Dear Nageswara,

I am not an expert on this but In the attached link ,brief explanations on f the Top 6 Open Source Learning Management Systems currently available are given: .

Moodle

Moodle is an abbreviation for “Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment” although when it was first developed the M stood for Martin’s after its developer, Martin Dougiamas. Moodle has been around for over ten years, with the first version in August 2002.

.LRN

.LRN (dot learn) was originally developed at MIT and is used by almost 500,000 people in educational institutions, corporations and government in over 18 countries.

eFront

The basic version of eFront is exactly that, basic, but this can be amplified with modules downloadable from the eFront site. The thought process behind this decision was so that users spend time learning new skills, not learning how to use the platform. There are two efront LMS platforms, an educational edition and an enterprise edition. The enterprise edition was aimed at medium sized enterprises with between 100 and 10,000 employees. Extensive research on organizations of this size was conducted before development began.

Dokeos

This particular LMS is available in three versions, the original free open source version, a pro version and a specific medical version. It is possible to build visual learning without graphical expertise.

Sakai

Sakai was designed by universities, for universities. It was built by MIT, Stanford and Berkeley amongst others so they did not need to use homegrown systems or pay vendors. It aims to be very well suited to group projects and describes itself as a Collaborative Learning Environment (CLE).

ATutor

ATutor differs slightly from the other systems as it is actually a Learning Content Management System (LCMS). The A stands for accessible, and accessibility is its best feature. Also, user navigational patterns can be tracked so instructors can see students use of the site and students can track their own use.

http://elearningindustry.com/top-open-source-learning-management-systems

Dear Nageswara,

I am not an expert on this but In the attached link ,brief explanations on f the Top 6 Open Source Learning Management Systems currently available are given: .

Moodle

Moodle is an abbreviation for “Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning Environment” although when it was first developed the M stood for Martin’s after its developer, Martin Dougiamas. Moodle has been around for over ten years, with the first version in August 2002.

.LRN

.LRN (dot learn) was originally developed at MIT and is used by almost 500,000 people in educational institutions, corporations and government in over 18 countries.

eFront

The basic version of eFront is exactly that, basic, but this can be amplified with modules downloadable from the eFront site. The thought process behind this decision was so that users spend time learning new skills, not learning how to use the platform. There are two efront LMS platforms, an educational edition and an enterprise edition. The enterprise edition was aimed at medium sized enterprises with between 100 and 10,000 employees. Extensive research on organizations of this size was conducted before development began.

Dokeos

This particular LMS is available in three versions, the original free open source version, a pro version and a specific medical version. It is possible to build visual learning without graphical expertise.

Sakai

Sakai was designed by universities, for universities. It was built by MIT, Stanford and Berkeley amongst others so they did not need to use homegrown systems or pay vendors. It aims to be very well suited to group projects and describes itself as a Collaborative Learning Environment (CLE).

ATutor

ATutor differs slightly from the other systems as it is actually a Learning Content Management System (LCMS). The A stands for accessible, and accessibility is its best feature. Also, user navigational patterns can be tracked so instructors can see students use of the site and students can track their own use.

http://elearningindustry.com/top-open-source-learning-management-systems

The advantages are many but can be surmised as

- Reduced Cost

- Maximized effective Learning

- Leverage all the repositories of knowledge available in a transactable form.

LMS That can be use with low cost budget can be either:

1.Moodle, its open source, alot of community support and alot of plugins or add on from flash video or teleconference.need to install on server.

2.edmodo, cloud based app you dont need to install but require to login, its raising and keep up with moodle.

3. Google education, nearly lunch advantages of marketing and endorsement by google search engine, single sign on using gmail.surely much more customization tool and plugs in.

Here is a good comparison of four Learning Management Systems (LMS)

1. Electronic Educational Environment (EEE) - https://eee.uci.edu

The Electronic Educational Environment (EEE) is UC Irvine's home-grown online course management system. EEE offers a variety of tools to enhance learning and manage course administration.

2. Moodle - https://moodle.org/

3. Coursera - https://www.coursera.org/

Coursera is an education company that partners with the top universities and organizations in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. The coursera technology enables instructors teach millions of students rather than hundreds.

