Week 6

Desire2Learn holds a solid customer base among colleges and universities due to it's ability to handle large installations. University interviews revealed at least a 60% adoption rate among faculty, with a high satisfaction level among students. In fact, in this university, student use has increased the faculty adoption rate by encouraging their instructors to use it for their classes.

The quality of training has improved in recent years for D2L. Initially the training was minimal and inaccurate, however that has improved with the growth of D2L.

According to the Training section of their website, Desire2Learn now provides live virtual training sessions, as well as private sessions for the faculty and staff.

As with most Learning Management systems, Desire2Learn utilizes the university's own IT support team to be the initial point of contact for faculty and staff. Additionally, a support call center is available for after hours assistance.

According to the university interview, higher levels of support are available depending on the contract. This University pays to receive priority support for critical needs.

Although widely adopted, Desire2Learn is one of the more expensive options available for universities and schools. Additional support, packages, and resources can quickly increase that cost. The University interviewed stated that the cost can be up to $15 per student depending on the level of support, packages, and length of contract chosen. Due to the level of support and packages chosen, this university pays over $100,000 per year for their D2L LMS.

According to interviews, detailed course analytics is the weakest aspect of Desire2Learn. Fortunately, the newest cloud-based version is improving that feature, however current course logs and information do not meet the high standards often required by Education courses.

Moodle is the largest adopted LMS among small to medium educational institutions world wide. According to an interview with a local private university, the faculty adoption has been increasing every year, with students again encouraging their instructors to use the LMS for their courses. At this university, adoption has been slow primarily due to faculty reluctance rather than the Moodle LMS itself.

Moodle is an open source solution powered by a global community. Although official documentation and video tutorials are available, much of the training is provided via the community.

To aid in training needs for universities, Moodle recommends the use of a hosting partner.

Moodle hosting partners provide official training courses and sessions, either directly to the administrators, faculty, and staff, or via self-paced training courses.

If an institution utilizes a Moodle hosting provider, then dedicated support will be included in the contract. According to the interviewed university, their hosting provider's support ticket system is very responsive and knowledgeable, especially for critical issues. This university also utilizes their own IT support staff to be the initial point of contact for faculty and students. In turn, the IT staff is supported by the LMS Administrators, who have direct support communication with the Moodle Hosting Partner.

One of the primary reasons for the widespread adoption of Moodle is the fact that it is Open Source. Because of that, the core system is free for anyone to download and setup on their own servers. However, that requires certain levels of expertise and resources in order to manage the system properly.

That is why Moodle began partnering with dedicated hosting providers in order to meet the needs of larger schools and universities. According to the private university interviewed for this session, they pay $37,000 per year for hosting, support, and implementation services. In turn this hosting partner then contributes part of those funds back to the core Moodle Project to help support continued development of the system.

Moodle contains detailed logs that can be used by administrators and instructors to create system and course reports. However, a dedicated analytics system is not available in the core installation, yet one can be added via a third party plugin. One of the best plugins available that can provide the required level of data reporting is Intelliboard. The hosting partner that this private university uses also partners with Intelliboard to provide a complete integrated option if needed.