Not so crazy about Moodle? Try Chamilo
Moodle, Moodle, Moodle. It’s popular. It has helped many people quickly set up their company’s web-based training. But truth be told, it doesn’t really do much for me. I have never found it fun or sexy or even intuitive. I imagine many people feel that way. So what’s Moodle got going for it, then? It’s FREE, it’s easy to set up, and there’s a thriving development community behind it that can help you when you get stuck.
Well, in case you didn’t know, there’s another game in town by the name of Dokeos. It’s not as well known in North America, but it’s huge in other countries. Dokeos mirrors Moodle in many ways: it’s easy to set up, uses the same technology (PHP/MySQL), is open-source, and has a very large developer community. Dokeos has a much different look and feel than Moodle, which I find a little cleaner and easier to use. (Disclaimer: I test drove Dokeos over a year ago and haven’t tried the latest versions)
But there’s trouble brewing in Dokeosland. Apparently there were significant differences of opinion regarding the future of Dokeos, prompting Yannick Warnier (the lead developer) as well as the entire development staff to leave the Dokeos project. While this is probably very disconcerting to Dokeos users, Yannick and the former Dokeos developers are not leaving anyone hanging… they’ve forked Dokeos’ open-source code and used it to create a new LMS named Chamilo. It’s basically Dokeos under-the-hood, but with newer features and a new direction. They’re dedicated to the notion of open-source software, and are ensuring Chamilo stays open.
I highly recommend giving Chamilo a spin. I’m looking forward to trying it myself.
Side note: if you’re looking for more alternatives to Moodle, you can also try Ilias. It’s pretty nice, too.
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Big fan of Ilias as it’s cleaner looking by default and supports 2004 and the Seq/Nav too.
thanks for the subject i’am very interseted in the concept of LMS and my question what is the best LMS tools in the market.
As far as I have heard (from Dokeos I must admit) is that there is quite some disinformation coming from Chamilo because they want to take over the clients and community of Dokeos. Allow me te list the main topics that I recall
* Dokeos is still open source
* Dokeos bases it developments on the need of the clients while Chamilo is developed by programmers (usability problems, too complex for normal users, concepts that are good from a point of view of a developer but that users do not need, …)
* Dokeos still have its own developers (chamilo says that all developers have left dokeos and joined chamilo)
* the lead developer (who has left) apparently called himself the lead developer
* the split is more about money that the chamilo people want to admit (apparently Dokeos refused the developers a pay raise)
I also want to add that this is the information I heard first hand from Dokeos so the truth lies probably somewhere in the middle.
*
@frank thanks, it’s good to hear both sides
I have tried both and Chamilo is the same Dokeos, in the future, versions 2 and up may turn a bit differently. I have also tested Chamilo 2.0 Beta and is amazing, wait for Dokeos 2.0 wich I am sure will be almost the same.
Dokeos has some “flavors” as the call their paid and open source versions; I see no problem using only the open source version; for the rest of us, If you ever need to try look for Claroline http://www.claroline.net wich is so simple that works!
Ahhh, Dokeos is a fork of Claroline..
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