4. Canvas - http://www.instructure.com/

Canvas is an open-source learning management system that is generally hosted in the cloud and customized by instructors in a variety of disciplines. In addition to the tools that are integrated as part of Canvas, instructors can also programmatically connect a course with externally provided tools.

https://eee.uci.edu/online-learning/comparison.php

The list of suggested open source LMS so far are:

1. Moodle - https://moodle.org/

2. .LRN - http://www.dotlrn.org/

3. eFront - http://www.efrontlearning.net/

http://elearningindustry.com/efront-lms-the-best-open-source-solution

4. Dokeos - http://www.dokeos.com/

5. Sakai - http://www.sakaiproject.org/

6. ATutor - http://atutor.ca/

7. Edmodo - https://www.edmodo.com/

8. Google education - ??

9. Coursera - https://www.coursera.org/

10. Canvas - http://www.instructure.com/

Will it be possible for any of you to add your experiences if you are using any of them.

However large the coverage of any apps may be, is always limited by the size of the end user population. ....

Say for Example

moodle - the coverage is within the current students and their teachers....

facebook - social circles (real & virtual)....

google - search by any.....

wiki - want a content ......

... like wise, The users are like elements within these sets but freely (voluntarily) transfer themselves according to there requirement....In India twitter made a break through media breaking news of scandals....

Of my experience, any IT enabled Tool for LMS depends upon the WORD OF GOOD MOUTH spread by the satisfied users...

Dear Nageswara, I would recommend moodle, as Adel. Thank you for comprehensive sources.

What a fine and comprehensive reading as an introduction to this thread "Choosing a Learning Management System"! Too much to read, very useful, of course.

LMS that I would suggest for adopting at my institution is MOODLE! Yes, it is community driven and globally supported. The advantage is that it is available in more than 100 languages! Moodle is trusted with millions of users all over the world. Definitely MOODLE!

Moodle work excellence sir as it complete module for teacher and student.

Alot of plug-ins that you can add and install on it such as flash interactivity and teleconference as i said before. Many community also supported it. easy to use and lots of functionality, but you need to install it.

Edmodo, i'm still testing it in my class environment but with its cloud-base and single sign on capability its interesting lms to try on.

for google education, you can go to http://www.google.com/edu/classroom/ still preview thou it will be interesting since its google drive can vary teaching learning as other LMS

Hello All,

Good day.

I was introduced to Moodle some 18 months ago. That was the first time I have ever used it, or ever done fully online courses. I am now a lover of online education. I find Moodle to be very easy to use and very clear. My current research is based on exploring the potential of implementing E-Learning practices at the University of Guyana, my Home University, and I have decided to recommend that they use Moodle because of its user-friendly features. This is endorsed by Whelan and Bhartu (2007), Raturi, Hogan and Thaman (2011), and Livingstone (2013).

Warm Wishes,

Kerwin.

-------------------------------------

Livingstone, K. (2013). Implications of Implementing a Blended/Hybrid Learning Approach at the University of Guyana. Baraton Interdisciplinary Research Journal 3 (2), 53-62. Retrieved May 14, 2014, from http://ueab.ac.ke/BIRJ/implications-of-implementing-a-hybrid-learning-approach-at-the-university-of-guyana/

Raturi, S., Hogan, R. & Thaman, K. H. (2011). Learners’ Preference for Instructional Delivery Mode: A Case Study from the University of South Pacific (USP). International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 8 (6), 17-30. Retrieved March 16, 2014, from http://www.itdl.org/Journal/Jun_11/Jun_11.pdf

Whelan, R. & Bhartu, D. (2007). Factors in the deployment of a learning management system at the University of the South Pacific. Retrieved June 15, 2014, from

http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/singapore07/procs/whelan.pdf

Dear Behrouz Ahmadi-Nedushan, thanks for providing such detailed and rich answer.

I do prefer Moodle to others. It is free and open-source application. I really love it.

Depending on your pedagogical objectives, you can glance at open MOOCS systems. OpenEDX it is increasingly being used in a lot of universities and not only for massive courses. SPOCs (Small Private Online Course) could be the future of LMS (or not)

Thanks Lorenzo for sharing the experience and providing the link. From the responses, it seems that Moodle is the selected LMS in many organizations.

