Three years of egg on their face and the disciples over in moodle-land are still pushing the big Moodle security lie. Maybe they need to refresh their memories.
Good thing Blackboard bought Moodle…at least there is one secure LMS in the company to choose from and it isnt Moodle 
Moodle Security = Oxymoron
Now that Blackboard has effectively bought out Moodle, they are wasting no time making their presence noticed. Just look at the #Moodle hashtag on Twitter today and it’s right in your face. Moodle sells out and Blackboard takes over…of course, I still don’t see Blackboard in the Official Moodle Partner list over at Moodle.com 
MoodleBoard
I love it when people tell it like it is…especially when that person is the leader of a very successful endeavor and doesn’t care that the truth may offend the “elites” in the industry. Kudos to the Canvas leadership for putting it out there.
But what about open source? Yes Ray Henderson talks a lot about open source, but clearly it’s eyewash. Blackboard hasn’t changed, but hope springs eternal.
So, what’s going to happen now? Expect more confusion. I don’t think it requires much imagination to suppose that the Moodle and Sakai community will become even more jumbled and Blackboard will shove innovation even further back on the burner.
Blackboard was bought out by Providence Equity Partners venture (vulture?) capitalists, who specialise in leveraged buyouts, last year. Presumably they borrowed the $1.64 billion they paid and need to see a significant return on that ASAP. Leveraged buyouts are usually about a fast turnaround and how to extract the biggest possible return in the shortest possible time regardless of the long-term outcomes. If they destroy Moodle and/or Blackboard in the process, that’s just business.
Source: http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=199248#p868732
Blackboard announces the purchase of moodlerooms, the largest Moodle partner. For those of you who don’t know, Moodle partners pay a stipend (normally around 10%) to Moodle HQ. Wonder how much Moodle HQ got and will continue to get in this deal?
Not sure why this should surprise anyone…Moodle was never an open source project…it was always about pretending to be one, getting free labor and development from thousands of people, and making a handy profit off a closed business model. However, this announcement takes the business side of Moodle to a complete new level.
The research report attached to this post was published in the “International Journal of Information Technology and Knowledge Management, January-June 2011, Volume 4, No. 1, pp. 233-238“. It covers some major security flaws in Moodle that will not surprise anyone who has been following Moodle security issues for the past few years. I no longer need to use Moodle, but for those of you who do rely on it, don’t be fooled…just because I’m no longer dedicating time and effort to publically demonstrate major security flaws in the Moodle code and design, don’t take that as a sign that those problems no longer exist! I know of at least two major security holes in the latest version of Moodle and one of them is just as bad as this one I publicized not long ago…and like that vulnerability, it has been discussed in the Moodle forums for months and has received no attention by the devs. If that security issue is not addressed in the next few months, then I may do another “open demonstration” for the public…that seems to be the only way to force action by the Moodle lead dev.
I thought for sure we were headed for a showdown of Blackboard vs. Moodle. However as time progressed, even months before the RFP went out I could tell that there was a big buzz about Canvas. So much that Moodle fell right off the radar of pretty much everyone.
Source: http://blog.usu.edu/kevin/2011/11/04/getting-ready-with-canvas/
Moodle: 1990′s technology in 2011
I am a senior this year and getting to know a new program just to check my grades and post papers is ridiculous. Blackboard had become a friend to me; I knew everything about it and how to get to where I needed to be. Moodle is a stranger, one that I care not to know. You may say I am one of those people who does not like change, which is wrong: I love change, just not when it deals with my school work.
This is becoming an everyday thing now. I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep up with all the colleges, universities, and K12 systems that have decided to dump Moodle and move into the 21st century with their LMS, but whether I post about it or not, the move is happening.
I’m reminded of a line in that commercial…Lost another to Ditech, aka, Moodle lost another to _____________ you fill in the blank
A learning management systems task team composed of 20 faculty, four from each of the colleges, chose Instructure Canvas over Blackboard Learn 9.1 and 10 other systems during the summer.
“We took 12 proposals from various learning management system vendors and narrowed it down to two,” Usha Venkat, director of information and communication technologies, said Sept. 19.
Source: http://www.theranger.org/canvas-program-to-replace-blackboard-vista-1.2639275#.TooNN7K3N2J
Moodle = 1990′s technology in 2011!
The switch to Canvas represents “a really necessary upgrade to kind of move into the 21st century,” he added.
After analyzing over 1,000 faculty and student survey responses and listening to feedback from focus groups, CIS opted for the Canvas platform. When the committee tested different systems in front of groups of students in the Sharpe Refectory last spring, the response to Canvas was overwhelmingly positive, Kagan said.
In many ways, the new system will be like “a blank canvas,” facilitating the addition of new tools as they emerge as well as having multimedia capabilities, Bergeron said.
Hawaii Department of Education Selects Blackboard Learn 9.1 to Replace Open Source LMS.
