At Kineo we are strong believers in open source software and the benefits that it can offer our clients.We have been strong advocates of Moodle and other open source software since our inception. Our websites are built with open source tools and we run Sugar CRM to manage our sales activities including our monthly newsletter.

Moodle

Moodle is a software package for creating online learning platforms which is used globally by tens of thousands of organizations.

Moodle is provided freely as Open Source software (under the GNU Public License).
The license allows people to copy, use and modify Moodle under the terms of the GNU Public License.

The use of open source software is growing across the software world and you may already use open source software such as:

• Mozilla Firefox Browser (now used by 25% of people)
• Mediawiki (the software behind Wikipedia)
• Linux operating system (which runs Google's servers)
  

Moodle has grown in popularity over recent years and despire starting in the education sector it has increasingly been adopted by corporate organizations. The latest survey by E-Learning Guild revealed that it was the most used Learning Management System (LMS) by corporations of all sizes in America.

Advocating Moodle for Corporate as well as Educational Use

At Kineo we are strong advocates of open source software in the corporate sector. We believe that Moodle LMS solutions can offer a great many benefits to our corporate clients not least license free core code, a wide range of robust functionality and a scalable soltuion, many Moodle sites have hundreds of thousands of users. We have developed, deployed and maintain customized Moodle LMS solutions for over 50 clients including Nikon, UK Ministry of Justice, Cable&Wireless, McDonald's, Virgin Media, BAT and BP.

A criticism we often hear about Moodle is that it was developed for education institutions and doesn't work so well for corporate organizations. We have worked with our corporate clients to identify where adjustments need to be made to make Moodle work better for corporate clients. As a consequence we have developed a series of Moodle Enterprise modules designed to meet corporate requirements and which we can plugin to Moodle to create effectively an Enterprise Moodle.

Supporting Moodle

The Moodle core code is developed, enhanced and maintained by the Moodle core development team, led by Martin Dougiamas. They do a fantastic job and are supported by Moodle partners in different countries, who make a financial contribution to Moodle's ongoing development. Moodle Partner status is awarded to organizations operating in specific countries and restricts Moodle partners operating globally. At Kineo we are focused on supporting our corporate clients globally as this is often a critical requirement in this sector. We are not therefore a Moodle partner but we are committed to the success of Moodle and contribute back in the following ways:

• we will make regular financial contributions to Moodle
  
• we will make code contributions, we recently contributed back our custom SCORM reporting module
• we will provide support through forums and bug reporting
• we will advocate Moodle strongly in our marketing activities
• we will share knowledge and documents, such as our Kineo Moodle user guide