When to not choose Moodle (and when to choose it)

Major universities around the world use Moodle, including The Open University in the UK (who also contribute to Moodle’s development). It’s a complex platform on which a lot of things can be done, and the downside is that those who’re looking to do only one or two things may find it too complex for their needs.

If you want to do only the below things, I would strongly suggest you don't use Moodle because you can do these with simpler or more focused tools.

• Putting up content in the form of documents, videos, etc.
• Having a discussion forum
• Getting feedback from learners

But if you want to do some of the following Moodle is a great choice:

• Develop interactive online content
• Include learners in creating or adapting content
• Develop quizzes with a huge range of options
• Use learning analytics to get insights into the learners' experience
• Maintain a set of discussion forums on different topics with different groups of people, which can all be easily accessed in one place
• Orchestrate peer assessment activities
• Use conditional access to develop a sequenced learning experience
• Automatically award completion certificates based on criteria
• And of course, develop proper online courses

You can do a lot more -- I wrote the above points in a couple of minutes without thinking too deeply!

Moodle is an online learning platform. It is not a tool, it is not even a set of tools. It's more than the sum of its parts! It gives you great power, so you have a great responsibility in creating Moodle courses that are optimal -- courses that don't underwhelm or overwhelm learners!