Open Source Software: Fully featured vs. "the devil you know"?

Michael Hotrum,Brian Ludwig,Jon Baggaley

doi:10.19173/irrodl.v6i1.213

Michael Hotrum, Brian Ludwig + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v6i1.213

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Abstract

The ILIAS learning management system (LMS) was evaluated, following its favourable rating in an independent evaluation study of open source software (OSS) products. The current review found ILIAS to have numerous features of value to distance education (DE) students and teachers, as well as problems for consideration in the system’s ongoing development. The current findings were compared with DE students’ reactions to a similar LMS product, ATutor, also rated highly in the independent OSS evaluation. In comparing an ATutor course website with a simple HTMLbased version of the same site, the ten students voted unanimously to retain the simpler site. This result is consistent with previous evaluation findings in the current series of reports, and indicates that increasing integration of product features does not necessarily improve a product’s ease of use or educational effectiveness.

Highlights

As the current series of reports has indicated, the number of online learning management systems (LMS) has proliferated, and at least a hundred are currently available. Leslie (2004) has identified over 50 such systems based on open source software (OSS) alone
It has been designed as a collaborative, hypermedia working/ learning environment, flexible for use by teachers with different pedagogical approaches, and allowing the reuse and exchange of materials based on course-sharing standards (e.g., IMS, The Aviation Industry CBT [Computer-Based Training] Committee (AICC) and ARIADNE Foundation for the European Knowledge Pool)
The recurring finding of these studies brings into question the wisdom of providing distance education (DE) students with ever more complex online learning systems; and it suggests the need to balance comprehensiveness of product features against clarity of usage

Summary

Introduction

As the current series of reports has indicated, the number of online learning management systems (LMS) has proliferated, and at least a hundred are currently available. Leslie (2004) has identified over 50 such systems based on open source software (OSS) alone. ILIAS is a free, open source (OS) Web-based learning management system (LMS) developed at the University of Cologne (2004).

Results

Conclusion