Blackboard will no longer be available, as a learning management system at San Jose City College or Evergreen Valley College, as of summer 2010.
Some courses offer Blackboard and others offer Moodle this semester. However, Blackboard will be eliminated because of “state financial crisis, along with the escalating costs for Blackboard,” according to the online “Recommendation to Adopt Moodle” on the SJCC wep page.
Moodle is an open source (free) system whereas Blackboard requires a licensing fee, said Jane Rice, an instructional technologist who manages the program for SJCC.
“It costs more than $50,000 a year to license it,” Rice said.
The Course Management Task Force of San Jose City College and Evergreen.
Community College District recommended to the technology committees that SJECCD adopt Moodle as the sole learning management system for the district in May. Both committees at  SJCC and EVC approved the recommendation and the transition began.
“You can’t suddenly stop one and start the other,” said Rice.
Other factors that contributed to the proposal of adopting Moodle were technical issues, Rice said. Also, the fact that Blackboard is introducing a new version, the old will be discontinued.
“It gives us more control (switching to Moodle), not being forced by a company to switch to a new version,” Rice said.
There was also a “widespread dissatisfaction and frustration” among faculty members and students, according to the Web Page. Technical difficulties, troubleshooting and time consuming uploads were some of the frustrations.
“It took some time to learn how to use Blackboard, but I had to learn to keep up with my grades in my classes. I had to just play around with it,” said David Cruz, 20, business major. 
According to the Web page, Moodle is a successful alternative to Blackboard. A survey conducted at the end of a Moodle pilot, showed high satisfaction among students and faculty at SJCC.
Rice has held training workshops for faculty since March; she has already trained more than 100 instructors.
“Generally they find it easier than Blackboard,” Rice said.
According to a report by the University of Victoria, Blackboard is “Designed for teacher directed/centered delivery of content” and it is geared for lower level courses and large classes. Moodle focuses on “group work, collaboration, communication, sharing, activities, and critical reflection, a collaborative type of learning.”
“I have used Moodle for most of my classes, and well, you just get the hang of it after a while. Nothing really hard about it,” said Aaron Vasquez, 23, sociology major.
“I think I’m going to have a hard time adjusting to Moodle, since I have never used it. I am used to Blackboard, but if I have to, to keep up with my classes then I will. No questions asked,” said Steven John, 21, Undeclared.

HOW THE SYSTEMS COMPARE
Moodle: upload files. linking to external Web sites. discussion forums. quizzes. tests. drop box, course content, calendar and grades. works on dial up. Photos are nested threads. Able to send messages to offline users, they will receive message once logged in and it will be emailed. Allows all users in the course to communicate. Instructors’ assignments automatically save to course calendar and upcoming events. Open source, no licensing fee.

Blackboard: upload files. linking to external Web sites. discussion forums. quizzes. tests. drop box, course content, calendar and grades. Bandwidth times out. Can only see photo posts one at a time. Can only send messages to online users. Only allows to send e-mail to all instructors, students or those in a subsequent group. Instructors’ assignments do not automatically save to course calendar or upcoming events. Requires licensing fee.