Engaging without Over-powering: a Case Study of a FLOSS project

The role of Open Source Software (OSS) in the e-learning business
has become more and more fundamental in the last 10 years, as long as
corporate and government organizations have developed their educational and
training programs based on OSS out-of-the-box tools. This paper qualitatively
documents the decision of the largest UK e-learning provider, the Open
University, to adopt the Moodle e-learning system, and how it has been
successfully deployed in its site after a multi-million investment. A further
quantitative study also provides evidence of how a commercial stakeholder has
been engaged with, and produced outputs for, the Moodle community. Lessons
learned from this experience by the stakeholders include the crucial factors of
contributing to the OSS community, and adapting to an evolving technology.
It also becomes evident how commercial partners helped this OSS system to
achieve the transition from an “average” OSS system to a successful multisite,
collaborative and community-based OSS project.

Citation:
Capiluppi, Andrea; Baravalle, Andres; Heap, Nick W. (2010) ‘Engaging without Over-powering: a Case Study of a FLOSS project.’ 6th International IFIP WG 2.13 Conference on Open Source Systems, OSS 2010, Notre Dame, IN, USA, May 30 – June 2, 2010 pp. 21-41.