California State University to Offer Moodle through MoodleroomsNov 19, 2008 1:00 AM EST
Largest system of public higher education provides choice in online learning services
Long Beach, CA (11/19/08) – Moodlerooms, a full-service provider for Moodle, the popular open source online learning management system (LMS), announced today that it will be collaborating with the California State University to provide essential services such as hosting, training, and support for the CSU campuses that choose Moodle for their LMS needs. Moodlerooms will be one of two options, Angel Learning was also selected, to provide learning management services for the CSU.
“Our goal is to provide CSU campuses with a structured process to review enterprise learning management systems that satisfy both near and long-term requirements for supporting quality instruction with technology,” said Kathy Fernandes, director of CSU LMS initiatives at CSU’s Office of the Chancellor. “Moodle is an open source program that is gaining momentum, has no licensing fees and provides the flexibility that our campuses need to integrate with existing systems. Moodle also meets the W3C accessibility standards that enable CSU campuses to improve access to instruction for all our students.”
According to Moodlerooms Chief Executive Officer Martin Knott, “Moodlerooms is proud to have been selected to provide its services to the largest university system in the country. By using Moodle as their LMS and Moodlerooms as their service provider, each CSU campus can meet federal accessibility standards and be afforded the opportunity to expand their resources by paying only for the services they use.”
As chair of the CSU LMS committee that selected a Moodle partner to maintain and support the project, Fernandes said they were chosen because of their flexibility in working with the CSU. “Because Moodle is an open source product, it was important to find an open and flexible learning management services provider that was willing to collaborate with the CSU. Moodlerooms services provide the scalability, integration experience and training program we need plus their willingness to work with the CSU system made them the logical choice to meet our Moodle needs.”
Moodlerooms has already started work on pilot programs to ease the transition for campuses that choose Moodle. “We are using Moodlerooms services to create such programs for a number of campuses, as well as Moodlerooms development sites to start testing custom development and integrations,” added Fernandes.
As part of the CSU, Humboldt State has been a long time Moodle advocate, and over the years faculty and student on the campus have been active participants in the development and modification of the Moodle code. Many of the solutions HSU worked on are now available as plugins at Moodle.org
“Our goals are quite simple, provide the option for a scalable and sustainable open source LMS to the 23 campuses. The beneficiary will be the students,” said Knott.
About The California State University
The California State University is the largest system of senior higher education in the country, with 23 campuses, approximately 450,000 students year round and 46,000 faculty and staff. Since the system was created in 1961, it has awarded nearly 2.5 million degrees, about 89,000 annually. CSU is renowned for the quality of its teaching and for the job-ready graduates it produces. Its mission is to provide high-quality, affordable education to meet the ever-changing needs of the people of California. With its commitment to excellence, diversity and innovation, CSU is the university system that is working for California. For more information, please visit www.calstate.edu.