Moodle Association Membership Thoughts: Mountain Moot 2015
August 3, 2015 |
Here is some additional info about the Moodle Association Membership…
All members will pay a tiered membership fee which will be collected and managed by an elected committee. Rates will be AU $100 – AU $10,000 per year [US$ 74.10 to US$ 7,400). All (Moodle Association) members can then propose development projects, and then the Association will regularly go through a systematic voting process to determine the top priorities of the group. The funds will then be applied to paying Moodle HQ to develop the specified projects in Moodle core for the entire community.
1 From blog.kentbrooks.com/?p=2750 8 August 2015 Some of the key items I heard at the conference which were are not explicitly in the draft (You must remember this is a draft, especially the dollars & tiers) of the Moodle Association Rules which this new structure will overcome.
A steady of revenue for new development for systemic sustainable change. Many things have been tried as fundraisers but none have presented a steady stream of income.
Good ideas having a chance at becoming core. In a community this large good ideas often get lost in the Moodle weeds. The focus here will be to provide a group whose job is to purposefully identify great ideas and move them to core.
2 From blog.kentbrooks.com/?p=2750 8 August 2015 The two images below are very informative in comparing how the current financial model works and how the new model will work.
The Old Moodle Money Model:
3 From blog.kentbrooks.com/?p=2750 8 August 2015 The New Moodle Money Model with the Moodle Association:
Why this might work:
The sheer size of the Moodle Community with 50,000 registered sites, over 119 million enrollments, and 56 million users in 214 countries makes it feasible for the Association to raise significant financing for the development of new projects.
Martin’s ever watchful eyes and altruistic controlling hand. Martin owns the Moodle copyright is committed to the GPL licensing model and thus has still has more influence than all the gold in the Moodle universe.
“Moodle has aged well” (Thanks for the quote Jonathan Moore), the community is huge, but more importantly it is still passionate.
Something needed to happen to improve access to available support services, at least in the US market. In my sphere of influence, Moodle Partners have become less and less influential as they simply have not provided services needed in the marketplace. Smaller entities/ organizations need for service and support were often left out. I have seen more and more consultants and nonMoodle Partner companies pop up to fill the gap in this area. Our poor experience with a former Moodle Partner led us away from the Partner Ecosystem to a 3rd party support provider that fit our needs much better.
In many other cases partners are customizing portions of their offerings and not contributing it all back to the community or at least making it so difficult to deploy those enhance features that it would be next to impossible for most organizations to take advantage of those features without a partner. It must be noted this is not necessarily bad in every case and may actually
4 From blog.kentbrooks.com/?p=2750 8 August 2015 get features into Moodle that otherwise may require too many community resources which essentially is the goal of the Association.
It seems to me pushing all new development may force innovation back to the community and keep it in the community rather than having a Moodle Partner customizing something and not making all of that value available to the community. This change is pretty drastic and tells me Martin trusts the greater community to share more than he trusts the Moodle Partners to share.
Why this might not work:
Love of money often sours the best intentions. The Moodle Association is well thought out, but there will be those who care more about the money than educating students. The sheer size of a passionate community may be in a position to limit this issue, but it will always be a threat in a gated community where some can buy more influence than others.
Remote Learner withdrew as a Moodle partner just a few short weeks ago, but are apparently going to continue as a member of the Moodle Association. It is very feasible that Remote Learner as a Moodle Association Member can contribute much less (financially) than they would have to a Moodle partner.
As a partner, ten (10) percent of any money paid to a Moodle Partner goes towards the Moodle project, so by choosing a Moodle Partner you are helping Moodle software to evolve. Good year, bad year, the 10% requirement is always there. Sixtyish Moodle Partners worldwide does equate to a lot of moola, benjamins, pesos, Euros Aussies etc etc etc. This money has supported core and will continue … However, if very many Moodle partners determine that it is more cost effective to withdraw as a partner and only support the future of Moodle as a Moodle Association member it may take some rethinking about how this trek should proceed. (524)
Written by kentbrooks
Kent Brooks is the IT Director at Casper College in Casper Wyoming, is a blogger on various technology topics for his own blog KentBrooks.com, a contributor to MoodleNews, and Wes Fryers Internationally acclaimed "Speed of Creativity" blog. He served as Chief Technology Officer/ Dean /Computer Coordinator at Higher Education Institutions in Oklahoma and New Mexico for nearly 20 years. While in New Mexico he was actively involved in the Los Alamos National Laboratory EDUNET program which sought to bring telecommunications technologies to the four corners area of the US. Kent has been heavily involved in numerous teacher-training projects and efforts to bring networking and telecommunications technologies to rural areas. His grant writing efforts have brought over $50 million dollars to equip rural schools, tribal complexes and museums across the US with distance learning technologies. Kent's work interests include the acquisition of technology and training resources for rural under served communities. More specifically his work interest and focus is on the "open" or "free" software movement and its impact on delivery of
5 From blog.kentbrooks.com/?p=2750 8 August 2015 technological services in education.
6 From blog.kentbrooks.com/?p=2750 8 August 2015