| 1 |
Does Moodle integrate well with other 3rd party solutions? (e.g. course content providers like SkillSoft) If the courses are SCORM, IMS, or LAMS packaged, Moodle can import, deliver and track items such as assessments. It is important to note though that course content providers like SkillSoft generally want you to access your courses through their hosting site so generally your learners will have to access two types of systems. It‘s important to ask the 3rd party solutions what data on your user‘s activities are exportable.
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| 2 |
My organization is not supportive of open source software because of security concerns. What would be
your recommendation to overcome those objections? Can you provide an actual cost comparison between Moddle and other corporate LMS systems? Moodle allows you to use SSL/TLS certificates in order to encrypt your communications. The core code of Moodle is vetted for security by the Moodle team. The supporting software (Apache, PHP, and MySQL) is proven to be as secure or more secure than proprietary systems such as Microsoft‘s offerings. My recommendation would be to find security papers that support this. Corporate LMS systems have extremely high initial cost and yearly licensing that can run up to $500,000. |
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| 3 |
Is Moodle AICC and SCORM compliant? Which levels/versions? Yes, it is. SCORM 1.2. SCORM 2004 is still under development. |
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| 4 |
Is it SAP compatible?
Moodle can run on multiple database engines including Oracle and SQL Server. It can also authenticate against external databases. If you need to create reports from Moodle in your SAP environment you can use web services or tie directly into the Moodle database. |
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| 5 |
It seems that with Moodle 1.9, the concept of "roles" has not yet been fully integrated. How do various organizations manage these types of Moodle integrations as Moodle evolves? That depends on how you define roles. I would have to disagree that roles haven‘t been fully integrated. The system allows you to create your own roles, override roles for further granularity, and allows you to assign roles depending on the context you are in (site, course, activity). The roles system is very flexible and allows you to give or take away permissions where needed. It does require some practice in order to get the full power of the roles system to work for you. |
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| 6 |
I am helping a nonprofit association implement online courses and social networking. I like Moodle because I think we can integrate all features in one place. However, I would like to know how you would integrate or communicate the Moodle user database with the association‘s existing membership database. Also want a single sign-on with their existing website. Can this be done? What is the cost? With customization, what happens when the Moodle version is upgraded? How do you migrate your customization with upgrades? Moodle already allows you to authenticate your users against an external database with field mapping (first_name -> firstname). Using web services you can create single sign on with any other web application. The cost of integration depends on a number of factors such as firewalls that are present, where the website is being hosted and their hosting policies. To create an accurate costing quote for you we need to get into the details of the situation. |
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| 7 |
Is there a way to try the software from the instructor‘s perspective? There are two options here: 1) we can give you a demo or 2) we can set up with a starter hosted Moodle package at $59.95 |
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| 8 |
Can you speak to the integration between Lectora Learning Objects and Moodle? Will you please speak to the cost comparison by SUNY again? Have you done any integration with any Volunteer Management Systems? Can you please provide more on the Web 2.0 point and its limitations on Social Learning group size? As long as the Lectora Learning objects are SCORM compliant, they will be able to be imported into Moodle. With that being said when we originally integrated Articulate‘s SCORM courses with Moodle we did find some hiccups such as only being able to record the results of one quiz. There will probably be some type of integration "trade offs" between functionality and cost. A Powerpoint on the case study for SUNY can be found at:
http://connect.educause.edu/Library/Abstract/AnOutsourcedOpenSourceLMS/46399 |
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| 9 |
How expensive in theming?
Theming prices usually range from $2500-$4000 for a custom theme depending on how the assets that you already have such as images and logos etc. |
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| 10 |
Is there a way for a non-techie to explore the Moodle interface (adding & removing menus, features, theming) without setting it up on a server? There are two options here: 1) we can give you a demo or 2) we can set you up with a starter hosted Moodle package at $59.95. |
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| 11 |
Define "open source". Does Moodle allow courses to be assigned to users for generation of exception reporting? Does Moodle provide certification/compliance tracking? Please refer to the GPL v2 for how Moodle falls under open source. Users are assigned to courses in Moodle not the other way round. Lambda has created a completion report where a rubric is set up that will allow you to create conditions where a certificate can be issued. Once the Rubric is met the completion status is permanently stored in the database. |
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| 12 |
How good is the SCORM 2004 support in Moodle? SCORM 2004 is still under development, but is getting close to completion. |
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| 13 |
Can Moodle handle multiple domains? Moodle is designed to handle only one domain. There have been customizations that allow you to use multiple domains, but they have been very specific to that user. Some people have solved this problem by using multiple Moodle instances and then networking them. |
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| 14 |
I was wondering if you have any research networks who uses Moodle to support networking and knowledge translation?
We are not familiar with any research networks, however we are customizing Moodle as a knowledge transfer tool and we would be more than happy to share with you some tips that we found out along the way after we have finished the project. |
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| 15 |
What is the process of migrating from other Learning Management Systems? The simplest way to migrate from another LMS is to export your courses to a format that Moodle can import then create a csv file of your users for import (unless you will be authenticating against another database) |
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| 16 |
What is the base cost for Moodle? Moodle is free. It only requires the hardware to run it on. |
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| 17 |
Domain is an important feature we required. You mentioned that doing more than 2 would be labor intensive, can you elaborate... is it a reasonable endeavour if we need 20 or so? Is Moodle SCORM 2004?
