Better Together: Open LMS and eThink Education Join Teams to Provide World-Class Moodle™ Support

By: Phill Miller

In the last seven months, we’ve been busy recreating who Open LMS is and who we want to be, making crucial investments in creating capacity for innovation around Moodle™. We started with the idea that we wanted to build the best Moodle™ team in the world, and I think we’re well on our way to doing just that.

We’re not perfect, but we are seeing consistent improvement across our business, and our clients are starting to notice. I’m hearing great feedback from our clients, and, in those situations where things go wrong, I’ve also been hearing about how well our team has responded and handled the situation.

That’s why I’m so excited to announce that we have acquired eThink Education, one of the world’s largest Moodle™ providers. eThink Education, as a company, has built its business around an almost maniacal focus on providing excellent customer care and building deep relationships with its clients. We are committed to continuing our improvement in customer success by expanding this team and learning from the success that it’s had.

Most importantly, I’m excited about what it means for eThink customers and for Open LMS customers. We see so many benefits to our clients and community, some of which happen immediately, and some of which will happen over the next few months. The most immediate benefit to both, of course, is the size and skill of the combined team that will be supporting these clients. eThink is a team of about 40 people, with many of them in the United States, but some in Europe and Asia-Pacific as well. When combined with our recent addition of eCreators and also the Moodle™ expertise of our sister company LEO Learning, we’ve got the broadest and deepest set of talent in the Moodle-verse.

The second big benefit I see, both to our existing clients and to those that join us from eThink, is the consistently growing community of educators, trainers, and educational technologists around the world.

Back in April, we had about 700 Moodle™ clients in our global community, but with our recent growth and now with eThink, we’re over 1,460 hosted Moodle™ clients in our community, representing over 120 countries. Our community now has the scale and the mechanisms to truly begin sharing best practices at scale, and with the passion of our users, I can’t wait to see what happens. In a normal, non-COVID-dominated world, I’d probably be inviting you to join all of our clients at a user conference or something, but, for obvious reasons, that’s not happening soon. So there are two mechanisms I’ll mention specifically that benefit from scale. The first is the Open LMS Community, which is a great way to connect with educators from around the world. The second is the E-Learn Magazine, where we share the stories and perspectives of the heroes of eLearning.

The third thing that I’ll mention is just continued investment in great leaders in EdTech. Any time that you consider bringing two companies together, you’re making a bet on its leadership. We just brought on Dean Saunders and Sally Mattheson, and I’m so delighted to bring Brian Carlson and Cheryl Patsavos onto the Open LMS leadership team. I’ve had the privilege of knowing Brian and Cheryl for the last eight years, and I’ve seen the way that they’ve built their company and the way that they’ve supported the Moodle™ community. It’s impressive. Their history with Ellucian and their passion for education, training, and for the success of learners is second to none, and we’re going to do great things together.

Finally, and maybe most importantly, is that we believe this opens up capacity for true innovation. Moodle™ has always been the most powerful, flexible LMS on the market, but the combination of Open LMS, eCreators, and eThink creates something new, with the resources and investment to do new things around the platform. Both Open LMS and eThink have been very active participants in the Moodle™ and EdTech communities for many years, and we plan to do even more going forward.

Until we’re able to gather in person, there are a number of ways you can get involved and stay aware of the big developments to come:

• Join the Open LMS Community
• Subscribe to E-Learn Magazine
• Get in touch with us to learn more

To get more details about how you can benefit from this awesome new company that we are building together, please attend one of the following Live Sessions we will be holding this week:

NA/EMEA: DEC 9th, 11 AM ET - 4:00 PM BST - Register here.

APAC: DEC 10th, 12 PM AEDT - Register here.

LAC & España: DEC 10th, 10 AM (Col, Mx, Pe) - 4 PM (España) - Regístrese aquí.