Overview
What is Moodle?
Moodle is an open source learning management system with hundreds of millions of users around the globe and translated into over 100 languages, used by organizations to support their education and training needs.
A simple and useful online method for distant learning
Best LMS Solution
Moodle Workplace - Perfect workplace learning tool
Great LMS, Non-existent customer service
Moodle in a Mid-Sized Company - Great Value
Easy installation, cost effective solution for institutions with technically talented staff to implement.
Moodle for everyone
Are you a teacher looking for Learning Management System that is simple, functional, and easy to use? Moodle has it all for you!
Useful tool for online course content
Learning with Moodle
Moodle is a flexible and reliable learning management system that is great for assessment too.
Learning management at its best, considering the price point
Best tool for web based learning.
You get what you pay for
Moodle provides education across many industries and ages
Awards
Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards
Popular Features
- Progress tracking & certifications (25)10.0100%
- Assignments (26)9.898%
- Learning administration (24)9.898%
- Course catalog or library (23)9.696%
Pricing
What is Moodle?
Moodle is an open source learning management system with hundreds of millions of users around the globe and translated into over 100 languages, used by organizations to support their education and training needs.
Entry-level set up fee?
- Setup fee optional
Offerings
- Free Trial
- Free/Freemium Version
- Premium Consulting/Integration Services
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Product Demos
How to take Demo Assignment and appear in ESE-2020 by Moodle App from Mobile
MEDIAL Plugin for Moodle - Demo Video
Moodle Demo | Account Creation | Teacher View | Student View | Adding Resources | Joining Courses
Moodle Webex Integration Demo
French on an e-learning platform - Clip Class' Moodle
Moodle Google Hangout Demo
Features
Learning Management
Features of LMS and LCMS systems, related to designing, administering, and consuming learning content in an educational, corporate, or on-the-job context.
- 9.4Course authoring(22) Ratings
Users can develop and assemble online learning content.
- 9.6Course catalog or library(23) Ratings
Learning content is organized into a course catalog or browsable library.
- 9.2Player/Portal(23) Ratings
Students or employees can engage with content and take courses using this interface, which may be called a player or portal.
- 10Learning content(21) Ratings
The vendor offers high quality pre-made courses or assets. These may be specific to certain industries or technologies.
- 9.4Mobile friendly(23) Ratings
Students or employees can access content from mobile devices. Course authors can develop responsive learning content.
- 10Progress tracking & certifications(25) Ratings
The system tracks individuals’ progress on courses, scores, transcripts, certificates, etc.
- 9.8Assignments(26) Ratings
Users can assign courses/curricula to individuals or groups, with due dates.
- 9.2Compliance management(20) Ratings
Users can identify potential risks and ensure that requirements are met and that certifications are up to date.
- 9.8Learning administration(24) Ratings
Administrators can manage the content and people (students/employees, course authors, instructors, etc.) on the platform.
- 7.8Learning reporting & analytics(22) Ratings
Provides insights into course completion, engagement with learning content, etc.
- 9.4Social learning(23) Ratings
Includes features for collaboration and knowledge sharing among peers.
Product Details
- About
- Integrations
- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is Moodle?
