The MOO in Moodle

Officially, “MOODLE” stands for Modular Object-Oriented Distributed Learning Environment, but, with a wink to the latest developments in eLearning, the “MOO” could just as well stand for Massive, Open and Online. Moodle’s international user base is massive indeed. Moodle is used in more countries and more languages than any other learning environment. This implies there is a huge international community of Moodle users who have an interest in the maintenance and development of this software. As Moodle is open source, people from all over the world can and do partake in various ways in the development, online via the web site moodle.org. There, all users are welcome to share problems and wishes, fixes and solutions, and learn from each other.  Without exaggeration one can claim that the Using Moodle course at moodle.org has effectively  been a MOOC since before the concept had even been invented!

From an early stage, Moodle has won the support of dedicated companies, Moodle partners, in many countries, which work to support Moodle use in their respective regions, including Finland. Many prestigious institutes of education have adopted Moodle as part of their core services. Prominent among these is one of the largest universities in Europe, the British Open University, with a massive user-base of over 250 000 satisfied online students* dispersed over many countries. (Incidentally, the absolutely largest university in the world, IGNOU in India, with more than 3 million students, also uses Moodle!)  Even in the North of Europe Moodle is widely used in institutes of tertiary education. Let’s have a look at a list of universities in the North and their learning environments (from West to East):

Norway (173 registered Moodle sites)

• University of Tromsø + HIFM (Fronter)
• University of Nordland + HIBO (Fronter)
• Harstad University College (Fronter)
• Narvik University College (It’s Learning)
• Nesna University College (Moodle)

Sweden (266 registered Moodle sites)

• Luleå Technical University (Fronter + Moodle)
• Mid Sweden University (Moodle)
• Umeå University (Cambro + Moodle)

Finland (348 registered Moodle sites)

• Oulu University of Applied Sciences (XXX** + Moodle)
• Oulu University (XXX** + Moodle)
• Lapland University (XXX** + Moodle)

Russian Federation (Over 1500 registered Moodle sites)

• Murmansk State Humanities University (Moodle)
• Murmansk State Technical University (Correspondence?)
• Northern (Arctic) Federal University (Moodle)

What can we tell from this list? Well, for one thing it shows that Moodle is the only learning environment that is used in all four Barents countries. In Norway the Norwegian products Fronter and It’s Learning have all but cornered the market, but they are very expensive. Hence, in their projects with us, the Norwegian schools always use our Moodle, because extra seats in their commercial VLEs would cost too much. This is a problem with commercial providers in general. In Sweden the choice of learning environment is more eclectic, but open source is widely used (Cambro, for example, is based on open source Sakai). In northern Finland the commercial product XXX** is in use at all universities, but all these organisations use Moodle on the side, which in itself is already an indicator that XXX** is not an optimal solution. Many institutes of tertiary education in the Russian Federation use Moodle, because of the low cost involved and the fact that Moodle was available in Russian at an early date (and to some extent also, because they became acquainted with Moodle through online projects with Kemi-Tornio UAS).

It is interesting to note, internationally, that while a great many schools have over time “gone Moodle”, the opposite (i.e. schools abandoning Moodle for another VLE) happens much more seldom. This alone should be an indication of the flexibility and user-friendliness of the environment. The massive user base is also a guarantee for continuity. If yours truly would be hit by a bus tomorrow, there are at the very least 348 people in Finland alone who could take my place as super admin in our Moodle. With a small commercial environment (like XXX**) the support pool is much shallower (we are talking about a handful of people at most) and the risk to continuity is consequently far higher.

As the reader may know, the board of the nascent Lapland University of Applied Sciences will soon decide which will be the main virtual learning environment of this new organisation (Hence, Kemi-Tornio UAS and Rovaniemi UAS, the future constituents of this university, have not been listed in the above university overview). The alternatives on the table are Moodle and XXX**. I described the differences between these learning environments already some time ago. The conclusions in that article speak for themselves. Therefore, as a further indication of the widespread adoption of Moodle, I shall end this e-vinkki with a list of other schools in (Finnish) Lapland that use Moodle (alphabetically):

• Aleksanteri Kenan koulu (Sodankylä)
• Ammattiopisto Lappia (Kemi ja Tornionlaakso)
• Enontekiön lukio
• Ivalon lukio
• Kemin aikuislukio
• Kemin lyseon lukio
• Kemijärven ammattiopisto
• Kemijärven lukio
• Keminmaan lukio
• Kittilän lukio
• Kolarin lukio
• Kolarin yläkoulu
• Lyseonpuiston lukio
• Metsähallitus (Tunturi Lappi)
• Muonion lukio
• Muurolan lukio
• Pellon lukio
• Peräpohjolan Opisto (Tornio)
• Posion lukio
• Saamelaisalueen koulutuskeskus (Inari)
• Savukosken lukio
• Simon lukio
• Sodankylän lukio
• Tornion yhteislyseon lukio
• Utsjoen saamelaislukio
• Ylitornion kristillinen opisto
• Ylitornion yhteiskoulun lukio

Hey, we are part of a massive, open and online community; come and join us! 🙂

*. Ever since they adopted Moodle, the OU has consistently ranked in the top 5 universities in student satisfaction polls.

**. XXX stands for a commercial learning environment that I shall not name at the request of the CEO of Discendum Oy, the company that produces Optima.