The Moodle Platform: A Study in a Higher Education Portuguese Institution

Abstract

This chapter analyzes Learning Management Systems (LMSs) and their main features and compares the most popular LMSs platforms considering their utilization and the services they offer. Additionally, it presents a study carried out at the University of Aveiro (UA) that analyses the functionalities and tools of the Moodle platform and their use by students. The data was collected based on content analysis, one non-structured interview with the responsible of the Moodle from the UA and a questionnaire applied to 278 students. The results show that the most mentioned purposes of the Moodle@UA were ‘Download materials', ‘News' and ‘Deliver assignments' and that the most used information materials are ‘Texts' and ‘Slides', showing that despite Moodle has a great potential, it is mainly used as a repository of materials. The results also highlighted the existence of two groups of students distinguished by the degree of importance given to the Moodle tools.