Moodle Overview

Moodle LMS is a learning management system that is fully open source. Its innovations are driven by a worldwide community of developers, and focused through the lens of the Moodle HQ team, an Australian group funded by Moodle Partners and with ties around the globe.

Moodle is free to use, with no licensing fee. But just because it’s free doesn’t mean that it’s sub-standard. In fact, its seventy-nine million users make Moodle the world’s most widely used learning platform. It’s been embraced by small organizations, universities, and major corporations such as Shell and Microsoft.

Moodle is fully scalable, and the open source nature of its code means that is users enjoy the ultimate customizable LMS experience. With extensive documentation in many different languages, and an enormous amount of free content pre-generated by the Moodle community, there’s no end to the amount of custom building options available to you. At the same time, the pre-built content means that you can take a “fix it and forget it” approach, if that’s a better fit for you.

Some open source projects ultimately fragment into many splinter organizations. Without a strong central vision, they get lost in the chaos of the crowd. To avoid this pitfall, Moodle’s core development team is made of full-time developers, dedicated to ensuring that Moodle stays current and cutting edge. To this end, Moodle teams with Certified Moodle Partners, private organizations and individuals who offer consulting, installation, and support for all areas of Moodle implementation. Ten percent of all payments to Certified Moodle Partners go to the Moodle project, paying the developers so that the core software stays 100 percent free to use.

You can set up a Moodle roll-out at your organization on your own, or use a Certified Moodle Partner to do it for you. But there’s no requirement to use a Moodle Partner—you can bring in any IT professional of your choosing. Your Moodle installation and how you use it is entirely up to you.