Dear @Lorenzo, many thanks and regards. I appreciate the Moodle App which was developed and presented in paper available. Very fine work! I do recommend this paper to my colleagues!

I like using Moodle to design my courses, and I'm very enjoying the DIY process of online course with new ideas that come out during the process. The adult student also like their learning experience on Moodle.

I have used Moodle as lecturer. It is practical as it facilitates the dissemination of notes. Previously, we had to make copies for classes of 30-50 students (Many of my colleagues still do). Then many started to mail the students. This obviously just pushes the problem of printing to the university's printing room (increasing waiting time and eventually either finishing toner or causing printer breakdown - replacement time is long). I also like the free hosting provided by www.mdl2.com which keeps me free from university infrastructure and allows students to access materials from home. I also use Moodle for assignment submission. They do not have to print anymore and I assess them online (and they can get the feedback - the pressure is on me as they expect feedback quickly, an area where i need improvement). It also allows for multiple submissions e.g. every 2 weeks. I have also had online tests previously. I am currently trying to use Moodle for project supervision with some asynchronous interaction on a discussion forum and submission of interim deliverables. AUF often organises trainings on Moodle. Check out www.transfer-tic.org for any training in your region. Only one problem: The training is in French.

I would recommend Moodle. It is free, has good technical support basis and is very flexible with options to add on/ use outside software. You can also explore the quizzes features for formative assessment. It is not dependent on the number of users, although I believe there is a ceiling you can not exceed, but at least you do not need a license per user. You can also have different levels of privileges to access and edit for different types of users which can be changed per course/ activity- not only system wide. It can be set up to be web-based or on a local server. You ll need someone to set it up though on a server unless you are planning a limited use where you can get some space for a small project online from many sites that do support this kind of thing.

We've had some experience with it for school wide activities at Alexandria Faculty of Dentistry (http://www.dent.alex.edu.eg/elearning/). Worked quite nicely.

I have the chance to teach either in distance learning University (Cyprus Open University, Faculty of Pure and Applied Science as Associated Lecture) and as visiting Lecture in Cyprus University (department of Environmental Engineers). During the distance learning I have used e-platforms and Moodle. However, an open source platform hosted on University servers requires space and maintenance. On the other hand, some applications may not be supported. We (in the Open University) used the Blackboard Collaborate system for the e-class which presents several benefits.

From previous experience (Haiku) is the best. it is easy to use and All items are available, a light and does not require a server. It is useful for schools and Universities, and have it is own apps, allow to write in Arabic but unfortunately do not function with Arabic language. see https://www.haikulearning.com/

I suggest the Learning Activity Management System (LAMS) http://lamsfoundation.org/

LAMS works well as a stand-alone e-learning system. It can also be integrated with other educational software such as a Learning Management System (LMS).

LAMS is integrated with various Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Moodle, Blackboard/WebCT, Sakai and .LRN as well as Microsoft Sharepoint.

While I have never actually used Moodle in an academic situation, it is available as a bitnami software stack and can be easily installed. I have used Coursera on the other hand as a student, and found that it's reliance on Javascript can be limiting. Quite often students can't get the surveys to run correctly, and the inability to step back a step and review the previous modules is a problem.

Like others in this discussion, I have used Moodle. One of the valuable things about it is the way it can be integrated with another tool. Linking it with Blackboard Collaborate, for example, allowed for greater scope in designing courses for both asynchronous and synchronous interaction. However, my attempts to get students to use the Wiki component of the LMS were not very successful.

I just had a quick browse of the link www.teamput.com . Thanks to the colleague who shared it. What I find useful about the tools described is how they provide tangible ways of helping students to apply cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies. And ultimately we have to be able to use the online tools in a manner that allows students to become more competent learners.

Today knowledge sources are plenty, it now actually requires a software to integrate, collaborate with various sources and provide a customized link that would benefit the searcher...

Example: when we type a keyword or string in Google search, we get all the sites which are related to the search, but all the links may not be useful to the person who is searching and it has a probability (high or low) of hitting the right site. Had there been an integrating software similar to CRM, which has the info about the searcher and grades the search as Preliminary / Detailed / Researches / News  etc., would be more beneficial to a learner.

