Vassar to switch from Blackboard to Moodle

Pending approval by the Faculty, Vassar College will end its contrat with Blackboard Inc. in Fall 2009. Instead, academic courses will use Moodle, an open-source content management system. The move would save the College approximately $50,000.

The Committee on Computing and Education Technology (CCET) has already recommended the switch to the Faculty. Moodle functions much like the privately owned Blackboard, but because it its software is open source, Moodle services are free, available to everyone and compatible with numerous program add-ons.

The Committee on Curricular Policy will review the information provided by the CCET and vote on whether or not to approve the change in software.

Vice President for Computing and Information Services and Chair of CCET Bret Ingerman explained that there are many advantages to Moodle. Among Ingerman's primary motivations for adopting Moodle were the significant fiscal savings. With Moodle, the College will only pay a nominal service to provide technical support. Ingerman estimates that the annual cost will be less than $5,000.

Ingerman and the rest of the CCET have been investigating Moodle throughout the academic year. The Committee began a pilot program in Fall 2008, in which they asked several professors to use Moodle in one of their courses this year. According to Ingerman, the professors were unanimously in support of the Moodle platform.

"I find [Blackboard] to be clunky, non-intuitive and too expensive," wrote Associate Professor of Religion Michael Walsh in an e-mailed statement. "What I love about Moodle is that it is open source, so you are dealing with a community rather than a closed
corporation, as in the case with [Blackboard]. Moodle is easier to use, more flexible and requires fewer ‘clicks' of the mouse than [Blackboard]. I see no advantage whatsoever that [Blackboard] may have over Moodle."

Associate Professor of Psychology Janet Andrews, who used Moodle in two of her courses, agreed. "I prefer it to Blackboard," she said. "I like the fact that it's sort of naturally organized in syllabus week-to-week fashion so you can have everything for a given week in one place instead of having separate content areas," she continued. "It also seems to be much easier for uploading things. It seems much more direct in Moodle."

Indeed, Moodle can be organized in a myriad of ways, including by week. Blackboard, on the other hand, is organized into folders based on their respective content. Though Andrews feels that Moodle looks more cluttered than Blackboard, and Walsh finds it impossible to upload multiple files simultaneously, both professors preferred the overall experience of Moodle to Blackboard.

A few students at the April 19 Vassar Student Association (VSA) Council meeting expressed dissatisfaction with Moodle and found it difficult to use. Class of 2009 President Luis Hoyos said that he had difficulty downloading PDFs from Moodle. Emily Hamilton '10, who attended the Council meeting, reported that she seldom uses her class's Moodle. 
Others worried that a move to Moodle would impact VCards, which are also managed by Blackboard. Ingerman, however, explained that a move to Moodle would not interfere with the cards' function.

"We use two totally different Blackboard products," he wrote in an e-mailed statement. "[We have] The Learning System, which is what you use for course work, and the Transaction System, which is what you use when you use VCash or swipe into a residence hall. While they both come from the same corporate parent, Blackboard, the two products have nothing in common and we have different contracts for each."

Though the Blackboard Learning System will probably be replaced, the College recently renewed its contract for the Transaction System. "[The new contract] will allow us to perform a much needed upgrade on the 11-plus-year-old system, which, in turn, will provide significantly enhanced functionality to many offices on campus that rely on the Transaction System, such as Campus Dining and Security," said Ingerman.

Technology on campus was showcased at a Teaching with Technology Forum in the Aula on Tuesday, April 21. Two posters on Moodle were among those showcased at the Forum, and professors who had experience with the program were available to answer questions.
 

In the midst of the enhanced usage of technology in education, and in the wake of the economic recession, free sites such as Moodle are gaining popularity. Because many colleges are switching away from Blackboard's learning system to Moodle, Blackboard is working with Iowa State University to create software capable of connecting Blackboard to Moodle. 

Course management systems are popular within higher education and are even being used in elementary and high schools. According to Moodle's Web site, there are 2,838,324 course pages on Moodle. Some courses are online-only, while other institutions, like Vassar, use the pages to supplement classroom learning.

Moodle's software is under copyright with a General Public License, so its content can be copied as long as its users "provide the source to others; [do] not modify or remove the original license and copyrights, and apply this same license to any derivative work," according to Moodle's Web site.

The Web site also explains that the word "Moodle" was created as an acronym for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment. The creators feel that the word "Moodle" also alludes to "enjoyable tinkering" and creativity. The site declares that, "Anyone who uses Moodle is a Moodler."