Richard Treves posted a good challenge to my critique of the New Zealand Moodle decision. My response grew beyond what's comfortable for a comment so here it is as a full posting. As I indicated in World's largest deployment of Moodle? (part 1), if we're going to be using VLEs/LMSs then I would rather it be one like Moodle where the users retain some control and don't have to work through a vendor to extend functionality. A vendor is primarily driven by market imperatives, although they will undoubtedly claim they are responsive to their 'customers'.
My contention is that the HE sector, in particular, seems to have been hell bent on creating a monoculture by consolidating/aggregating around a limited number of immature proprietary and perhaps even open source solutions. Furthermore, they are having to adapt their internal goals and processes to fit the needs of the technologies rather than being able to select/modify the technologies to fit what they want to do.
So it's not the affordances of Moodle et al I've got any problems with. Instead, it's the constraints we need to focus upon. The constraints will have nothing to do with control of the functionality or modular architecture, which I accept are key Moodle attributes. Instead, the key constraints could arise from within the organisations or consortia who, having made the commitment, will adopt a strict 'Moodle policy' which will be the equally pernicious equivalent of say a 'WebCT policy' or a 'Blackboard policy' etc, and who perceive any deviation from this policy as dysfunctional.
If you've get a chance do look at my various past postings and those of others, e.g. James Farmer. You'll find examples where organizations attempt to 'refocus' anyone who is perceived as doing any innovative work 'out of the box' because this is perceived as either ' non corporate', 'off message' or just plain inefficient. In such cases, the fact that such 'boxes' are open source or proprietary matters not a jot. The fact that universities should be encouraging 'out of the box' thinking seems to be forgotten in the rush to corporatize. We all claim uniqueness and pride ourselves in our diversity but at the same time we're now making big scope IT decisions that could end up making us all behave very much the same as each other (institutional isomorphism).
It's also worth looking at the 'Future VLE' discussions that are now taking place in the UK and then perhaps pop over to what JISC is promulgating via its E-Learning Framework (ELF) supported by the development of e-tools and toolsets. In an alternative view of the world the VLE as we currently know it is but an interim step to something better which is more adaptable and flexible, and which is based on lots of loosely-coupled flexible tools and services, not monoliths.
It's ironic that just as we begin to have a better grasp of what's required some organizations and groupings are starting to behave as though the current generation of VLEs are mature commodities, instead of the interim steps on the journey that they actually are. The net result may be to impede progress, both in practice and in thinking. The conformity pressure will be high and will be based on no more than “crumbs if they've made that decision it must be all right then … perhaps we should do the same?” No … 'surely not' you say. But it was exactly this type and level of thinking that gave proprietary VLEs such a toehold within Higher and Further Education in the first place.
It's not usual to hear arguments that go along the lines of “because the rest of the institutions in our region have made proprietary decision x wouldn't it be more efficient if we do the same so we can all share?” Of course, anyone who has worked with any of these products will know that while sharing is a great concept and it's even backed by claims of sharing standards/specifications compliance, such as IMS or SCORM, the reality is far far from this ideal … and that's before we add human and organizational factors which impede such sharing. This, type of 'rational' thinking is of course, is a vendor's marketing department dream as they watch institutions fall like mindless dominoes around them.
Once organisations, consortia, states, or countries make strategic commitments that tightly couples them to a particular platform, then being open source or proprietary doesn't matter much. Unless they develop policies which actively immunize themselves against it, institutions can become every bit as 'locked in' as a WebCT or Blackboard institution or consortia. Within a few years it will become almost impossible for them to reverse. And that will colour every decision that they make in the future. You'll find Auricle has several links to such items and papers on this theme.
Again, I'm a big fan of Moodle and I think it has a lot to contribute. But I also think that an 'all eggs in one basket' mentality is just plain bad, and imposing an all eggs in one basket mentality is worse, whether that 'basket' be open source or not.
Finally, we are Moodle users and we certainly view it as part of the online learning armoury … but viewing it as the armoury? No.
But people do find the concept of the 'one stop shop' just so seductive and rational don't they? 😉