Google actually has filters that would tend to change the nature of the search, but their money lies in making you search harder for the same information so you will be exposed to more advertising.

Thank you all of you for excellent responses related to free course management systems. Based on the consensus it appears as of today Moodle is the most widely used LMS because of its many advantages. Please find here a number of resources that will be useful for some one who will be interested in implementing Moodle as their choice LMS.

https://moodle.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moodle

http://moodle.net/mod/page/view.php?id=2

http://www.turnkeylinux.org/moodle

http://sourceforge.net/projects/moodle/

http://docs.moodle.org/22/en/Moodle_video_tutorials

http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/moodle/

http://elearningindustry.com/105-free-moodle-video-tutorials

http://thinktutorial.com/category/education/moodle/

http://docs.moodle.org/26/en/Moodle_manuals

Another solution that would be attractive would be from Google which my understanding is still in testing stage and is available by invitation.

http://www.google.com/edu/tools-and-solutions/index.html#collaboration

http://www.google.com/edu/training/index.html

http://www.google.com/landing/geg/

In my opinion, Instructure Canvas is the best just because it promotes social media integration and has an intuitively interface. And in the background it works on ruby and postgresql, which are generally used for high performance systems.

Dear @Nageswara, thanks for the Google GEG link! I am going to try to explore it! Learn, Share, Inspire and Empower! Fine!

Thanks dear Ljubomir. It appears to be a good group to get into to compare experiences with others. I am on my way back from vacation. I would also like to see what are the possibilities.

Dear Ljubomir

Please find the link for a preview of the Google classroom. Looks like a promising LMS from Google.

http://www.google.com/edu/classroom/

Thanks a lot dear @Nageswara. Good motto : "More teaching, less tech-ing"! Yes, at first look seems fine, user friendly and with many benefits for classes!

We use Moodle, but there are many other options we experienced. Moodle has low cost comparing developing a new one and it is friendly. Google is a great promise and Facebook will present another educational environment, but we don't have access in Brazil.

+Dear @Nageswara & all,

1) First of all some introductory notes.

-The attached to the question report gives a definion of VLE which is different from other ones who claim that it is somehow synonym to LMS & CMS (C for Course).

-Regarding the types of VLEs I quote from http://global.oup.com/uk/orc/learnvle/:

"A Higher Education institution is likely to have a licence for a VLE that fits into any one of the following three categories:

• off-the-shelf, such as Blackboard or WebCT

• open source (often free to use and adapt but support is charged for), such as Moodle

• bespoke (developed by institutions for their own individual needs)"

2) As regards the main question(s).

I have used as a user for blended learning, mainly for University courses in Greece: Moodle, Open eClass (University bespoke), Claroline & Blackboard. The order I mention them is the one I would suggest them.

Kind regards.

Dear Alexandros Xafopoulos

Thanks for your response. A good number of universities in the developed world will be using the commercial VLE (LMS as is called in US) systems such as Blackboard. However what I was looking for is its use in developing countries where it is not being used to that extent. I want to suggest some Universities in India where if they would like to explore the open source option with in house support and some nominal external support to use LMS for the benefit of the students. It appears that Moodle seems to be the predominant choice.

At the University of Leipzig, we use Moodle. I really like it because there are so many different tools to use for different educational approaches. But you have to cut off some of them to make it simpler for the students.

There is also the free software Mahara, which is a personal learning environment programm. We use it to make e-portfolios, which is quite good if the student you are working with is somewhere else.

Greetings from Germany

Coursera in your list is not an LMS and is not necessarily freely available for the University or instructor, although the courses are free for students. 

Coursera partners with Universities that they pick and choose. The Universities enter into detailed contract with Coursera. The instructors cannot go to Coursera and propose to put their course up for public. 

Make that SOME courses are free for students, Coursera has been advertising pay courses along with the free ones, currently they are offering a two week free trial on all their courses this is not free.

Hi,

Yesterday one member of Research Gate suggested to me Schoology (www.schoology.com). I was trying it, it seems very interesting. I think I could leave Moodle to teach with it!

Hi, Thouraya

I received this news with great expectation!!! I want to leave Moodle so hard....

