Skill: Navigate 2.1.3 – Commercial versus Open Virtual Classrooms Quest

Consider for a moment the role of synchronous learning in the virtual classroom and the exploration of various synchronous applications. When would an open source application take precedence over a commercial product? Using these quests as a point of reference, discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the open source versus commercial software in relation to synchronous learning in your blog.

Often in the world of virtual learning cost is a factor. How expensive is it to run a program and is it actually cost effective? Though decisions often come down to money, when looking at synchronous applications for learning there are open source and commercial software available and there are strengths and weaknesses to each.

	Open Source	Commercial
Strengths	1) Free 2) Community support 3) Open – so can be viewed, modified, and downloaded by anyone	1) Developed and maintained by someone else Training is available 2) Vendors can take your considerations and need when developing add ons 3) Easy to get started
Weaknesses	If not tech savvy can be harder to maneuver	Cost – start up and continuous fee

I can see how both of these softwares could be useful. Cost should not be the only thing looked at. When considering a synchronous platform. When choosing between the two, the thing that needs to first be considered is the needs of the organization and the user. How tech savvy are they? What exactly do they need? Will their needs be stationary or ever changing?  How reliable are the platforms? An organization does not want to start on one platform just to have to switch midstream.

I personally think that for big organizations like GaVS using a commercial platform makes sense so our technologies departments’ time and talent can be used somewhere else in our organization.