4 ms·

Moodle is GPL. The expensive part is training, not the license fees. Lots of teachers really need extreme amounts of hand-holding, even younger ones who have be

Moodle is GPL. The expensive part is training, not the license fees. Lots of teachers really need extreme amounts of hand-holding, even younger ones who have been using websites for their entire lives. (And you can replace "teacher" there with any other profession, including "programmer".)

warkdarrior 6y ago
This is just an indication that the design and concepts of Moodle do not match the mental model commonly used by teachers.
- marcosdumay 6y ago
  Let's call it clearly, all educational software is badly designed. Moodle is no exception. It's not only different from the teachers mental model, it's also different from the students mental models, and administrators mental models, besides it imposes complex and low productivity workflows. The newer proprietary educational portals are usually designed after Moodle, so it's not only bad, it's also trend setting. The good news is that this means they are better than the old ones from before people had something to copy.
  - jedbrown 6y ago
    I'm a professor. Our department has run its own Moodle for years, despite the university switching to Canvas. The university has exerted lots of pressure and this is the first semester in which all classes are primarily on Canvas. There has been no end to complaints about pedagogy that isn't expressible in Canvas, resulting in bad compromises or huge amounts of labor for large classes. Bottom line: if universities could contract for support and pay developers a fraction of what they currently pay for proprietary LMS, Moodle (or another open source platform currently starved for resources) would have much better usability and student data wouldn't be in the hands of private equity firms.
    - easton 6y ago
      Can you give an example? I’ve seen some teachers/dev teams build some wild stuff in Canvas, which worked just fine. And Canvas is GPL 2 as well, so it’s licensed a heck of a lot better than Blackboard.
      - jedbrown 6y ago
        CodeRunner, group scheduling features for interview grading, batch capabilities with mastery grading, and customizable grade aggregation, to name a few. Canvas core is AGPLv3, but many important plugins are proprietary so I'm not aware of universities self-hosting.
  - abdullahkhalids 6y ago
    I disagree. I use Canvas to teach, and while I could write a 100 bug reports, I wouldn't classify it as badly designed. There are many features I do want, and I hope they get implemented at some point, but it's definitely over the threshold of good software.
    - kissickas 6y ago
      As a student on Canvas this year and Sakai last year (and Blackboard before that), I can tell you that Canvas is atrocious and easily the worst of the bunch. Just so I'm not making an empty comment, here are a few quick complaints: - Confusing differences between calendar vs module views that differ from class to class depending on where the professor tries to put things - Zoom is shunned to its own tab rather than integrated with the calendar, causing students to constantly ask each other for the password for every session - Everything (tests, midterms, homework assignments) is called a quiz, and it's often unclear what is going to be graded or what allows multiple submissions until it's too late - Notification settings are terrible and most people stick with the settings they set in the first week, meaning some of my classmates are just now realizing they've been missing announcements or grade postings - If I get an email that a teacher has released grades, I have to go to Canvas to open it - and sometimes it's not even true - Notification counts are ignored because they appear even on things I've already seen but just not clicked on from the "home" view - Replies to my own discussion posts are mixed in with replies to everyone else's posts, meaning no real discussion is had
      - abdullahkhalids 6y ago
        Interesting. > - Confusing differences between calendar vs module views that differ from class to class depending on where the professor tries to put things This is actually a feature, not a bug. Courses are wildly different, professors think wildly different. I would not want the software to shoehorn everyone into the same schematic. After all, in-person courses are organized in wildly different ways. You just have learn and communicate. > Zoom is shunned to its own tab rather than integrated with the calendar, causing students to constantly ask each other for the password for every session That is a misconfiguration on your uni/prof's part. If they do it right, every calendar entry should a zoom link with the password included, resulting in one-click joining of class. > Everything (tests, midterms, homework assignments) is called a quiz, and it's often unclear what is going to be graded or what allows multiple submissions until it's too late Are we using the same software? If you click on any assignment it clearly shows every one of these things at the top. I just checked in student view. -- I completely agree with your comments about notification settings. Also, the email system within Canvas is atrocious.
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  I guess that further bolsters the point that FOSS isn't a cure-all for ed tech. A for-profit company that can reduce training costs by half would be much cheaper than a FOSS solution that requires more training. Training is expensive.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    FOSS movement is dominated by geeks. Fine with me, I am one as well. But the relative dearth of artists and UX designers results in very well written software that users struggle to use.
imglorp 6y ago
And hosting, and support?
- throwawaygh 6y ago
  Sure, but training (and, I guess, support, but in the "helping users" sense not in the "installing patches/upgrades" sense) is the vast majority of the expense.
DavyJones1983 6y ago
I remember talking to the whoever was developing moodle at the time about 10 years ago and he didn't like the "MVC" pattern because it had too many files. It took forever to implement at our organisation (it was a non-profit) and was generally a waste of time.

