The Best Low Cost and Open Source Alternatives to Blackboard LMS
Save Ten of Thousands of Dollars: Best Alternatives to the Blackboard Academic Suite
Here are some LMS alternatives to blackboard’s pricing structure which I believe runs upwards of $10,000 for most universities. The three main components of an open source (or at least free) alternative to blackboard would be:
• social networking and discussion forums with Ning (or a Facebook group)
• using the grading platform provided by Google docs/google spreadsheets
• other content creation options using Blogs, Wikis, and Scribd.
• any number of free e-portfolio sites.
• Moodle, Sakai, and dotlearn are all open source platforms for creating e-learning curriculum (although I’ve never heard of anyone using Dot Learn–but thats my own lack of knowledge)
• And if you need web space, Microsoft Live spaces provides a wealth of free web space to educational institutions.
There has recently been a lot of buzz over finding and using alternatives to blackboard (in fact Blackboard recently sued a company for providing similar services). However, the tools above are not subject to lawsuit from Blackboard and provide fantastic, free, and easy to use tools. Probably the place where this offering is most lacking is the grading area, however there are several tools which offer free or low cost services which offer fantastic alternatives to blackboard. In fact, there is an iphone grading application, which might provide all the needed help.
How do open source platforms stack up versus the Blackboard learning management system (LMS)? Here is what Google says in the battle royale between Blackboard and Moodle.
What do you think are the best alternatives to the LMS and other educational technology features of Blackboard? Is there anything Blackboard can do that these alternatives can’t? Is there a case for “small pieces loosely joined” to provide a viable free alternative to blackboard?
Compassion in Politics: Christian Social Entrepreneurship, Education Innovation, & Base of the Pyramid/BOP Solutions 
In fact, here is a pretty extensive open education syllabus:
http://opencontent.org/wiki/index.php?title=Intro_Open_Ed_Syllabus
Kevin Lim’s wiki is a pretty decent example of this:
http://theory.wikispaces.com/
Also, schools can look at Scholar360, a Learning Management System that combines a secure social network, Web 2.0 tools, collaborative communities, and more.
In some cases, Scholar360 is less expensive than an open source model for some schools.
Cathy,
Any idea what your system costs for the a school of 500?
Edvance360 LMS-SN (formerly called Scholar360 LMS-SN) would likely be around $16K for a Higher Education institution. For a K-12 school, it would likely be around $3K. That includes hosting, training, technical support, Learning Outcomes, repositories, and ePortfolios.
I noticed Instructure.com in the paid Google search results. Its has nice design to boot!
http://www.instructure.com/
Here is a pay option:
https://www.schoology.com/
I would post their pricing, but I didn’t see it. Its also an LMS + social media.
http://www.learnboost.com/
They are free and taking on Pearson and Blackboard (correction: its actually freemium, but certainly this is potentially a better option which is worth checking out). They are headed by a Harvard graduate and have great backing funding-wise.
This also looks cool. Not sure if it overlaps with Blackboard’s feature set, however:
http://www.syllabontes.com/
For schools that want more than just software and/or hosting. Package includes 24/7 Help Desk, Client Service Consultants to assist your staff with running your programs, staff and instructor training, instructional design support for instructors, ePorfolios, synchronous and asynchronous tools, a custom branded online campus, etc. Pricing can be annual or fee-per-user.
Another option is Studifi, it has a social networking aspect but mostly it digs into collaboration and allows students to work in teams really well. Mostly it’s really affordable.