Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS), discontinued vs. Moodle

Any school that has Jenzabar database as their CRM will benefit from having Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS) also included in the environment. Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS) gives a reasonable interface to present the information stored in the database to the student and also gives the student the ability to register and change their courses online.Also, with bills being online, you don't have to print and mail the bills out to students.

Incentivized

Moodle is a Learning Management System and is best suited for just that. We didn't like the assessment piece of our full scale Learning Management System (nor did we want to purchase the entire assessment module) so we chose to use Moodle for this, and it works well. Installing this application with the intention of only using a portion of its capabilities can be successful in environments where you have technical skills and a broad understanding of integration between your systems. For institutions that lack these, you're better suited to using a full scale of an LMS with assessment inside that same application.

Incentivized

• Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS) is good at interacting with the Jenzabar database.
• Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS) can integrate with Active Directory to allow for one set of credentials and also has its own credential management system for local accounts to be created.
• Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS) will display grades as soon as they are entered into the Jenzabar database.

Incentivized

• Moodle's grade book works well. Assignments are integrated so the grades are recorded automatically.
• Moodle is customizable by administrators, so our version only gives us the options we need. NO Clutter.
• The discussion board offers several options for instructors that help with grading. I use "sum of points", but there are other options as well.

Incentivized

• Jenzabar is unwilling to work with other companies to integrate information across multiple platforms.
• The quality of JICS is contingent upon appropriate use and entry by those on campus. While not a limitation to JICS itself, there seems to be more problems with JICS in this regard than I have noticed on other campuses with other platforms.
• JICS is typically behind on the times. Features it adds today were commonplace for others much earlier.

Incentivized

• Rubric Management. This may have been addressed in a plugin module.
• Better tools for examining outcomes from exams and rubrics across a class, course, or organization. This may have been addressed in a plugin module.
• Improved content management within the default installation. While there are modules that support products such as Drupal, building into the default product would ease adoption.

Incentivized

We use it because it is what have committed to back in 2011. Perhaps Moodle will evolve and advance in a positive way that will alleviate most of our user-based gripes? Perhaps it will not appear to be as cost effective given the need for a certain level of engineering and support staff to maintain it at a future level of sustainability? It's hard to say. As an enterprise scale critical application, we like it, but don't love it. Our instructors don't particularly like it at all.

Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS) is very usable and easy to maintain. With us having students log in with their AD credentials, they don't have to remember an extra username and password. Also, I have been able to update and customize some of the coding, which has allowed us to make sure the site works just the way we want it to.

Incentivized

I've been able to figure out Moodle through my own experimentation and some help from the Moodle support pages. It's not always obvious where to make certain some changes and It can be a little confusing in determining which pages blocks will appear. If this is your first time using Moodle as an admin/course designer you should expect to spend a some time experimenting because knowing where to make certain changes isn't always intuitive. Additionally, plan to explore the course as a student vs. as admin because the UI is different based upon your settings

Incentivized

I have worked in Moodle for over 10 years in two different organizations, and I have never experienced an outage. We have about 600 courses in our current account and the only outage we have had is FlashChat add-in we use for live chats, within Moodle, hence the reason for the nine (9). If you all know of Moodle vendors willing to help us upgrade from 1.9, Please wend me their info.

Incentivized

Moodle is an excellent LMS in relationship to any other one that I have seen or used. The pages load quickly and the reports complete in a reasonable time frame. Moodle has taken on Respondus, StudyMate, BigBlueButton, Turning Tech, Turnitin2, Certificates, Attendance, Tegrity, Questionnaire, Virtual Programming Lab, and Badges. All of these programs work right in with Moodle and do not cause any issues. Instructors may also use Camtasia and Snagit software as well as using webcams, downloading videos from the Internet, adding into books, or any of the many other areas within Moodle. Our instructors use the grade books without many problems and really don't ask questions much anymore. We upgrade Moodle every semester and are currently on 2.9+. Our instructors have basically learned to use most of the resources and activities.

Incentivized

Support is generally very helpful. There are some support staff that really try to go the extra mile and help with solving the problem you have, not just answering your initial question. If you don't understand a feature that is offered in the Jenzabar Internet Campus Solution (JICS) environment, they also have a portal with on-demand webinars/courses that you can watch to get a better idea of offerings at your own base.

Incentivized

I can consider Moodle as one of the pioneer in providing online learning. Before the introduction of other Learning Management Software, Moodle has been in place already in the field of education and so I believe that Moodle is definitely one of a kind software that all teachers should try and utilize in making sure that the online learning is a good experience.

Incentivized

I have used a few sites and they were adequate but my best learning experience was face to face and hands on.

Incentivized

Find a partner who will work with you during the implementation process. Be sure to provide ample training for veteran users on the changes and for newbies on the overall product.

Incentivized

We selected JICS many years ago as it was a cost-effective option that was streamlined and straight-forward. Today, no one is ever thrilled with their SIS, and I can anticipate major difficulties if we attempted to move from JICS. However, from a features and revolutionary standpoint, I do feel we will always be a step behind if we continue with Jenzabar.

Incentivized

Moodle, being open source, is the foundation a lot of other tools like it are based on. It provides almost all of the same functionality and feature set as Google Classtoom, Canvas, etc., although those products are a bit more polished. All can do content delivery, progress tracking, attendance, reporting, etc. with ease, but Moodle also does this as a completely open source product that can be code-reviewed, audited, modified, extended, etc. at will, provided the expertise is present.

Well, I administer Moodle for a dozen of our divisions and there is a wide range of flexibility between offerings. I have course instructors who use every module i their course, chock full of videos, pictures, links to web tools for synchronous sessions within the asynchronous course. I also have others who are content with a syllabus, a few pdfs, links to podcast lectures and a few simple assignments. No matter if your organization is big or small, or if your requirements are strict for credentialing or non-existent (for internal know-how), Moodle can accommodate you.

Incentivized

• Jenzabar has allowed us to house all data in one system, which was badly needed.
• Jenzabar allows us to speak one language across campus, although many offices still work outside of Jenzabar due to limitations within JICS.
• Jenzabar has not been effective in being a leader in new features or developments. I always feel like we are a step behind.

Incentivized

• Moodle has allowed the business to track all training initiatives. Since, November 2014 we have loaded 54 courses, 339 users, 889 resources, issued 719 badges, and created over 100 course modules.
• Our company just got a new applicant tracking system for the recruiters to use. In order to get all of the employees up to speed we created trainings that we loaded into Moodle. The participants and participation was tracked and we were able to find correlations between users engaged in training and their activity in the new applicant tracking system. This is a significant win for the training department, our learners, our company, and especially Moodle.
• Moodle also provides great customer service for our internal employees. They now have one place to go to find all their resources, all their training, and all the help they need for any training questions. Instead of scattering information on the intranet. Training is more official when it has its own domain.

Incentivized