Moodle Features
Learning Management Features
- Supported: Course authoring
- Supported: Course catalog or library
- Supported: Player/Portal
- Supported: Learning content
- Supported: Mobile friendly
- Supported: Progress tracking & certifications
- Supported: Assignments
- Supported: Compliance management
- Supported: Learning administration
- Supported: Learning reporting & analytics
- Supported: eLearning
- Supported: Assessments
- Supported: Live online learning
- Supported: In-person learning
- Supported: Micro-learning
- Supported: Video learning
- Supported: eCommerce
- Supported: AICC-compliant
- Supported: SCORM-compliant
- Supported: Tin Can (xAPI) compliant
- Supported: Social learning
- Supported: Gamification
- Supported: GDPR Compliant Learning
- Supported: Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning
Moodle Screenshots
Moodle Videos
Moodle Integrations
Moodle Competitors
Moodle Technical Details
Deployment Types | On-premise, Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
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Operating Systems | Windows, Linux, Mac |
Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Blackberry, Mobile Web |
Supported Countries | Worldwide |
Supported Languages | All languages |
Frequently Asked Questions
Comparisons
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Reviews and Ratings
(243)Community Insights
- Business Problems Solved
- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
Moodle has a wide range of use cases across different educational institutions and organizations. In higher education, it facilitates communication, provides learning materials, and assesses student learning. It serves as an essential training portal, offering online courses, quick reference guides, and knowledge base articles. This platform also caters to organizations' learning and development needs, accommodating different skill sets and objectives. Additionally, it supports early intervention providers by enabling self-enrollment, progress tracking, assessment recording, and grade viewing. For instructors in both online and face-to-face classes, Moodle acts as a Course Management System for posting and grading assignments, exams, and quizzes. Librarians can participate in professional development remotely through Moodle's various media options and scoring reporting features. It is also used for safety training coursework with the flexibility to integrate different media types. In K-12 schools, Moodle supplements courses such as Health Education and offers online courses during summer months. Private liberal arts colleges rely on this platform for student engagement, activity tracking, and grading. Furthermore, Francis Lewis High School has found that Moodle increases enrichment for students while streamlining the workload for educators.
Moodle is recognized for its continual development, simplicity, and vibrant community support. This makes it a suitable choice for those new to e-learning as well as school districts with limited resources. It's designed to enhance teaching and learning experiences through features like lecture note uploads, progress monitoring, grading tools, online quizzes/tests, and reporting capabilities. Beyond the education sector, Moodle supports internal communication within companies by providing chat functionality and information sharing between managers and employees at all levels. Moreover, it serves as a useful tool for task management and constant updates on assignments to improve workflow efficiency. Whether it is hosting online courses for K-12 schools or managing faculty development opportunities across campuses or facilitating information sharing within committees or group projects—Moodle accommodates a wide range of needs. It tracks training delivery for state employees, delivers student orientation, manages various rotations, organizes coursework for faculty members, and provides a centralized space for sharing course-related information, assignments, grading, and document repository.
Flexibility for customization: Users appreciate the open-source nature of Moodle, as it allows for easy extension and customization without additional costs. This flexibility is highly valued by many reviewers, as it enables them to tailor the platform to their specific needs and avoid clutter.
Active user community: The active user community of Moodle is praised for its continuous support and extension of the platform. Many reviewers commend the engagement process and transparent roadmap for development, which gives users a clear understanding of the platform's future direction. They also value being able to contribute directly by fixing bugs or enhancing functionality.
Strong support for learner interaction: Users find that Moodle's constructivist design supports various means of learner interaction. Many reviewers specifically mention the strong support for discussions within Moodle, facilitating effective communication and collaboration among learners.
Outdated and Confusing User Interface: Several users have expressed dissatisfaction with the user interface of Moodle, finding it to be dated and confusing. They feel that it is difficult to navigate and locate specific features within the platform.
Limited Reporting Tools: Many reviewers have noted that the reporting tools in Moodle are not sufficient for their needs. They often have to rely on third-party plugins to generate comprehensive reports, which can be inconvenient and time-consuming.
Complex Gradebook Functionality: The gradebook function in Moodle has been a source of frustration for many users. They find it complex and overwhelming, with numerous options and settings that can be difficult to understand. This complexity leads to an increase in support questions and makes it challenging for beginners or intermediate users to effectively utilize the gradebook.
Based on user reviews, here are the three most common recommendations for Moodle:
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Users highly recommend taking advantage of online resources and YouTube videos for assistance with setting up and managing Moodle. These external sources can provide valuable guidance and support throughout the process.
