Moodle
Moodle was originally developed by Martin Dougiamas to help educators create online courses with a focus on interaction and collaborative construction of content. The first version of Moodle was released on , and it continues to be actively developed. The Moodle Project is led and coordinated by Moodle HQ, an Australian company, that is financially supported by a network of eighty-four Moodle Partner service companies worldwide. Development is also assisted by the open-source community. Moodle is a learning platform used to augment and move existing learning environments online. As an E-learning tool, Moodle developed a number of features now considered standard for learning management systems, such as a calendar and a gradebook. Moodle is a virtual learning environment and can be used in many types of environments such as education, training, and development and in business settings. Plugins are a flexible tool set, allowing Moodle users to extend the features of the site. Moodle has hundreds of available plugins which extend the features of Moodle's core functionality. Each plugin is maintained in the Moodle plugins directory. As of October 2019, 1,619 plugins were available for Moodle, with over 380,400 recent downloads. Graphical themes for Moodle can be installed to change the look and functionality of a Moodle site or of an individual course. Many Moodle themes, based on responsive web design, allow Moodle to be used on mobile devices. Also, a Moodle mobile app is available in Google Play, App Store (iOS), F-Droid (Android FLOSS repository), and the Windows Phone Store. Moodle has adopted the following e-learning standards: Users can download and install Moodle on a Web server, such as Apache HTTP Server, and a number of database management systems, such as MySQL, are supported. Pre-built combinations of Moodle with a Web server and database are available for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh. Other automated installation approaches exist, such as installing a Debian package, deploying a ready-to-use TurnKey Moodle appliance, using the Bitnami installer, or using a "one-click install" service such as Installatron.
Certified Moodle Partners provide other Moodle services, including hosting, training, customization and content development. This network of providers support development of the Moodle project through royalties. Moodle runs without modification on Unix, Linux, FreeBSD, Windows, MacOS, NetWare and any other systems that support PHP and a database, including webhost providers. Moodle also has import features for use with other specific systems, such as importing quizzes or entire courses from Blackboard or WebCT. , Moodle did not import Blackboard courses, apparently due to changes in php code-releases. In March 2012 Blackboard acquired two companies based on Moodle's software including Baltimore-based Moodlerooms Inc. and NetSpot of Adelaide, Australia. In August 2015, Blackboard acquired Colombia-based Nivel7, possibly the largest Moodle services provider in Latin America. The Red Hat site, Opensource.com, reported that Moodle will always be an open-source project, with clear delineation between Blackboard and Moodle. Martin Dougiamas, who has graduate degrees in computer science and education, wrote the first version of Moodle. Dougiamas started a Ph.D. to examine "the use of open source software to support a social constructionist epistemology of teaching and learning within Internet-based communities of reflective inquiry." Although how exactly social constructivism makes Moodle different from other eLearning platforms is difficult to show, it has been cited as an important factor by Moodle adopters. Other Moodle adopters, such as the Open University in the UK, have pointed out that Learning Management Systems can equally be seen as "relatively pedagogy-neutral". The stated philosophy of Moodle includes a constructivist and social constructionist approach to education, emphasizing that learners (and not just teachers) can contribute to the educational experience. Using these pedagogical principles, Moodle provides an environment for learning communities. The acronym "Moodle" officially stands for "modular object-oriented dynamic learning environment". When the project was first started, the "m" instead stood for "Martin's", after original developer Martin Dougiamas. Besides being an acronym, the name was also chosen because of the dictionary definition of Moodle, with connotations such as "tinkering", "insight", and "creativity", as well as to correspond to an available domain name. Moodle has continued to evolve since 1999 (since 2001 with the current architecture). It has been translated into over 100 different languages and is accessible in many countries worldwide. Institutions can add as many Moodle servers as needed without having to pay license fees. The Open University of the UK currently uses a Moodle installation for their 200,000 users while the UK government uses a Moodle installation for their Civil Service Learning platform serving half a million employees. A MoodleMoot is a conference for Moodle community members, held to learn about Moodle, share experiences of the learning platform, discuss research in related educational technologies and contribute ideas to future Moodle development. Held around the world, MoodleMoots are organised by universities or other large organizations using Moodle, Moodle Partners, Moodle associations or Moodle HQ. 2020 saw the #Moot move to a virtual conference. Moodle has over 50% of market share in Europe, Latin America, and Oceania. In the U.S. higher education market as of fall 2018, the top three learning management systems (LMS) by number of institutions were Blackboard (31%), Canvas (30%), and Moodle (18%). --- In 2013, Moodle was for a time the second largest provider with 23% market share, following Blackboard (41%). However, by 2017, Moodle had dropped to the third largest provider, due in part to increased adoption of Instructure's semi-open source Canvas platform. In March 2016, Blackboard became an official Moodle partner, although this partnership ended in 2018.
Overview
With customizable management features, Moodle is used to create private websites with online courses for educators and trainers to achieve learning goals. Moodle allows for extending and tailoring learning environments using community-sourced plugins.