News

Tri-Co tests Moodle against Blackboard

In print | January 28, 2010

Earlier this month, the college began testing Moodle and an upgraded version of Blackboard as possible replacements for the current learning management system Blackboard.

Discussion of Moodle’s test-run began as early as last semester amongst Tri-Co and ITS, prompted by the release of the newest version of Blackboard in January 2009. The financial downturn also played a large role in the talks. Collectively, Tri-Co pays approximately $35,000 a year for Blackboard use, Associate CITO Eric Behrens said. Over 90 percent of the Swarthmore student body accesses the current Blackboard system each week.

“All three schools were interested in looking around if there were alternatives less expensive than Blackboard but offered the functionality that we’d like,” said Andrew Ruether, Academic Technologist for the Natural Sciences and Engineering.

After thorough investigation and research, Moodle appeared as the leading alternative, Ruether and Behrens said.

Moodle is an open source software, which means that the program is available to the public to download and use at no cost.

“[That] isn’t to say it’s free to run, but we wouldn’t have to pay licensing costs,” Behrens said. “The other costs, such as servers, storage, backup and support staff are pretty comparable [to the costs of Blackboard 9].”

Ruether said that primary factors that will count toward the Tri-Co’s final decision on which program to use will likely be functionality and availability of specific features, finances, and faculty and student satisfaction. This last factor will be gauged through two assessments, presented to faculty and students both halfway through and at the end of the semester.

“If people are unhappy … with either one, that will probably … count heavily toward which way we will go,” Ruether said.

The final decision will be made by each school’s CITO sometime in May. If the school chooses to adopt Blackboard 9, the school will switch over to the new platform within the year. If the school chooses Moodle, the transition will occur gradually and should be complete by Fall 2011.

This semester, four professors are using Moodle, four professors are using Blackboard 9, and three professors are testing both.

Associate Professor of Engineering Carr Everbach is one of the professors who opted to try both. He said that learning to use the new systems coincides with the lessons he teaches in his classes that focus on technology and the environment.

Everbach said that he is satisfied with the current version of Blackboard the school uses. However, acknowledging that this not an option, Everbach said that Moodle is his favorite.

Visiting Assistant Professor of History and Anthropology Niklas Hultin, who is also testing both Blackboard 9 and Moodle, has a different perspective on the three systems.

“I loathe the [current] Blackboard, and I try to avoid it as much as possible in my courses,” he said. “With Blackboard 9, I’m somewhat impressed. It doesn’t look like something stuck in the 1980s.”

In addition to the slicker design, he said that the new Blackboard is more straightforward. For instance, in the old Blackboard, reorganizing course documents involved numbering each entry individually and then clicking a button to submit the request. In the new Blackboard, drag and drop features make this process less of a chore.

Hultin, however, has a problem with Blackboard as a whole. “The college is investing a lot of time and money and resources into a … learning content management platform … and I do wonder if we’re overpaying for more software than people use,” he said.

Liz Williams ’13 said that only one of her eight professors so far have used the available Wikis, blogs, and other features that make Blackboard more expensive.

“I feel like most people only use Blackboard to download readings and assignments,” said Evelyn Fraga ’13. Ruether also confirmed this statement.

Open source software is typically voluntarily created and publicly available, setting Moodle’s origins and economic foundations apart from Blackboard’s profit-seeking business model.

“It sort of ties in to the Swarthmore ethos to be committed to open source. … Where there is a credible open source alternative it makes sense to take a very long hard look at that, even if you decide to go with a commercial, proprietary system,” Hultin said.

According to an article on PR Newswire, Blackboard joined forces with the Microsoft Corporation in November to incorporate course notifications into Explorer and Firefox web browsers. In May, Blackboard purchased the Angel Corporation for $95 million, making it the second learning management company purchase Blackboard has made within the past four years.

Thousands of schools across the country and world are currently using Moodle, many of which, Ruether noted, are small, liberal arts colleges like Swarthmore. Carleton, Lafayette and even Guilford all have registered Moodle learning management systems.

Security on Moodle could be a potential concern. Secuencia, a software security analysis website, released 37 advisories for Moodle safety issues, often at the “moderately critical” level. Only 10, mostly of “less critical” importance, have been reported for Blackboard.

Whether this will affect the satisfaction of faculty, however, is questionable. “It depends a lot on how important you think the security is on something like Blackboard,” Everbach said.

Behrens acknowledged that more security issues have been reported with the Moodle platform over Blackboard, though it is unclear how large of a role this factor will play in the final decision that will be made this May.