As a part of the LMS Pilot for Moodle and Desire2Learn, there are some resources available.
Here is a link to the resources for Moodle: https://psu.mrooms3.net/mod/glossary/view.php?id=1012
Here is a link to the resources for Desire2Learn: https://sandbox9.desire2learn.com/Shared/Online%20Help/9.0/Online_Help_9.0.htm
It has been interesting looking at these systems and how they fit into the system of a large university. I’ll be saying more as we pilot Blackboard in Spring ’11.
During Fall ’10 and Spring ’11, I have been working with IST 110 in Moodle, Desire2Learn, and Blackboard. So are my perceptions.
Moodle
From a personal stance, I like the idea of the power of the community which an open source tool like Moodle allows. But in application to a large university like Penn State, I’m not so sure this is the best direction. During the pilot, we used Moodle Rooms. I also supported a non-pilot course that was not in Moodle Rooms. What I found is that we had less issues in the non-pilot course. One thing is that we only had to worry about one class. When a few items arose at the beginning of the course, I was granted administrative access and was able to solve the problems. From discussions with the faculty, the gradebook was a problem in the pilot.
Desire2Learn
This was the smoothest and most intuitive tool that I examined. The training and support staff were so helpful and willing to make adjustments to the tool to make it better.
Blackboard
As a student, I used blackboard, so it should have been familiar. But during the training, I found this tool to be difficult to use. It is not intuitive and involves many steps which can easily be missed.
Which direction the university takes is still up in the air, but these are my thoughts.