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Users recommend Moodle for those looking to do virtual education or distance learning. Moodle is recommended due to its many features and status as an open-source resource.
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Users recommend exploring the plugin library in Moodle to discover additional tools and ways to engage students. This feature offers a range of options for enhancing the learning experience and providing diverse learning opportunities.
Overall, these recommendations emphasize the importance of seeking external resources, exploring alternatives, and utilizing additional features to optimize the use of Moodle as a learning management system.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
(1-1 of 1)- Moodle is open-source. This means we are able to easily extend Moodle without having to pay for additional functionality. An active user community continues to extend and support Moodle use. We are able to contribute directly by fixing bugs or enhancing functionality, and these changes can be submitted to the community for use by others. We can also make use of enhancements submitted by other users. The roadmap for development and the process of engaging in that process are open and transparent.
- Moodle is constructivist by design, supporting several means for learners to interact with one another as part of the learning process. Support for discussions is reasonably strong. The Workshop module, while complicated to configure, supports peer review of work using instructor-defined rubrics.
- Moodle supports standards such as IMS Common Cartridge, LTI (Learning Tool Interoperability), XML-RPC, etc., allowing content to be imported from other systems (or exported to them). This enhances our ability to incorporate Open Education Resources in our course offerings. This also aided in our migration from our previous LMS.
- Multiple hosting vendors are available to provide SaaS solutions, or an institution may choose to host Moodle themselves, depending on resources available at the institution.
- There is an incredibly wide variety of add-ons, most of which are hosted and/or indexed at the moodle.org site, which also provides rating tools, support forum areas, bug tracking, etc. In particular, Open University in the UK, using Moodle to support tens of thousands of completely online students, has contributed a number of solid enhancements to the platform.
- Moodle integrates with a variety of authentication systems, including most of those likely to be in use at a college or university. We have used both LDAP and CAS.
- Moodle HQ attention is divided amongst the needs of many different types constituents, e.g. institutions who use Moodle to support face to face or hybrid courses, rather than fully online programs like ours. While anyone can make an "add-on" for Moodle, it can be difficult to get changes in the core application approved by Moodle HQ, which can limit the kinds of add-ons that can be created.
- The number of experienced hosting providers in the U.S. is small, and one (Moodlerooms) is now owned by a commercial competitor (Blackboard).
- Because Moodle is open source software, there is no commercial entity providing technical support. There are so many configuration options that some expertise is needed to configure Moodle for the specific needs of an institution. Commercial hosting providers can help, but many institutions will find they need at least one full-time staff member to administer and configure Moodle, even beyond administering the server used to host Moodle.
- The interface of Moodle sometimes seems dated compared to newer applications, e.g. Canvas. Newer interface elements are being adopted into Moodle Core, but many are left to individual "Theme" developers, with varying degrees of support. Three columns are assumed, and the "Block" structure is confining (e.g. one cannot place a block in the central region of the course).
- Although Moodle is intended to be aligned with constructivist learning principles, it cannot "force" instructors to teach in a constructivist way (nor can any LMS).
- Reporting tools are scant. Third-party plugins are needed to provide adequate reports. We recommend Configurable Reports and the Ad-Hoc Database Queries tool. We would like to see tools like these become part of Moodle Core.
- Automation tools (e.g. import of student enrollments from a Student Information System) have been limited and not robust in the past. This is improving, both within add-on services provided by hosting services such as Remote Learner, and within Moodle Core. This situation still needs improvement.
- The Gradebook function is complex and generates many support questions.
Moodle can be used to host courses completely online, but if this is mission critical to your institution (i.e. the purpose of your institution is to provide education and you will do this primarily online), be sure you have enough internal resources to support this application. This is not a turn-key solution. Substantial configuration is required.
If you have the resources to host your own LMS and administer it, Moodle is an excellent choice. You will be able to customize it to meet your needs, for a very modest cost (as the software itself is free).
