Over the past month or two, I’ve received a number of comments on an article I wrote here titled Considering the Alternative. The article was written because I was asked to give my opinion on course management systems for a project we were considering to do internal to the University. With permission, I had written my ideas up as a weblog post so as to share them with a wider community.

Since then, I’ve made use of Moodle for a small project of my own. I have given the software almost zero time, and when I’ve gotten stuck I’ve found other ways of doing what I want to do. In short, I have not read any documentation, I haven’t asked for help, and (by-and-large) I’ve managed.

Now, this isn’t how one would want to run a CMS in an enterprise environment (say, a University or academic department). But I have seen enough of Moodle to see that it is capable of a great deal more than I currently use it for, and that’s impressive.

“Enough about me,” as they say. A few comments came in during the last two months that I think are worth promoting to the top level of the site; I’ve dropped an email to those involved, as well as the Moodlers themselves, so that some real-world networking might take place as a result of my note here.

This is a good question. There could be a number of answers, though, depending on what format your content is in now. If you have static web pages (HTML), transferring them into Moodle is a relatively painless process. Indeed, any kind of electronic document (PDF, Word documents, etc.) can be uploaded into a Moodle “course” without any difficulty at all. However, this would amount to using Moodle as nothing more than a database for a bunch of files; you may have some work ahead of you in terms of reformatting content, breaking things into manageable pieces, etc., but all of this is a reasonable amount of work. This is, effectively, what I did in my own Moodle project, and it was a tedious, but painless, experience. Mind you, I find most work involving HTML “tedious.”

If you have content in a SCORM-compliant web-based course management package already, it should be possible to export those SCORM objects and import them directly into Moodle; I have never dealt with this process, but hope that some Moodle people with experience in this area might write up a reasonable answer. It’s a good question, and I’ll update this post however seems appropriate to point to (or include) the answers that come back.

Another question that came in recently had to do with support.

This is a good question, but I think there are good answers (good, meaning, affordable). The short answer: if you want to just set up a learning management system for less than $1000, you can certainly find someone who will install Moodle and set up the databases for less than that; I know a few people who might be willing to help on that account, depending on the situation.

Shameless self-promotion aside, finding someone to help you set up Moodle for under $1000 should be easy. There may even be a firm in your area that would be willing to help you get started for nothing—as long as they can call it a donation; as a non-profit, they may be able to write off the time. Definitely look around in your area for any reasonably-sized consulting firms that might be interested in this.

Another way to find someone who can set up Moodle and build the initial tables for cheap is a local University. Give a call to whoever is the head of undergraduate studies in the Computer Science department, introduce yourself, and tell them about your situation. They’ll tell you if they’ve got any undergrads who have the requisite background, and probably put the word out for you. Choose a reasonable figure for the install–$150 should be more than enough to entice some students–and make sure you have a simple contract in writing, just so they know you’re serious. You might find yourself an affordable system administrator along the way that, for only a few dollars an hour ($12-$20, depending on whether they work efficiently and do good work) you can have on call as an eager, knowledgeable helper.

Graduate departments of computing (or related) are also a good source of labor, but grad students are sometimes a bit more expensive, as they occasionally know that their time is limited and, therefore, valuable.

And why have I been so long-winded on this count? If you can license WebCT or Blackboard and have it installed on-site for significantly less than $1000, go for it. Do what you want. My guess is, though, that you won’t be able to license the software and get it installed for anywhere near the amount that you’re willing to spend. Also, don’t go believing that either WebCT or Blackboard is significantly easier to setup and manage than Moodle; just because you pay money for it doesn’t magically make it “easy.”

In that vein, I’ll end with a comment, not a question, that was made on the same thread.

Anu, meet Dave. Dave, meet Anu. I’d say that you’ve got at least one person who has some experience with Moodle who might be in a position to help you out. Perhaps you can then hire Dave to develop a course for you (using Moodle, naturally) that teaches you more about how to use Moodle, starting from where you’re comfortable. You might even be able to get other people on the net to chip in and pay for that course, because the resource will benefit everyone who uses, or will use, Moodle.

And that’s the way open source software is supposed to work.