[Liverpool] Open Source ... Learning Management systems

[Aidan McGuire]

Hello Omar,

We are thinking of holding an event on the 19th of Oct in Liverpool  
and Martin from Moodle is confirmed as our special guest.

Aidan

On 19 Jul 2007, at 17:45, Omar Baqueiro wrote:

> 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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