If you are a smaller institution without 24x7 IT support, you may need to consider external hosting, and this will come at a cost. You may be restricted in how much you will be able to customize Moodle, and you will still need someone within your organization who will be familiar with administering and supporting the features of Moodle.
If you need minimal LMS support for face to face courses at low cost, Moodle is an outstanding choice.
- Switching from Blackboard to Moodle helped us reduce costs at our institution during a critical funding shortage.
- Although we have had to develop reports ourselves, our access to data and reporting within Moodle has allowed us to focus on measuring effective teaching and learning practices within our institution in a way that wasn't possible with Blackboard. We are in the process of developing specific learning analytics to further improve this aspect of our institution.
- As we progressed in using Moodle, we found we had to allocate significantly higher resources than originally estimated, including a full-time LMS administrator internally, and increased support services at our hosting provider.
- Canvas,Blackboard
Canvas was not ready for review at the time we selected Moodle. We routinely compare different LMS products as they surface in the marketplace. Canvas has a good interface, but at this time we don't feel the discussion/forum feature is strong enough to support fully online learning.
We continue to look for LMS tools that provide even better support for learner peer review and more flexible online assignments. We use many external tools to enhance Moodle, including Blackboard Collaborate, Kaltura, Chalk & Wire, Articulate Storyline, and Turnitin. On the one hand, this gives us a "best of breed" solution that doesn't limit us to a single vendor. On the other hand, managing all these licenses can be cumbersome and expensive.
- Adult students needing to complete a college degree while maintaining full-time employment and/or family responsibilities
- Enlisted students deployed abroad
- Adjunct faculty needing a tool to communicate with students without requiring extensive web development skills
- In addition to our college courses, we support the Education and Training Partnership, which provides training to prospective foster families in the state of New Hampshire
- We use Moodle to provide faculty professional development as well as student instruction
- We use xhtml to provide twitter feed blocks in Moodle sidebars about topics of interest to the course subject matter
- We are looking at increased use of SCORM (possibly via Articulate Storyline) to provide simulation-based learning for complex topics
- We are considering badges for both faculty professional development and recognition of complex, high-order student skills crossing multiple disciplines
- We are hoping to enhance learner peer review tools and promote independent learning within Moodle
- The Topic/Week structure in Moodle helps organize course activities in the same way that an instructor's syllabus does, making it clear what tasks need to be performed each week (or other course unit)
- The "My Home" page provides an easy overview of all tasks one needs to complete, across multiple courses
- The Forum provides clear notification of and navigation to new, unread posts
- Instructor grading of forum activity by students seems like an afterthought, even though forum discussions are a critical component of constructivist and social-constructivist learning. The "Rating" system is the most integrated way to provide grades, but using it in that way is not obvious to new faculty (or to students).
- Several tools provide similar functionality, but enhancements do not work across tools, e.g. rubric tools developed for Assignments can't be used in the Workshop or in Quiz Essay Questions, and Quiz Scoring methods (e.g. short-answer matching) can't be used in the branching Lesson module
- User-configurable reporting is not built into Moodle. The Configurable Reports plugin addresses many of these needs.
- Blocks providing additional functionality, e.g. summaries of the 3 most recent posts, cannot be placed in the central region, only in sidebars.
- The Gradebook function is very complex, and generates numerous support requests from instructors and students. Configuring the correct calculation of grades can be difficult for all but the simplest of scenarios (simple average). Instructors frequently override grade calculations by accident and need help restoring the correct calculations.
- Banner
- Chalk & Wire and other LTI-compliant tools
On the other hand, the integration with LTI tools, including Chalk & Wire, has been simple and relatively painless. Students are provided single-signon access to LTI-compliant tools and instructors also have visibility to student progress in those tools. Scores are reported back to Moodle from LTI tools (if provided by the LTI tool).
- Possibly calendar services, e.g. Google Calendar.
- File import/export
- Single Signon
- API (e.g. SOAP or REST)
- Javascript widgets