The Educated Kiwi
Moodle …the hidden cost of Ownership
The Hidden cost of Moodle use is more than other LMS providers in the New Zealand market ……….YEAH RIGHT!!
Recently the Ministry MLE roadshow visited Tauranga and I had some calls from local teachers who attended asking about the hidden cost of running Moodle in a school as it was indicated that running Moodle could be more expensive than one of the commercial vendors (eg Knowledgenet or Ultranet). I decided to sit down and work out :
1. How much has it cost our college to run it
2. How much does commercial support cost
so………
Costs for us to run it at Katikati College, Roll 950.
Hardware -well we started using it 6 years ago on a rebuilt old Pentium box which we then moved last year to generic server that runs Moodle and our static website with raided 300GB drives and 4GB RAM (as a virtual machine ..so we can easily move/backup it) …hardware cost : $3500
Software – runs on Ubuntu Server (free) , Moodle …well free
Time to set it up: Well initial set up took Richard and I maybe an hour the first time (including server install)
Time to maintain: Richard would be lucky if he spends 2 hours per month …and most of that’s adding new modules he likes the look of or adding functionality.
Time to train staff: Hmm …the big one …well that’s been huge but its just been seen as part of the PD we would provide for any new system we bring into our college that adds value….so actual cost $0
Commercial Support
So if you don’t feel happy to do this yourself I found a number of companies that actually specialise in Moodle installation, support , training and hosting (no pesky servers onsite). Try Catalyst (Ministry development partner) or Totali ….just 2 of many companies that offer cost effective solutions for Moodle.
What do we need to compare this to?
Well Knowledgenet has its pricing on its website
For Katikati College:
Install cost : $6600+GST
Monthly Cost : $336.67 +GST
So to be fair there is no hardware cost at all but it would cost our college $11000.00 the first year then $4400 per year after that!! …..sorry I just don’t see the added value!! In fact recently at the KAMAR conference Richard stated that for the install cost alone he would maintain a Moodle installation for life!! (feel free to email him!!).
Sure I’ve heard the comment that Moodle is not as ‘easy to use’ as other LMS’s ..I really dispute that …it all depends on the level of commitment to Professional Development your school is willing to put into implementing a Learning Management System ..and isn’t that the same for any ‘new’ initiative in a school ?
Finally for all you doubters out there have a look at this http://docs.moodle.org/en/Top_10_Moodle_Myths
Thought it really sums it up as I think just because Moodle has no company actively marketing it in NZ we in the education sector does not make it any less relevant or applicable?
Finally Moodle has over 20 000 registered installations worldwide ..all in areas with multiple LMS’s available …can that many people really be wrong?
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about 1 year ago
I’m surprised at this considering the number of people at the Ministry who support Moodle. I wonder who actually said it. Paul Seiler? Possibly. Utter rubbish as you pointed out.
At the beginning of last year I was faced with persuading our cluster Principals on an LMS. When you broke down the costs it was an absolute no brainer. We have our Moodle hosted and managed for us at $150 a month. That is spread between eleven schools. PD is another thing, but is no different than any other LMS.
Over a year on and I have absolutely no regrets. it is not just the cost. I have used Ultranet, FirstClass and MyClasses and Moodle is by the far the best option. it may not look as slick, but it does so much more.
Interested in how Google is going for your school. That might be the next step for us.
about 1 year ago
Yes in a time of ‘financial crisis’ it seems important to look at the bigger picture!! I don’t know about looking as slick ….ours looks pretty good with the amount of ‘tweaking’ Richard has done !!
Google Apps best thing we’ve done this year!!
about 1 year ago
I must add by 2cents worth… being a “Moodlegirl”
Moodle is definitely the cheaper option. For those of us luckily enough to have personnel that are capable of doing updates and backups and therefore can host our own servers there is further advantages I believe…
Because our Moodle server is hosted within our school, if or should I say WHEN our internet falls over my classes are not disrupted because we can still access on locally hosted server.
I was also going to mention that while students are at school accessing the server locally they are not using up any bandwidth (hope that is true) whereas a commercially hosted LMS (incl. Moodle) will require you to have internet access.
On the training front… most Moodlers are more than happy to share their expertise and in most cases FREE of charge. I personally have “trained” demonstrated to staff at Te Puke High school (for a bottle of wine) and Tauranga Intermediate.
Yesterday I attended an Ultranet presenation at Aquinas (more for the social aspect not because I am not being unfaithful to Moodle). They mentioned the cost and what I thought was suspect was the annual cost of $5 per student. While that sounds like a small sum of money, what happens 5 years down the track when all the staff have bought in so to speak and have wonderful resources available to their students 24/7. Will they put the reasonable amount of $5 up? and by how much? they can hold a school to ransom! Too late to change to the open source option when all the staff have invest 100′s of hours into their course pages. Or am I being a little too cynical??
about 1 year ago
$5 per student ..still $5000 per year for us at Katikati, plus I wonder what the install cost on top of that?
To be fair part of the MLE ministry requirements/aims is to ask all of the Vendors selected by them to make content ‘transportable’ between LMS’s ….as Moodle is already SCORM compliant …we are already ‘all good’!.
about 1 year ago
Perhaps I should just clarify Ultranet costs more than just the $5 per student. I did not write the amounts down last night. There was an initial set up cost which was determined by the number of kids in your school. I annual amount for the service and monthly fee for hosting AND the $5. Training was an an extortionate amount PER hour. I forget the actual amount but it was over $100