The product:
- Technically solid, but no really large implementations out there to be sure
- Pedagogically unimpressive, and in fact is copying some of the problems with other systems like Bb
- Has a ‘UI problem’ – ie its users actually don’t like it – they need to be convinced by claims of technological superiority. This is not an argument that sways many academics
The community
- Small and not growing quickly enough to sustain development
- Technically very competent
- Too focused on technical matters and not enough on pedagogy
- There was a lot of talk about the ‘UI problem’ but no clear strategy for it - yet
- Has a competent board that is trying hard but needs to broaden its vision – this is not helped by scale problems (see dot 1 above)
- Dominated by research intensive American universities, not those who specialise in T&L. The University of South Africa is an exception, but we wouldn’t want to emulate them
- A bit ‘moodlephobic’
- Honest, committed and supportive
For all these reasons, the ideal solution to the naive would be to merge Moodle and Sakai and get the best of both worlds! But of course from a technological and political point of view, this can’t happen. You can see the sadness on nthe developers’ faces when they reaslise that all their work might in the end come to nothing – you’re talking about people’s lives here! Actually the ‘tool mashup’ idea might be a reality by the time we implement things at UniSA, allowing us to have the best of not just both, but all worlds. This would also helpus migrate from UniSAnet to new approaches – we might not have to throw out the good things in order to get more....
So – by the time I’ve been to the Moodle Moot in October,I should have a good handle on where these two products and communities are going ,and be able to relate them to a planning process for UniSA in ’09-’10.
