Moodle is an Open Source Course Management System, also referred to as a Virtual Learning Environment or a Learning Management System. Over the past decade, Moodle has become increasingly popular among educators across the globe as a tool for creating online dynamic web sites for students. It has a multitude of features considered typical of an e-learning platform such as grading, assignment submission, and discussion forum, plus some original innovations such as authentication methods, question types, and graphical themes. To use, it simply needs to be installed on a web server either on one's personal computer or at a web hosting company.

Moodle serves as a great grading tool with specific features implemented for both instructor and student users, however it lacks many desired graphical features.

Good Features:

• Both instructor and student views
• Electronic submission of graded work
• Navigation box on the left side of the page
• Basic overview report showing grade and percentage for all courses
• More detailed user report for a specific course showing a breakdown of all assignments
• Grader report showing a spreadsheet of all students in that course and the grades for their assignments
• Icons next to assignments representing different items such as a quiz, an assignment, a forum, etc.
• The grade book can have separate categories
• Links to a more detailed description of each assignment
• Different types of grading aggregation (sum of grades, simple weighted means of grades, weighted means of grades)
• Can create, save, and share grade book templates
• Can sort the grade book by column
• For submitted assignments, the instructor can either download an individual students work or all submissions
• Detailed submission status for uploaded assignments
• The option to override tests taken online

Bad Features:

• Bland shading of the tables in the user report
• The late penalty feature is only available for exams and quizzes, not regular assignments
• Cannot create an extra credit category with just extra credit items placed within it
• Must have at least one non-extra credit item in that category
• Dropping the lowest HW or exam is overly complicated
• Description of what the action icons do should be somewhere on the page
• Grader report spreadsheet columns are only collapsable via 3 modes. Can't collapse specific assignments (all or none)
• To display categories a certain way, one button cycles through all the modes -- not a drop-down menu
• Can only choose to look at one or all students, not a specific group
• When 'Drop the lowest' and 'Keep the highest' options are selected, the former overrides the latter

Missing Features:

• Determine future grade based off of assignments and exams not yet entered
• Students can see the grades of everyone (only the grades, no identification) to see where they rank in their class and other sections overall and each assignment
• A way to see exam scores from previous classes
• Instructors can change the curve of a class by moving a bar on a spreadsheet of the students
• Students can move a bar on a spreadsheet to see what their grade would be as a 'what if the curve was changed to here?'
• A way for the student to know how a course or specific category is being curved
• A pie chart representing a students grade per category and the ability to see 'what if I had more points in this category?'