The Selection Process
An LMS will save money when compared to the increased travel required for classroom training.
LMS can provide measurable results, where classroom training might not.
A properly-maintained Learning Management System will cost very little to operate, and so on.
Heather,
Your rationale seems sound, there are plenty of schools using Moodle and open source does provide some distinct fiscal advantages, particularly for a "start-up" institution. Because you are accredited, I'm assuming you are further down the road than I first imagined. Once you make the decision on your LMS, you will be surprised how quickly the rest will fall into place. Once that decision is made, you will also be able to locate independent contractor curriculum developers who have experience with open source and specifically Moodle, to help you.
Dr. Robert Roehrich
This process is extremely complex and is actually driving me crazy. I am the one responsible for making this decision. We are a brand new completely online fully accredited University and since we haven't even begun having students yet, I have to figure all of this out. I truly want to make this decision only once. I don't want to have to try something and then switch later, but I think for budget purposes, we should stick with a free source and once we grow, then switch to a paid source. Blackboard seems to offer the most functionality and has the best user reviews (both by faculty and students) but it does get pricey as you increase students....but then again, if the students are coming, the money comes, and then the price of Blackboard shouldn't be a factor? I don't know. I think we are going to choose SONIS web as our LMS because they integrate well with Moodle, which we will use initially, since it's free and once we grow, I think we will switch over to Blackboard. Still deciding on this one though.
How will the course management system be (or has been) selected at your institution?
By a very complex process where no one seems to have clue on what it is and wants to outsource.Currently trying to navigate that process.
we have the online department who management system.
It is important to take into account the needs of the students and budget of the school
We, the faculty, looked at and compared various LMS's and determined that BlackBoard was the program that best worked with our program and was the most cost-effective.
When our Institution rolled out the Online division, the most cost effective LMS was chosen. Moodle is free and therefore saves the school money. Moodle does have many useful features and is a great beginning LMS for a school that is just starting their online division. However, it is lacking on the technological advances that many of the other systems now boast. I believe that as an Institution grows, so must its technology and services. I hope we adopt a more advanced LMS that offers many more features that better service our students.
Our institution has already selected the LMS and we've been using it for 10 years. Although I was not part of the team that selected the LMS, now that I have experience with it, I'm in a much better position to review and recommend an LMS for our institution.
For the institute our selection will be based on my recommendation. One of the reasons for taking this online class - to learn about the systems that other schools are using. What is successful and what is not. I have been speaking with two off-site consultants, and I found that I needed to be better educated on what was available because when they spoke it was like Greek to me.
Our school is going to moodle for off sight assignments and snow day activities. We are still currently using blackboard to post assignments and provide alternative activities for students to work on independently off site. We are one of a system of 4 schools and 2 of the other sites are up and running on moodle and have found it very user friendly for both students and staff.
I was not involved but I know they used to use WebCT. Then when a new LMS needed to be chosen, they had representatives give presentations and I believe a vote occurred between Blackboard and Sakai. Sakai is open source so the financial benefits there and ability of in-house tech personnel probably helped with the decision. It's not flashy but it does the job!
This course can provides measurable results and It is security .
We choose Moodle after review some of the LMS available; we found that some institutions well stablished in e-learning were switching to Moodle.
We are in the process of choosing an LMS, preferably one that is free or low cost. The task is overwhelming with the increasing number of open-source vendors. There are nice to have features, like e-portfolios, that we feel are necessary for our courses, but these extras can change free to costly. Would it be unweildly to maintain two different open-source LMSs - one that has the need to haves and one with nice to haves?
We will select the LMS based on our needs, after we study the different systems and meet with our Program Advosry Board. Ease of use, phone tech support, updates, and price are my main concerns.
Should be selected upon cost, ease of use, and training. Last but not least upgrades and tech support are also important.
Some of the things that were considered when choosing and CMS/LMS was:
1.) Ease of use for both faculty and students
2.) Of course cost(s)
3.) Training
4.) Upgrades and updates
5.) Help & Support
6.) Growth potential
Ours was decided upon due to those in charge wanting a personalized system. So we created our own. We have the ITM team in place, and our server is working fine. The issues that still need to be resolved are no longer IT related at all, but personel.