Thnka you Thouraya for the news. Schoology is free for the basic version. You do have the option to pay for the enterprise package for the entire school and get even more features (school wide analytics, single sign on, etc.). The free version still offers plenty of incredible features for the independent teacher.

https://www.schoology.com/learning-management-system.php

https://www.schoology.com/faqs.php

I have used Moodle and ATutor for years. Lately, I have stayed with Moodle. Moodle is robust and enriched with complex features and plugins, and there's a huge community behind it. However, it can contain bugs, and it takes some software skills to update this LMS to new versions. There is no such automatic updates as it is the case for Word Press where updates are automatically done. Atutor is more user friendly, but there is a very small community behind it, also translations take time to be posted. Nonetheless, they are strong on accessibility features.

At Centre for Open Learning, Maldives National University, we have been using Moodle for sometime. Features like online discussions (chat and forum) enhance a constructive pedagogy and user-friendly interface makes it suitable for us. There are about 1,200 students using it and the most frequent problem faced are access problem during synchronous discussions. As Bathelemy has mentioned updating is an issue for us as well. 

I have no experience with any other LMS. However, I believe Moodle is good as far as  free software is concernerd.

Any LMS will have the following framework ....

These are either

• Web Hosting
• Cloud Service

They provide features such as

Canvas is awesome. I have used it for a few classes and it has far more features than I've experienced with other LMSs such as Blackboard or Pearson LearningStudio (formerly eCollege). Check out the features and comparisons at:

http://www.canvaslms.com/higher-education/features#compare

We have  been using Moodle in Dublin City University since 2004 and I have been really impressed with its growth during that time. It is now a very well featured and a robust Enterprise-ready solution. It has a large and established user community and a strong eco-system including many user developed plugins. However it is difficult really to compare LMSes on feature sets as most of the main contenders have broadly similar ones. Really you need to compare user-bases and support communities of such a critical piece of institutional infrastructure: An LMS is now as important as a library to a university.

Moodle is open sourced under the GLP which makes it particularly attractive as I have argued in the below article which examines institutions reasons for adopting Moodle:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260762631_Opening_up_to_open_source_looking_at_how_Moodle_was_adopted_in_higher_education?ev=prf_pub

No I don't work for Moodle ;-)

Article Opening up to open source: Looking at how Moodle was adopted...

Thank you Eamon for your suggestion of Moodle which seems to be the LMS of choice among many of its users.

Your paper provides a very good history of LMS (VLE) deployment and reach among the higher education institutes. It provides most of the well needed information for the new adopters of Moodle. Part of your conclusions:

“This is not to paint a bleak picture, however, far from it – the move towards open source VLEs such as Moodle has many positives. Universities show that they can recognise potential threats and avoid what they perceive to be rent-seeking behaviours of proprietary VLE vendors. Moreover, the positive spin-offs of the lowering of the cost of technology via open source will undoubtedly have positive impact for developing countries where Moodle is growing rapidly (Dougiamas, 2013). If trends highlighted here continue, open source software such as Moodle will continue to be adopted and play a consequent role in opening education.”

Hi Nageswara, thank you for you kind comments and I am glad that it was of help.

Choosing LMS is dependent also on some subjective factors which include the level of technological skills of prospective users (students/lecturers) specifically the level of awareness and exposure to any LMS.  According to some researches, middle and high school in the United States are adopting specific LMS and it is definitely a good start to consider.  

Currently, Moodle is being implemented in Shinas College of Technology in Oman, to provide greater accessibility and flexibility to both lecturers and students.  Its user-friendly interface wide range of tools from planning to evaluation. 

Hi Nageswara,

i have some experiences with Moodle at different universities and i must say that it usually works pretty much as expected. Furthermore, i also have developing experiences for the development of interfaces to Moodle systems. Also this is pretty much straight forward. So even if you miss a certain functionalitly, the according extension should be relatively easy to implement. Allthough for normal use of courseware, Moodle should fullfill all your requirements.

On the other hand, i do also have some practial experiences with a commercial system (ecampus, a development of a german company) and i must say, allthough we burned a lot of money for it, it could not at all convince me, especially not in comparison to a Moodle system.

Therefore, my suggestion would be: try a standard Moodle system and check if you really have requirements that could not be fullfilled by it.