Answered above |
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| 18 |
What is the average cost of customization? Is there an e-Commerce module to Moodle or the ability to sell courses?Moodle has plug-ins for PayPal and Authorize.net so you can charge for your courses. The cost of customization is unique to the specific customization request. |
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| 19 |
In particular what level of SCORM reporting will Moodle handle? Can you report the learner‘s responses to all assessment questions as well as their assessment score? What level of feedback can you get out of a SCORM level course? In your experience can you and your staff get question and answer level feedback results to potential evaluations? Does the grade book represent the answers to specific questions? Will a report show how a learner answered each question presented? Will it also show the correct answer? Can the Moodle banner be an SWF file so it can be animated? Yes to all of your questions as long as you use SCORM 1.2. The banner can be any image in jpeg, png, or gif file as well as a flash animation. |
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| 20 |
Is there a function in which to “pack up” terminated users so they are no longer visible in Moodle? Have you used the database activity in 1.8 and is it more functional in 1.9?Moodle requires you to delete a user in order to remove them from being visible. It would be good to have a suspend function. The database hasn‘t changed much since 1.8. |
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| 21 |
What I haven‘t seen in Moodle, or
other open source systems, is a robust hierarchical group/RBAC system,
as is available in some of the commercial products (ala SumTotal TotalLMS).
I see you addressed having two groups, what about hundreds, and dealing
with access controls and administrative controls? I would investigate the roles
system in Moodle as it is very flexible and granular. Unlike some
of the other systems it also allows you to create your own roles.
There is the ability to set role hierarchy in Moodle. |
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| 22 |
What technical skills would you need
to be your own Moodle customizer? What are some legitimate competitors
to Moodle? You
would need to be conversant in basic html, xml, php, and sql as well
as have a good understanding of RDBMS. |
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| 23 |
Can Moodle be used for courses consist
of a mix of employees (no tuition) and external clients (paying for
access)? Will Lamda Solutions have representatives at the upcoming
ASTD conference? You
could make the course a pay for course and then manually enroll your
employees. In regards to the ASTD conference we are focusing all our
resources and time on our new Social Learning and Learning Management
Web application for Beta launch in July therefore we won‘t be attending
the ASTD conference this year but we are planning on attending it next
year to present on our social learning tools. |
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| 24 |
Does Moodle work with the ABRA database
(this is a question on behalf of a client, apparently ABRA is fairly
obscure and not many programs work smoothly with it).ABRA is based on SQL Server.
Unless the user credentials are encrypted, you should be able to authenticate
against it. |
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| 25 |
We create custom content... many
of our customers have Learning Management Systems. To protect our IP in our courses is it possible
to have the courses only live in our Moodle and their Learning Management Systems look to our
Moodle for delivery? What e-Commerce capabilities are there with
Moodle? You
can Network Moodle so that content is presented by your Moodle, but
users are tracked by their Moodle. Moodle allows PayPal and authorize.net. |
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| 26 |
What about Open U
of the UK? Aren‘t they bigger than New Zealand?Open
U of the UK are bigger but we didn‘t have the accurate numbers to support
our point at the time of the webinar so we used another scenario where
we did have the accurate numbers to support our point. |
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| 27 |
As an alternative, will Moodle‘s
API integrate into other social sites such as Ning?
This would be a customization using web services. |
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| 28 |
What kinds of grading
approaches does Moodle support? I‘d like to have access to the
stats about Moodle that you mentioned, to help an organization consider
adopting it. Could you possibly share them? What kinds of grading
approaches does Moodle support?Moodle
1.9 has a completely new grade book that allows you to not only grade
objectively (quiz, assignment), but also subjectively (quality of participation
in a forum). It also allows the instructor to create their own
grading methods. |
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| 29 |
Did you develop the web services
interface? No.
The web services interface was developed by the Moodle core team in
partnership with a New Zealand group. |
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| 30 |
If I were ready to implement Moodle,
how would I proceed? Please contact Lambda Solutions for further information. |
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| 31 |
What‘s theming? Theming
is branding your Moodle with your desired look and feel. |
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| 32 |
In general, what tools do you recommend
along with Moodle? Which do you use most commonly?
What training would you recommend to learn Moodle? What are open
source conferencing systems, similar to GoToWebinar or Adobe Connect,
that integrate with Moodle? What about using Moodle, Elgg, and Drupal together? Do you support these
three? What book is that?
I would look into Mahara insead of Elgg. Drupal as a portal and
Moodle as the LMS is quite common. Dim Dim and Elluminate are
2 conferencing tools that have Moodle integrations. |
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| 33 |
Can we authenticate directly from
the company LDAP server, to enter Moodle. Do you have a pure custom web 2.0 solution, social networking.
Can I send the generated report directly to group email ID automatically?
Yes. You can authenticate from LDAP using the LDAP authentication module. |
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| 34 |
Do you have examples of implementations
for customer trainings? Yes.
We have created custom courses and/or hosted courses on Moodle for customer
trainings for clients. Some examples of the Moodle related clients in
this capacity are Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, Alberta
Government, and Brave Writer amongst others. |
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| 35 |
With the shared services model, does
the one Moodle system give unique "portals" to each "tenant"
renting space? Did you have to integrate the Rogers‘ Moodle Reporting with an HR backend system? Yes. Each tenant in
the shared services model does have their own Moodle instance (directory, data directory and database).
We cannot answer the Rogers‘ question due to client confidentiality. |
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Events
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