An Open Source Alternative to Blackboard?

mandrake*rpgdx asks: "The college I work for is looking into creating an all in one online system for teachers and students to be able to take tests, give online courses and do other daily tasks. They are currently looking into the Blackboard system. Is there an FOSS alternative that I could suggest using at their next meeting?"

Comments

Get a clue!

[ZosX]

Why oh why? Chances are if your staff is used to Blackboard there is no reason to switch and there is also the high likelihood that your management has never even considered an alternative for many reasons and probably has their mind made up. Anything you offer them is going to have to support blackboard modules or it will be a no brainer. Also blackboard is open source in that it is all written in Perl. If you really felt a need to modify the code it is all there in plaintext. Do some freaking homework the next time before you post to slashdot "I want an open source replacement for some essential tool because, well, open source is better." Is it?

Also keep in mind that many book publishers and test software companies create modules exclusively for Blackboard. Why on earth you would want to move away from Blackboard is beyond me considering the headache that any alternative system is going to cause your teachers. How would you feel if you were a teacher and all those tests you were going to use with Blackboard no longer were an option with the new system. And those test creators don't really work for you anymore. Blackboard support is a big deal now with college texts and it is easy to see why given the ease that teachers can deploy tests and get automatic results. My girlfriend is a college instructor and she uses blackboard quite a bit with test generators. She would be extremeley unhappy if she had to start writing test questions as she has little time to deal with even preparing for her classes.

I would just like to say this has got to be the worst idea I've heard in a while and while it is good to try and promote open sores (its a joke people!) software, this isn't something you can just replace and expect the same level of functionality from another product. Think of it this way, you have a bunch of engineers that get drafts in Autocad, how the hell would they feel if suddenly the idiotic management decided that they should be using GnuCAD which didn't support any autocad documents, because they decided that open source is "better." I'm sure it would make their lives so much better right?

I would just love to see your planning meeting.

Zealot: We should use this open source package, it won't cost us anything and we can stop licensing blackboard.
PHB: Does it support blackboard modules?
Zealot: Well, no.
PHB: What benefits does it offer over blackboard?
Zealot: Uh, uh, its free and open source!
PHB: I could care less. Next.

Do yourself a favor and research this before you even think about proposing it.