Monarch Media, Inc., Business White Paper
Open-Source Learning
Management Systems:
Sakai and Moodle
Monarch Media, Inc.
406 Mission Street, Suite J
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
www.monarchmedia.com
831.457.4414 x113
White Paper | Open-Source Learning Management Systems
© 2010 Monarch Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

White Paper | Open-Source Learning Management Systems
© 2010 Monarch Media, Inc. All rights reserved.
Executive Summary
As education and training become more critical to suc-cess, organizations are struggling to find the right blend of people, protocols, and systems to manage their learn-
ing programs. During the past 15 years, learning management
systems (LMS) have become important for eLearning providers
as platforms to handle course registration, content storage and
delivery, assessments, administration, and reporting.
The LMS market, however, has remained highly fragmented.
No single vendor has gained dominance, and analyst firms that
track this industry, such as Bersin & Associatesi, report that
customers can choose from dozens of different providers. Each
vendor may target different types of organizations — including
multinational corporations, universities, government agen-
cies, and nonprofits — and all have strengths, weaknesses, and
costs.
Today, more than 40 percent of U.S. training organizations re-
port that they have an LMS installedii, but levels of satisfaction,
return on investment, and effectiveness vary, making selecting
the right tool for your situation a complex process.
In this environment, open-source LMS solutions have been
steadily gaining ground on their commercial counterparts.
Many of these open-source platforms got their start in aca-
demia, but they have made inroads in the government, non-
profit, and corporate markets. Today, the top open-source LMS
options provide:
ƒƒ Feature-rich toolsets;
ƒƒ Enterprise-grade stability, scalability, and security;
ƒƒ A high degree of control and flexibility; and
ƒƒ Generally lower long-term costs than commercial op-
tions.
This white paper provides an overview to help you decide if
an LMS is right for your organization. It will also explore the
strengths and weaknesses of open-source LMS solutions over-
all, and Moodle and Sakai, two of the most popular open-source
offerings, in particular.
Today, more
than 40 percent
of U.S. training
organizations report
that they have an
LMS installed.