual collation across different learning groups.

Return on Investment

  • Increased learning by staff.
  • Open source (cost reductions).

Alternatives Considered

Relias Learning Management System, Canvas and Google Classroom