[Liverpool] Open Source ... Learning Management systems

[Omar Baqueiro]

Hi guys, there's been a while since I last posted.

I am currently engaged in a project for private e-learning in Mexico
(where I am from). We are currently looking for the available Learning
Management Systems (LMS) and to decide which one to use.

I have made some research on this issue and I mainly wanted to share
my thoughts/conclusions and to get any feedback anyone can provide.

The comparison was mainly based on the LMS described in:
http://www.edutools.info/static.jsp?pj=4&page=HOWTO

But I added Dokeos (http://www.dokeos.com/) which for some reason was
not listed.

Of course every LMS will be better depending on the specific needs of
each different project. In my case I was looking for a PHP/Mysql based
project. Also, after some other discarding process (based on
"features" available) I ended with the following options:
* Dokeos
* Claroline
* Moodle
* Atutor

According to some research I did (and after testing their Demo sites),
it seems that Dokeos and Claroline are almost equal, and that the
original Claroline developers forked it after having problems with a
University (which held the trademark).

>From what I have read, it seemed that Moodle would win hands down, but
after trying the demo, it seemed *really* complex, and without a clear
process following. For example, the Administration needed to create
courses /for/ the Tutors (as opposed to every other LMS in which each
tutor created their courses). And, as Moodle has  /lots/ of features,
it suffers from what I will call the "KDE" syndrome, this is, the
Tutor pages are full of checkboxes, combo boxes and other choice
controls... this is not good for my project, as the tutors will not
have computer knowledge (or, will have the _minimum_).

For now, my choice is the Dokeos LMS or Claroline (as a second). It
seems Dokeos has a more active community (for example, there is a
messaging plug-in for it, which is not available for Claroline ). But
I am still not 100% about the decision.
--

Has anyone of you had /any/ kind of experience with LMS?, the idea of
the project I am working on is to start with a simple LMS (as nothing
complex is needed at this time) and as the company grows, migrate to a
more full featured LMS. One of the things we looked for was a
blackboard system, but it seems that Java/Tomcat or a flash server is
needed in such cases. And the solutions are /closed source/. The
reason I can not make use of Java and other server technologies is
that we plan to use a typical L.A.M.P. web hosting provider to
maintain costs low (at the begginning).

Also, in relation to this, it would be interesting to know if there
exist any P2P java (applet based) technology for blackboard and
such... while VNC comes to my mind, we are aiming to minimise
(preferring to avoid) the software installed in the clients
machines... and the VNC (thightvnc in this case) Java client is
terribly slow, and would not enable true blackboard behaviour.


Anyway, I would be very interested in any kind of comments. I am not
looking for "free consultancy" or anything like it, I just thought I
would share this experience with the rest of the LUG. You might ask
why am I writing here about this project from Mexico but I am still
here in Liverpool, and if everything continues as it is now, I might
stay to work here at least until 2009.

Ok guys, sorry for the long email and thanks for your time.

Cheers,

Omar.
-- 
Omar Baqueiro Espinosa
Computer Science PhD Candidate
Computer Systems Engineer
Workpage: www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~omar/
HomePage (spanish):http://www.baqueiro.co.uk/
PGP Key available at: www.csc.liv.ac.uk/~omar/pgp.html
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