Cheers,

  Marc

Dear Nageswara, 

for our e-learning platform which is used in a resource-low environment, we are using the LMS Moodle. It is open-source, widely used even with high usage numbers and is continuously developed. Also, there are many plugins available to easily employ more functionality to your Moodle platform. From an administrative point of view, it is easily set up and brings all necessary features to effectively administrate the platform. If you need, you can always delve deeper and customise Moodle to your likes and needs. The support is also quite extensive and user forums are frequently replied. I would always recommend a platform that is extensively used and maintained - for a longer time already - since otherwise you may run into problems in terms of security and compatibility. Therefore, I only can recommend Moodle.

We also just published a paper evaluating the e-learning platform which is used in the resource-low setting of Malawi, if this could be of any interest.  

Article Self-directed e-learning at a tertiary hospital in Malawi – ...

I'have used Moodle, Sakai, Dokeos, Atutor, Efront and Ilias and in my opinion Canvas is the best :)

We have used Moodle since 2007. I think it's a great system. For example: we can create tests so easy with using GIFT format.

Conference Paper E-Learning course development in Moodle

Best Free Learning Management Systems (LMS) 2015!

http://www.academyofmine.com/12-best-free-learning-management-systems-lms/

LAMS

http://www.lamsfoundation.org/

http://lamscommunity.org/lamscentral/

Besides the LMS you can use LAMS.

Article Implementing Learning Design by lams to improve teaching and learning

I have used Moodle since 2008 and you can design a well featured LMS using Moodle with the help of external plugins available in the moodle.org.

You can plan, design all the learning related activities through Moodle platform. Further it can be used for surveying, e-portfolio developments, communication, collaborative teaching etc. 

If this free software that you can format according to your organization's educational structure, you may have very cheaply indeed a very effective educational technologies.

I insistently suggest Moodle because of flexibility and comprehensiveness. However, you will need an educational technologist  and / or the webmaster for the effective use.

Dear Nageswara,

I have been using Moodle LMS for more than 8 years. I started with Moodle 1.9.2 version. 

My opinion is open source LMSs are better than commercial software due to following reasons.

1) Cost free

2) Can be customised according to the institutional requirements

3) Extensive number of external plugins are available

4) Bug fixing and security related problems are done by the community

5) Trouble shooting can be done with the help of others

6) Upgrading is free

May be there are more. I have only used Moodle quite a longer time period, let me brief about the features in Moodle.

1) Various user authentication methods are available such as manual user creation, external database with user login details, self registration so on.

2) Various course enrolment methods are available (manual, secure self enrolment, control by externale database or flat file, allow purchasing through pay pal or other payment gateway so on)

3) Bulk user management is possible

4) Bulk course creation is possible

5) Quite large number of e-learning tools are available; some task oriented special tools are available as external plugin for free download. 

6) All the third-party installation can be done through the system without accessing the server. 

7) External system, such as Mahara/ Joomla can be connected with Single Sign On feature.

8) Assignment, Assessment, Surveying, Grading and reporting are easy.

9) Advance marking techniques such as rubrics are also available. 

10) support multimedia, SCORM and Tin Can  type e-learning materials also.

There are so many other features too, So as per my experience Moodle is very much suitable to develop comprehensive, advanced user friendly e-learning environment.

 On-line Educational Platform

I would like to inform all interested specialists about on-line Educational Platform - general practicioners regarding  available at present - you can find here-WWW.TEST.AECP.AM not only tests on basic ophthalmology in English , but also Videopresentationes and e-Textbook on Basic Ophthalmology and also on comprehensive

The Best Learning Management Systems (LMS) for 2015!

Very good comparative view!

"E-learning is fast becoming big business. A Docebo report anticipates that e-learning will grow to a $50 billion industry by next year thanks to double-digit growth in Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Although massive open online courses (MOOCs) have attracted outsized media attention, the reality doesn't quite match the hype. Learning management systems (LMS), on the other hand, have already enabled numerous universities, organizations, and businesses to develop, assign, and track online learning. With hundreds of vendors, however, choosing an LMS isn't a simple task. Here's what you need to know..."

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2488347,00.asp

Please see some off my articles. You may find something interesting.