Social eLearning Software Blog

Moodle is a highly capable product and is available as open source software, therefore it’s worthy of consideration for an institution looking to move away from the high annual subscription fees and other hidden costs.

We understand that clearly someone a bit technical can quickly build a moodle site for a small group or classroom. This may suffice for many small implementations. If the technical skills are there and readily available, it’s an entirely reasonable choice.

For many institutions however the decision to go to an open source platform in lieu of commercially supported product or SaaS is a much larger and more critical decision, and the costs, ramifications, and viable alternatives should be fully explored.

Let’s take a moment to break some representative costs of Moodle and compare them to a subscription to TOPYX^®, our recently launched fully hosted learning distribution service that blends the features of a traditional LMS with embedded social learning services and community tools.

All of our assumptions are admittedly highly variable, given the wide range of sizes and needs of various institutions, as well as the high level of customisation that may be required for your Moodle Site. We have tried to be as conservative and fair as possible, however I do freely admit a wee bit of bias as I consider our solution such high value.

Moodle fees and costs:

Initial install and initial setup: First off, someone needs to download, install, and support Moodle, both initially as well as on an ongoing basis. Depending on the size of your organization, this could easily be full time dedicated resource in your IT department. Naturally this varies, institution to institution, but in order to be conservative and fair let`s assume it can be as little as a part time (50%) role for an IT or training professional at an average salary of US$70,000 annually. Clearly there are other personnel expenses involved than just salary, however to keep this simple, we’ll just take salary into account.

Site branding: Do you want your Moodle site branded to your school? Again this could vary widely, but it’s probably at the very minimum, an expense of about US$1,000 to do a reasonable job.

Customization: Next, would you like to customize how Moodle is used in your school? Again, it`s very difficult to generalize, but let`s assume this will be approximately a three month project for a similar IT professional.

Content: Next, you will have to move your content from it`s your current source over to Moodle. This will be true with whatever product you choose, however, with Moodle, you are on your own unless you contract with a Moodle service provider. Some products may be easier than other to load, and some products offer some challenges to export from.

However, as this will be required whether you use Moodle, TOPYX^®, or any other LMS, and on average, the effort will generally be the same. I’ll omit it from the comparison.

Hosting: How will you be hosting Moodle?

At a high level you have two choices: You’ll be able to use and acquire your own hardware and software, or a hosting provider.

Naturally volume will determine the hardware requirements, but at a minimum for proper execution you will want a database server and an application server.
Minimum cost for these will be about US$4K each and they’ll probably need updating or replacing every three to four years. Large installations will require much larger servers, backup, etc. That could easily run into a very substantial investment.

If you choose a hosting provider, fees run from $25 per month to $600 per month, for the simplest comparison. I’ll simply use the hosting fees of US$3.5K annually and not include outlays for dedicated hardware, even though that may be what is chosen.

Training: I am seeing many courses available for Moodle implementation and usage from a variety of sources. Moodle Programming, SQL with Moodle, Moodle implementation, etc. The list is quite extensive. Usually for "Train the trainer" and "Implementation Assistance" courses a school should very conservatively consider about US$10K in the first year.

Additional Software: As for software, you’ll also require versions of SQL. Yes, you can get them free; however, you’ll also require additional technical staff. Let’s assume open source versions and two weeks annual IT time to build out a conservative estimate, therefore about US$3K.

Overall Site Upgrades: Naturally, you will want to be adding functionality to your Moodle site above and beyond the initial basic setup. New features will be requested, new interfaces required, testing to be done and so on. Clearly the modifications are highly variable, however from our own experience we would expect this to be somewhere in the range of ½ of the combined Initial Setup and First Year Customization effort on an ongoing basis.

Authentication: Will you and your IT team be trying to enable single sign-on through your school authentication system. This will be more time and money. Let’s use 1-2 week’s IT time to be fair, or about US$2.0K.

Communities and social networking components:

Some tools, such as forums are included with Moodle. Many are not however. If you wish to integrate social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn you are clearly blazing new trails. This will require endless hours of coding and testing. We know, because we’ve done it! Because we don’t know if you’ll want it or need it, so to be absolutely fair, I won’t add additional cost for this with Moodle. However, if you are thinking about it, be prepared for a three to four additional person months of effort and cost at a minimum, probably around US$20k. With TOPYX it’s included and part of the platform.

Now let’s add up the tab. How much does free open source Moodle cost (US$000s)?

Moodle First Year Costs

Moodle license: 0

Install and initial set up: 35

Site Branding: 1

Customization: 17.5

Hosting: 3.5

Authentication: 2

Database: 3

Training: 10

Moodle First year Total: US$72K

Moodle costs thereafter:

Customization and Maintenance: 27.5

Hosting: 3.5

Moodle Ongoing total: US$31K

Now, let's briefly review the fees should you use TOPYX to do the same for your school.

We take care of licensing, branding, authentication, database, and training as part of your annual subscription, therefore they are not an additional cost. Find out why those that like Moodle, love TOPYX!

TOPYX first year Costs (US$000s):

TOPYX subscription: 10

Install and setup: 0

Initial setup and installation is included.

Branding: 0

TOPYX is completely branded with your school logo and colors.

Customization: 8.75

TOPYX is meant to be customized extensively by simply enabling and selecting a wide variety of options. This significantly decreases the actual customization required for a specific site, in term of coding changes. Therefore to allow for some high-end comparison, we`ll simply reduce the requirement compared to Moodle by 50%

Authentication: 0

We will take care of implementing single sign-on through your authentication system as part of your subscription.

Hosting: 3.5

Our hosting fees are $1 monthly per GB of bandwidth and $2 monthly per GB of storage. An average size school will incur roughly US$3.5K per year.

Training: 0

We train your staff and provide materials for ongoing training as part of your annual subscription.

Overall site maintenance: 0

Maintenance, updates and support are included as part of annual TOPYX subscription.

TOPYX first year total: US$22.5K

TOPYX fees thereafter:

TOPYX subscription: 10

Hosting: 3.5

TOPYX Ongoing: US$13.5K

Total Cost of Ownership Summary

So there you have it. FREE is not really FREE. In fact, Moodle on average could actually cost about $50,000 more than TOPYX in the first year and about $20,000 more each year thereafter.

In times where costs count, as well as the numerous additional features that TOPYX provides, you really should have a serious look at TOPYX before making any decision regarding your future online learning program.

Learn more about how eLearning with social learning applies to any academic learning environment by attending our free, live webinar:

Social Networking Around the Classroom
Thursday, Dec. 17, 2009
2:00pm - 3:00pm ET
Register Here - Space is Limited

Find out why those that like Moodle, love TOPYX! I would be very interested in finding out actual experiences from our readers. As always, feel free to contact me at patrick.batty@interactyx.com.

Regards,

Patrick Batty

Vice President, Academic Solutions

Interactyx Limited

patrick.batty@interactyx.com

www.interactyx.com