Usability
With regards to usability, we face the classic contrast between “ease-of-use” and “flexibility”. On the one hand, Blackboard 9 allows for maximum flexibility, but in doing so it presents an interface which at times is very complex and will require additional exploration, training and support. On the other hand, Moodle and Sakai both limit certain aspects of how a course can be put together, and thus are likely to be easier to use. Sakai in particular appears to have been designed with usability in mind. Several reviews at other universities have identified “ease of use” as a major factor in their decision to move to open source solutions.
Access Controls, Grouping, and Roles
All three systems have basic controls that allow instructors to control who can access different parts of a course. Blackboard 9 “selective release” controls are similar to the current Vista system, with a few more options – including a set of tools that can be specifically associated with a group to provide it with special collaboration opportunities. Moodle has more nuanced controls that base access on group membership or role in the course – including the ability to give instructor-type access to students within specific tools or contexts. Sakai is similar to Vista, but a bit more limited.
Posting content
All three systems cover the basic needs of faculty who want to post PDFs, links, and other files. All offer some variation of access control. The big difference here is philosophical: Blackboard offers maximum flexibility, with associated complexity for instructors and students, while Moodle and Sakai impose a structure on the course which reduces flexibility, but makes it easier for users to find content. Multiple files can be uploaded at a time to all three options, but this is handled differently in each case.
In Blackboard, content can be posted in a variety of ways: on “pages” in the site or within tools, including the “learning module” which helps organize sets of content and activities within a single organized module.
In Moodle, all content is associated with a “block” in the center column of the page. These blocks can be organized in a variety of ways: in a sequence (by week) or by topic, even displayed one at a time. Content and activities are added to the site by adding them to a block. Collections of files can be easily provided by adding a “Directory” to a block and linking it to a folder in the file repository. There are two tools (“Book” and “Lesson” which replicate the functions of the “Learning Module” in Vista.
In Sakai, all activity and content on the site is associated with specific tools. Content such as files or links can be associated with activities (an attachment to an announcement in the Announcement tool, for instance) or delivered through the Resources tool (a file manager).
Communicating With Students
All three systems cover the basic needs of instructors who wish to communicate with their students about class activities: announcements, messages (mail), chat, etc.. As with Vista, Blackboard messages are “in-course” only, unless a user manually sets forwarding to an external account. Sakai and Moodle both send messages out to students’ email addresses, including updates when announcements are posted or other changes happen on the site. Blackboard and Sakai allow selecting of roles to receive messages (such as “all TAs”), Moodle only allows for sending messages to “all” or by individual selection. Sakai and Moodle both allow import and export of calendar data (for instance to iCal or another outside calendaring system), Blackboard 9 does not.
Posting and Managing Grades
This is one area where we anticipate instructors will see improvements in features–although experienced users of the Vista gradebook will need to make some adjustments. All three systems do the basics and include the all-important import and export option.
Blackboard 9 offers many fixes of classic problems and many new features: better column editing, weighted grades, conditional formatting, etc.. The Vista “Grading Form (Rubric)” feature has changed, and it took a bit to find it in the new system. (There does not seem to be a similar feature in Moodle or Sakai).
Moodle offers a similar improvement over Vista, with “categories” of grades that can then be weighted separately (i.e. all items classified as “quizzes” equal 5% of a final grade), and a grouping mechanism that makes it easier for TAs to see only their own set of students.
Sakai’s grade book is a bit more limited; it is similar to Vista, but lacks some familiar features (for instance, letter grades must be created by converting a numeric score).
Surveys and quizzes
All three systems provide basic online “quiz” functionality and the most common forms of questions (multiple choice, numeric, short answer, etc.). Each option also provides unique features that can help with specific goals. One example is the flexible evaluation of answers that in Vista can be provided by inserting “regular expressions” into the answer key. Moodle and Sakai both have this exact option, while Blackboard provides a similar function by allowing for a range of answers to be included.
One concern we have for the transition is that, in our testing, no option (including Blackboard) converts the images in a quiz to the new platform. This means that we will need to develop a process specifically to assist instructors who need to convert large collections of image-based questions to the new system.
There are quite a few access controls that all three of the LMS quiz tools share, as well as reporting tools and options for accommodations. These are handled in slightly different ways in each of the systems but none of them are incredibly difficult or confusing.
Assignments
All the systems have a basic “drop box” functionality for collecting files and integration with plagiarism checkers (such as Turnitin). Moodle and Sakai both offer the option for notifying instructors by email when a file is submitted.
Blackboard 9 is different from Vista in that grading of assignments is done through the gradebook and all scores must be numeric (no letter grades).
Sakai is very similar to Vista with some improvements on the settings for controlling submissions. In our testing we did not find selective release or group assignment controls.
Moodle’s assignment tool appears to be more limited and awkward to grade in a large classroom setting, although its use of groups to structure access to submitted assignments make it easier to manage TA access to submissions by section within a course. Using Moodle for large classes is not necessarily more difficult, it just requires some forethought to set up the assignments with groups.
Each of these assignment tools requires a specific thinking about how to structure assignments. Moodle assumes that you know what you will be receiving when you set it up (eg: offline work, pasted text, single file upload, or “advanced” or multiple file upload), whereas Blackboard is very simple (Name, Instructions, Points, and Dates available). Moodle gives a few more options, but the intent is to collect assignments so there are not too many options.
Discussions
All three systems offer the basic features of a threaded discussion, journal and blog and allow attachments to be added to posts. Each system has a slightly different way of presenting and managing discussions, so each offers different useful features and possible limitations. Both Moodle and Sakai offer features that allow for notification and tracking of discussions through e-mail notifications–a feature long requested by students familiar with similar features in social media tools like Facebook.
Blackboard nine is quite similar to the current Vista, although terminology and interface have changed a bit. Moodle has features which make it easy to search, grade, rate, and track discussions. Moodle’s discussion grading system is based off of ratings, and allows for multiple ways to calculate grades for discussions. Sakai also offers special tools for looking at statistics on participants, assigning point values to posts, and an option for preventing a student from reading other student’s posts until submitting his or her own post.
If you have experience with the features of any of these systems and wish to chime in, please add them in comments below or send them to futurelms@oit.umass.edu.