Moodle
Moodle is a popular open source learning management system (LMS). A LMS is a software application that enables the management of a learning and training environment. It essentially provides students and employees with a complete virtual study environment. First released in in 2002, Moodle has now over 54,000 registered sites and over 42,000,000 users, in 212 countries. Moodle is used by a wide variety of organizations, ranging from small schools to large global institutions including The Open University - UK, Universidad Europea de Madrid, Ming Chuan University - Taiwan and UCLA. Additionally, Moodle is also used by corporations for corporate training, including Allianz, Tesco and Canon.
Being open-source, Moodle can be installed for free. However, there are many companies which offer Moodle hosting and installation along with complementary services such as customization, support, training and integration.
Moodle main advantages are (Open Source Collaborative Moodle Assessment Report 2010):
- No licensing fees
- Possibility of self-hosting
- Easily customizable
- Open source code provides the ability for Moodle to be very specialized
- Flexible, facilitating movement of learning content in and out of the LMS
- Suited for large and small installations
Moodle's LMS includes:
- Semesters, courses, teachers, and students
- Enrollment, including tuition management, and online payment
- Calendar for each course integrated with popular calendar software
- Distribution of course material, such as slides, documents, and homework
- Homework grading, and online tests
- Transcripts and report generation
- Bulletin boards for news and announcements
- Leaving messages for staff, students, coworkers, and classmates
- Chat rooms
Groopex integrates Moodle with the high-quality web conferencing services of Cisco's WebEx and Microsoft's Live Meeting. This integrated platform complements your organization's Moodle with live online interactive classrooms, greatly enhancing your elearning capabilities.