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BY ALLISON GANTT

In print | Published April 29, 2010

Information Technology Services has been running pilots of two learning management systems — Moodle and Blackboard 9 — since the start of this semester, but it remains unclear which is the best choice for the college.

ITS is currently collecting feedback, and representatives from Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr and Haverford will make a final decision by the third week of May. If they collectively choose to switch to Blackboard 9, the change will occur before the fall semester. If they choose Moodle, the conversion will take an additional year.

“Essentially what it comes down to, in my opinion, … is the difficulty … for the faculty to switch [from Blackboard to Moodle] versus the cost,” said Andrew Ruether, academic technologist for the natural sciences and engineering.

At the beginning of this semester, several faculty members offered to pilot the new systems for ITS to discover the systems’ advantages and disadvantages. “There’s no clear pedagogical choice,” said Chief Information Technology Officer Gayle Barton.

Faculty feedback has been gauged through one-on-one meetings, a questionnaire and technical support throughout the semester.

Barton said that Swarthmore pays $40,000 a year in Blackboard licensing fees. Moodle would cost at most a quarter of this if Swarthmore chooses to have it hosted by an outside company.

Student and faculty satisfaction will also be a crucial consideration, Barton said.

“We really want to be able to say we’re doing more than saving money,” Barton said. “We want to gain something in the process.”

Associate Professor of Engineering Carr Everbach said that he preferred Moodle over Blackboard 9 in the beginning of the semester. However, he experienced many glitches with Moodle throughout the year. In one instance, students could not view some of the readings he had posted. The issue was never resolved.

In addition, Moodle’s format does not allow folders within folders. This caused trouble for Associate Professor of Astronomy Eric Jensen, and Professor of Mathematics Stephen Maurer said that this made it impossible for him to convert to Moodle this semester.

Everbach said that many of the missing functions of Moodle can be imported. “It would have been nice to have most of the functionality that we’ve grown to expect in Blackboard already present in the version of Moodle we were trying out,” he said.

Everbach said that the faculty did not receive formal training prior to using Moodle this semester, which was part of the reason for the difficult adjustment.

Barton said, however, that if the college ends up choosing Moodle as the learning management system it will “convert all the data … and provide lots of support.”

Generally, Blackboard 9 has been received positively by students and faculty.

Assistant Professor of Anthropology Niklas Hultin said that though he “loathes” Blackboard, the newer version has a sleeker design and new features.

“Blackboard 9, despite its limits, is easier to use than Moodle, and people are sort of habituated to use it,” Hultin said.

Associate Professor of German Sunka Simon said in an e-mail that Blackboard 9’s new features, like blogs and easy video uploads, respond to the needs of professors and are worth the money.

“One of the big questions remains: how much better does something need to be in order to make a switch?” said Eric Behrens, Associate Chief Information Technology Officer.

Students enrolled in pilot courses received a survey on Monday to evaluate the systems.

Daniel Duncan ’13, a Moodle user in Hultin’s first-year seminar “Human Rights and International Conflict,” did not notice much difference between Moodle and the current version of Blackboard. “It’s pretty much like Blackboard, except that it opens PDFs in a new window,” he said in an e-mail.

Duncan’s class was given the option to try either Moodle or Blackboard 9. He was one of the few in the class who actually tested the system, he said.

“I guess I’m just used to Blackboard, so I don’t really use [Moodle],” said Evelyn Fraga ’13, a classmate of Duncan’s.

Nancy Mandujano ’13, also enrolled in this course, did not participate in the Moodle pilot because she could not access Swarthmore’s Moodle page. Each time she clicked the link, the page would not load, she said.

Many students who tested Blackboard 9 did not notice any glitches or significant advantages. “The set-up [of Blackboard 9] is exactly the same … but in a different color,” said Ellen Sanchez ’13, who uses Blackboard 9 for her film and media studies class “Fan Culture.”

Mandujano, who used Blackboard 9 instead of Moodle, said that Blackboard 9 alphabetizes documents, which was a helpful feature.

Barton said that, functionally, Moodle is more flexible than Blackboard. She also said that Moodle would allow Swarthmore students to log in with the same username and password they use for their e-mail.

Ruether acknowledged that more security concerns have been reported with Moodle than Blackboard. Ruether said that Moodle releases patches to solve these vulnerabilities soon after they are announced.

Moodle is releasing a new version over this summer, which also complicates the potential change. Ruether said that because of this, ITS may conduct another pilot of this new version in the fall.

This summer, in addition to the Moodle and Blackboard 9 decision, ITS will be replacing network equipment and wireless access points to increase the wireless Internet’s capacity and speed. They will also be working to digitize applications for the Admissions Department, meaning that applications will all be put online for Admissions to review.

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