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An Open Source Alternative to Blackboard?

Posted by Cliff on from the educational-options dept.

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?"

6 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. .LRN by speleo · · Score: 5, Informative

    http://dotlrn.org/

  2. Moodle? by linuxwrangler · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't know the full capabilities of Blackboard but I would look into moodle as an alternative.

    --

    ~~~~~~~
    "You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
    1. Re:Moodle? by illuminatedwax · · Score: 4, Informative

      Moodle is good stuff, especially considering there are tools to convert Blackboard to Moodle course converstion and another utility to convert Moodle courses to a variety of formats.

      --
      Did you ever notice that *nix doesn't even cover Linux?
  3. yes a couple by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    Try moodle http://moodle.org/ about which i hear good things or possibly boddington http://bodington.org/

    Sakai http://www.sakaiproject.org/ has come up on my radar recently and looks like it will certainly be the one for the future though i've no idea if it is good enough now.

    For heavens sake try your hardest to avoid blackboard and webCT
    They are expensive, crash all the time into non recoverable states, severly limit how you can deliver courses. Overall blackboard is the worst most expensive web software packages i have seen in a 5 year web application deployment career, i haven't seen webCT but everyone i talk to says if anything it is worse than blackboard. Having no VLE is almost better than having either of those 2.

    Tips for educating yourself google for VLE (Virtual learning environment) MLE (managed learning environment) if your not up on the terminology.

  4. Re:Sakai by trans_err · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a student of Virginia Tech, I've had a good deal of expierence with Blackboard. Now Tech, along with a few others, is now a partner in the Sakai project. I've spoken with some of the professors involved, and all of them seem to question whether or not the final project will be "Free" in any fashion (upper or lowercase).

    What I would really look into is building atop the moodle project, although its not nearly as robust, it is completely open and adding to it is actually a breeze-- (we added in university authentication and SSL quite easily).

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    transmission_err

  5. Check out Logicampus by Thauma · · Score: 4, Informative

    Last time I had to research this I found logicampus to be the best one out there.