The Hawaii Department of Education’s Extended Learning Opportunities and Student Support section has chosen Blackboard Learn™ 9.1 to replace an open source learning management system (LMS) Blackboard Inc. (Nasdaq: BBBB) announced today. The platform provides online courses for over 1,200 students through the Hawaii Virtual Learning Network-ESchool (HVLN-ESchool) and over 500 teachers annually through the HVLN-Project Inspire program.
NMSU will be replacing Blackboard CE 8 with Instructure Canvas as its learning management system (LMS) for the Summer 2012 semester. View announcement here.
In a lengthy evaluation process at NMSU, Canvas received the highest evaluation marks from faculty and students and met the University’s evaluation criteria better than any of the other available options.
According to Steven Leask, senior project analyst for Instructional Innovation & Quality, who managed the evaluation process, the university’s LMS Task Force came to “unanimous agreement on what would be recommended. And there was no second choice.” The task force comprised about 25 faculty, students, learning specialists, and technology administrators from the Las Cruces and Community College campuses.
After nearly 12 years of using Blackboard’s WebCT to run online components of the classroom, the U will be switching to a new online program, Instructure’s Canvas, which will be fully adopted in the summer of 2012.
“Comparing Canvas to Blackboard would be like comparing an iPhone to a cellphone made in 1998,” McGhie said.
If Blackboard is a 1998 cellphone, then that makes Moodle about the equivalent of a Model 28 teletypewriter
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that Moodle with its outdated 1990′s technology didn’t even make the short list by the evaluation committee at Auburn. I applaud their decision to adopt a true “web 2.0″ platform reflecting the technology of this decade.
Below are some highlights from the full article here: http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2011/07/14/Auburn-U-Moves-to-Open-Source-Canvas-LMS.aspx?
Auburn University, with about 25,000 students, has decided to move off of Blackboard Vista and onto Instructure Canvas following a multi-months evaluation process.
The LMS evaluation was done by a working group composed of IT people and faculty members. Along with Canvas and Blackboard Learn 9.1, other contenders included Moodle, Sakai, and Desire2Learn. The short-list consisted of only two products: Canvas and Desire2Learn.
Today is the first time I’ve looked at the forums over in moodle-land in a couple of months and it seems not much has changed. Moodle 2 is still a disaster, or in the words of the very first post I read, a “semi catastrophe”. This was supposed to be the summer of upgrade to Moodle 2 after it being declared “stable” for a year new. Other than single user hobby sites, I doubt 1% of the real production sites out there have upgraded. Maybe Moodle 3.0, due to be released in 2020 will solve everyone’s problem . For now, it looks like 1.9 will be around for a very long time….officially supported or not.
Have you ever had someone tell you they were planning to do something and before they even finished their thought, you knew they were on the road to disaster? Well, if not, read Mr. Lewis Carr’s blog post here and just sit back and wait! Looks like he posted part 2 here and may have already figured out what a mistake he was making…nothing for a couple months now.
Lewis, if you are reading this, take my advice and stop while you’re still ahead and have a functioning Moodle site…yea, using Moodle 1.9 is like using 1990′s technology, but at least it works…well, kind of.
Call it a spoon all you want…it’s still a fork…or is it? I’m wondering…has Totara received one of those cease-and-desist letters from Moodle HQ for typing the word Moodle on (actually, all over) their site and, in fact, actually claiming to be Moodle in their FAQ?
When I first read about Totara a couple months ago, I thought…yawn…Moodle, with a different name…wasn’t impressed enough to even bother creating a blog post…just a tweet. Now that I’ve gone back and taken a second look, I’m thinking–yawn–still Moodle with a different name, but now actually admitting it. Why do I say they are admitting it? Well, one only needs to read their own FAQ’s (all two of them) on their website. Here is the second FAQ from their website:
The news that someone has offered to buy Blackboard is causing quite a bit of chatter in LMS circles today…not to mention a big boost to some who may own stock. My advice…sell now before the hype wears off Of course, I never was good at reading the stock market–I guess if the phantom buyer turns out to be a big player–think Google, Microsoft, or even a huge textbook publisher, then holding onto that stock may prove to be a very good idea. I love it that the CNBC article mentioned Instructure as one of the most interesting competitors and completely ignores Moodle…maybe they’ve been talking to those who have upgraded to Moodle 2.0 However, just so Moodle Disciples out there don’t feel completely left out, I think the announcement by Instructure last week that it has raised $8 million in capital and is in this for the long haul, did contain several references to Moodle, without mentioning it by name.
The only license the Moodle Lead Dev knows, is what will make him the most $$. “All contributors give permission?” Are you kidding? You really think they even keep track of the contributors? This is a “community” open source project in name only–it operates like a privately held, commercial project and anyone who contributes to it should understand that fact.
Hi,
Last Moodle version is under GNU GPLv3. How can they upgrade from GPLv2 version? All contribuitors give permission for license upgrade?
Thanks in advance, Marc.
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