warkdarrior 6y ago

This is just an indication that the design and concepts of Moodle do not match the mental model commonly used by teachers.

marcosdumay 6y ago
Let's call it clearly, all educational software is badly designed. Moodle is no exception. It's not only different from the teachers mental model, it's also different from the students mental models, and administrators mental models, besides it imposes complex and low productivity workflows. The newer proprietary educational portals are usually designed after Moodle, so it's not only bad, it's also trend setting. The good news is that this means they are better than the old ones from before people had something to copy.
- jedbrown 6y ago
  I'm a professor. Our department has run its own Moodle for years, despite the university switching to Canvas. The university has exerted lots of pressure and this is the first semester in which all classes are primarily on Canvas. There has been no end to complaints about pedagogy that isn't expressible in Canvas, resulting in bad compromises or huge amounts of labor for large classes. Bottom line: if universities could contract for support and pay developers a fraction of what they currently pay for proprietary LMS, Moodle (or another open source platform currently starved for resources) would have much better usability and student data wouldn't be in the hands of private equity firms.
  - easton 6y ago
    Can you give an example? I’ve seen some teachers/dev teams build some wild stuff in Canvas, which worked just fine. And Canvas is GPL 2 as well, so it’s licensed a heck of a lot better than Blackboard.
    - jedbrown 6y ago
      CodeRunner, group scheduling features for interview grading, batch capabilities with mastery grading, and customizable grade aggregation, to name a few. Canvas core is AGPLv3, but many important plugins are proprietary so I'm not aware of universities self-hosting.
- abdullahkhalids 6y ago
  I disagree. I use Canvas to teach, and while I could write a 100 bug reports, I wouldn't classify it as badly designed. There are many features I do want, and I hope they get implemented at some point, but it's definitely over the threshold of good software.
  - kissickas 6y ago
    As a student on Canvas this year and Sakai last year (and Blackboard before that), I can tell you that Canvas is atrocious and easily the worst of the bunch. Just so I'm not making an empty comment, here are a few quick complaints: - Confusing differences between calendar vs module views that differ from class to class depending on where the professor tries to put things - Zoom is shunned to its own tab rather than integrated with the calendar, causing students to constantly ask each other for the password for every session - Everything (tests, midterms, homework assignments) is called a quiz, and it's often unclear what is going to be graded or what allows multiple submissions until it's too late - Notification settings are terrible and most people stick with the settings they set in the first week, meaning some of my classmates are just now realizing they've been missing announcements or grade postings - If I get an email that a teacher has released grades, I have to go to Canvas to open it - and sometimes it's not even true - Notification counts are ignored because they appear even on things I've already seen but just not clicked on from the "home" view - Replies to my own discussion posts are mixed in with replies to everyone else's posts, meaning no real discussion is had
    - abdullahkhalids 6y ago
      Interesting. > - Confusing differences between calendar vs module views that differ from class to class depending on where the professor tries to put things This is actually a feature, not a bug. Courses are wildly different, professors think wildly different. I would not want the software to shoehorn everyone into the same schematic. After all, in-person courses are organized in wildly different ways. You just have learn and communicate. > Zoom is shunned to its own tab rather than integrated with the calendar, causing students to constantly ask each other for the password for every session That is a misconfiguration on your uni/prof's part. If they do it right, every calendar entry should a zoom link with the password included, resulting in one-click joining of class. > Everything (tests, midterms, homework assignments) is called a quiz, and it's often unclear what is going to be graded or what allows multiple submissions until it's too late Are we using the same software? If you click on any assignment it clearly shows every one of these things at the top. I just checked in student view. -- I completely agree with your comments about notification settings. Also, the email system within Canvas is atrocious.
throwawaygh 6y ago
I guess that further bolsters the point that FOSS isn't a cure-all for ed tech. A for-profit company that can reduce training costs by half would be much cheaper than a FOSS solution that requires more training. Training is expensive.
- inglor_cz 6y ago
  FOSS movement is dominated by geeks. Fine with me, I am one as well. But the relative dearth of artists and UX designers results in very well written software that users struggle to use.

imglorp 6y ago

And hosting, and support?

throwawaygh 6y ago
Sure, but training (and, I guess, support, but in the "helping users" sense not in the "installing patches/upgrades" sense) is the vast majority of the expense.

DavyJones1983 6y ago

I remember talking to the whoever was developing moodle at the time about 10 years ago and he didn't like the "MVC" pattern because it had too many files. It took forever to implement at our organisation (it was a non-profit) and was generally a waste of time.