Imagine, dear reader, that you need to choose a car and in the village where you live there are two car dealerships. The dealer nearest to your home offers you a brand new Mercedes for free and then there is another dealer who offers you a Lada for a lot of money. The choice already seems obvious, but some people in your family seem to think that it does not really matter which one you choose. After all, they say, both the Mercedes and the Lada have four wheels and they both can take you from A to B. That is true, of course, so let us then look a little closer at the cars on offer.
The Mercedes is the most widely used car in the world and many people own several of them, because they are given away for free. The Lada is unfortunately only available from this one dealer in your village and it costs a lot of money; there are consequently few of those cars on the road. Even in your village there are more Mercedes owners than Lada drivers. International comparative polls show that Mercedes owners are very satisfied with their car. Lada has not participated in such polls.
There are Mercedes dealerships in all countries, but you do not have to use them. If you should have a problem with the car, you can get it fixed anywhere you choose, or you can even fix it yourself. The Lada dealer on the other hand does not allow you to fix the car yourself, you are not even allowed to look at the engine! If it breaks down, you must take the car to this one dealer to have it fixed.
The Lada dealer is also the only one who sells a few accessories for the Lada, while you can get hundreds of free accessories for the Mercedes at many shops. The Mercedes also comes in many different colours and models. The Lada on the other hand is available only in one drab colour and the interior design is still the same as it was when the Soviet Union still existed.
The Mercedes offers a very flexible form of transportation. It can carry a handful of primary school children or thousands of university students without any additional cost. In contrast, although the Lada can carry multiple passengers too, you have to pay the dealer for every extra seat. All things considered, although you are allowed to drive the Lada, it is never really your own. The Mercedes, however, is yours to do with as you please, a home away from home.
Finally, the Mercedes is also clearly the more modern car. It includes options for interfacing with the latest technologies, which the Lada lacks. The Mercedes in other words will take you much further than the Lada will. The Lada dealer knows this very well, for he also sells Benz cars (which are just Mercedes cars with another name). The Lada will soon be a thing of the past.
Which car would you choose, dear reader?
The background to the story
The merger of Kemi-Tornio University of Applied Sciences with Rovaniemi UAS into Lapland UAS will entail the use of a common virtual learning environment. Rovaniemi presently uses the commercial software XXX*, while Kemi-Tornio has been using the open source environment Moodle. A commission made up of staff from both schools has been tasked with making a recommendation as to what learning environment would be the best choice for Lapland UAS.
The eLearning Centre of Kemi-Tornio UAS obviously recommends that Lapland UAS settle on Moodle as its virtual learning environment. The eLearning Centre chose Moodle over a number of other learning environments (including XXX*) for very sound reasons back in 2004. These reasons still hold true today and they are threefold:
- Moodle is the cheapest option, because no license fees are required and development is carried out by the Moodle community. In a time of cutbacks, the price of software should be a major concern.
- Moodle has superior functionality, so that it can meet the varied requirements of its huge worldwide user base. Long-term development is ensured by this large user base and new functionality is continuously added.
- Moodle offers the best prospects for further development of the eLearning effort at our university, because with Moodle we will not be hampered by contractual limitations to the ways in which we choose to use the software.
It is the considered opinion of the eLearning Centre that a choice for Moodle will best serve the interests, financial and education-wise, of Lapland UAS. A choice for XXX* will in the first place serve the interests of Discendum Oy and its shareholders. The simile of the Mersus versus the Lada uses the reputation of the respective car brands to clarify our position in a humorous way to those who are not familiar with both learning environments. It is not about real cars…
*. XXX stands for another learning environment that I shall not identify at the request of the CEO of Discendum Oy, a company that offers three learning environments: Optima, Kyvyt (= Mahara) and Totara (= Moodle).