[clug] WebCT vs. moodle

[Stephen Boyd]

Hi,

I suggest you start documenting the deficiencies and measuring some key
performance indicators (so you can draw pretty graphs for the PHBs),
especially things that are getting worse or will be much better if you
move to moodle.

Then develop a detailed business case which covers all the deficiencies
of the current system and three scenarios (at least):
 * Do nothing
 * Upgrade
 * Replace with moodle

See these for ideas re comparisons:
http://www.opensource.nsw.gov.au/resources/tools_and_reports/tco_template
http://www.agimo.gov.au/_sourceit/sourceit/oss

Main thing is to get a really good comparison that can't be shown as
biased towards the FLOSS solution.

Finding someone senior in the uni bureaucracy and/or academia who
supports this would be very valuable.

Stephen.


On Sun, 2006-08-13 at 10:02 +1000, adam wrote:
> Robin Shannon wrote:
> 
> > First, does anyone actually like WebCT? i just want to make sure that
> > it isn't just me, my friends and my lecturers that loathe it.
> 
> I administer a server that runs WeBCT (CE4) and it is as hard to admin 
> (from a sysadmin point of view) as it is to use (from a students point 
> of view). Backing up 9 Million files/dirs is scary. We have to tar the 
> entire install directory every night which ends up at about 160GB (and 
> climbing). We can't gzip it because it blows the backup time out by a 
> few hours. We can't do differentials because rsync doesn't like checking 
> 9 million files/dirs for changes.
> 
> Apparently all is better on CE6 with it's Oracle backend. I'm yet to be 
> convinced.
> 
> >
> > Second, does anyone have any experience with moodle? I've looked at
> > the website and some reviews and stuff and it looks pretty spiffy but
> > i don't have any actual experience with it.
> 
> I've done a few test installations of Moodle to show it off but we 
> haven't ever had the drive to go into a full test scenario.
> 
> >
> > Third, are other people intrested trying to do some open source advocacy?
> 
> Yes. Absolutly. Sign me up. Would you like my first born?
> 
> >
> > Four, where (if others are interested) would we start? Does anyone
> > (specifically staff) have any knowledge or thoughts about which bits
> > of the bureaucracy are involved in such decision.
> 
> None of my ideas have worked so far. So I don't know if I'll be much 
> help here. A userdemo of Moodle to the stakeholders would be a start. 
> Some offer of traning for staff, students and administrators. Offers of 
> technical assistants where needed. Getting the foot in the door and then 
> backing it up with a body of support will be the most important thing IMO.
> 
> 
> 
> And then of course there is this... 
> http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/08/02/1217219
> 
>   Adam.