Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 164 posts

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?

#91

Post by michelb »

I worked for an e-learning company where they built a custom solution for various reasons, but mostly for flexibility.

Some of those reasons: - integration with other (client)systems - advanced payment integrations, like bulk sales to schools, free accounts for teachers, combination packages with books (separate ISBN's) etc. - ability to introduce way more types of content presentations and learning systems - work really well on mobile - make the UX way, way better - different ways of tracking progress, Xapi or something country specific

It was and is quite the investment, but they have complete control and they can offer something nobody else can.

We've looked at other solutions both open-source and commercial and most of them truly suck. They either contain too much or too little or require heavy customisation, or the UX is appalling.

Once you need to onboard organisations or schools, each with multiple departments and their demands/regulations, you're in for a world of hurt unless you can adapt your platform.

It really depends on what a 'teaching business' will be for you.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?

#93

Post by easton »

Part of it is probably the cross compatibility requirements. SCORM and LTIs and all that stuff mean that content has to be able to render the same way for the textbook publishers and everyone else to sell content to schools running on any LMS.

Canvas may seem a little old school but I really like it. It’s not that hard to extend, API is good (they even expose graphql to students) and it’s fast. It feels like it was made by humans, as opposed to every other LMS that feels like it was made by a bunch of people in suits for school administrators. (Much like GitHub in that respect.)

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?

#95

Post by fabbari »

claviska wrote: post #62

I haven’t worked in academia for over 10 years, but back in the day Blackboard would either purchase or squash it’s competitors with litigation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANGEL_Learning https://www.zdnet.com/article/blackboard-wins-e-learning-pat... They even sued the government to prevent reexamination of their patents. https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/12/01/da... As an open source author who…

Their patent is currently expired [0] in the US - but yes: it is a great example of overly generic patents.

[0] https://patents.google.com/patent/US6988138B1/en

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?

#96

Post by indirectlylit »

sails wrote: post #87
indirectlylit wrote: post #65

At Learning Equality we build and maintain Kolibri. It's an open-source, offline-first, self-hosted learning platform. https://learningequality.org/kolibri/ https://github.com/learningequality/kolibri/

How does it compare to Moodle/Canvas in terms of intended use? I have a contact who is looking for an LMS for teacher education, and kolibri looks probably appropriate.

Unlike most other learning platforms, Kolibri supports users that don't necessarily have fast or consistent internet access.

While it can be hosted in the cloud, it is designed to run on a local network so that the experience is fast and responsive, and is specific for the needs in places with limited internet. Content and data can be synced to other locations as-needed.

See also https://kolibri.readthedocs.io/

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?

#97

Post by acbart »

major505 wrote: post #94

I would really take a second look to moodle. It's very customizable, have some good mobile apps, and a great api, so you can extend it to your heart's desire.

Built on PHP, over-engineered, and terrible out-of-the-box UI. I wouldn't personally recommend Moodle, unless you had no other option. It takes all of my energy to resist suggesting you just write your own LMS from scratch instead of using Moodle...

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?

#98

Post by chasd00 »

I toured a upper elementary school a couple weeks ago where they were building a remote learning system inside Roblox. I thought that was pretty cool (a little over ambitious for Dallas ISD though).

My son was all about it obvious haha.

Salesforce LMS (trailheads) is really good and although not open source they are planning or already have released it as a product.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?

#99

Post by cycomanic »

easton wrote: post #93

Part of it is probably the cross compatibility requirements. SCORM and LTIs and all that stuff mean that content has to be able to render the same way for the textbook publishers and everyone else to sell content to schools running on any LMS. Canvas may seem a little old school but I really like it. It’s not that hard to extend, API is good (they even expose graphql to students) and it’s fast. It feels like it was m…

I agree with you canvas is actually very good at what it is supposed to do. I had to work with blackboard previously and I still have nightmares. Also regarding innovation in this space. I think we've actually seen quite a lot of movement in this space. Over the last 5-10 years many university moved from proprietary solutions like blackboard or custom solutions on top of some cms to open source solutions with open interfaces. There is a whole community of plugins and extensions and consultants writing oss extensions.

Re: Ask HN: Why is there no good open-source LMS?

#100

Post by BudaDude »

zecg wrote: post #66

Moodle is actually great, IMO. You can customize the UI to your liking and integrate it with bigbluebutton for a complete solution that includes remote learning classrooms instances as need arises, with full recording of lectures.

Moodle is good until you realize that the documentation on it is garbage.
Post reply on HN