[EN] FAQ - Open Moodle Platform

What is Open Moodle?

Open Moodle is an online course learning platform built on the open-source LMS Moodle. It is primarily dedicated to learners outside UCLouvain, offering both self-paced learning paths and supervised learning experiences.

The teaching community at UCLouvain collaboratively adds resources and courses they believe will benefit teachers and learners worldwide.

Open Moodle supports online and open education by providing open, accessible, and reusable educational resources, while also allowing for closed online training sessions.

What can I find on Open Moodle?

On Open Moodle, you can find two types of resources: Courseware and Online Courses.  Many of these resources are Open, but not all. Open resources are freely accessible and openly licensed, available to anyone, anytime via the web. (OEConsortium).

CourseWare (CW) is a digital publication made of university‐level educational materials. These materials are organized as courses and often include thematic content. When the resource is free and open, it is called an Open CourseWare (OCW). CW and OCW on OpenMoodle do not provide teaching assistance, which means that learners are autonomous in their learning.

Online Course (OC) adds another dimension to the courseware, by incorporating interactions with teachers and other participants. These courses offer a comprehensive educational experience, often requiring no additional teaching support. When a course is open to everyone, it is usually called an Open Online Course (OOC). If access is unlimited, it is referred to as a Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).  Some of our online courses, called Online Courses for Credits, includes evaluations and credits.

“Access types”, what does it mean?

Each course on Open Moodle provides one of the following access types:

1. Free Access: This option allows learners worldwide to access and follow the course anonymously. The course is covered by a Creative Commons license, which means the resources of the course can be reused and redistributed. 

2. Access with Key: A course under this option is accessible only to a specific public with a key distributed by the teachers. Thanks to this key, learners can access and follow the course anonymously. Most of these courses may be under a Creative Commons license. 

3. Free Self-Registered Access: Learners worldwide can access a course under this option after self-registration. Self-registration is free and enables learners to follow specific activities. Most of these courses may be under a Creative Commons license. 

4. Access by Invitation: This option restricts course access to learners registered by the teachers. Registration allows learners to engage in specific activities, while allowing teachers to manage and organize course participation. Some of these courses may be under a Creative Commons license.

What is the difference between Open Moodle and the OER platform?

Oer.uclouvain is an open resource repository that allows teachers and learners worldwide to share open educational materials or Open Educational Resources (OER). These materials can be in various formats such as PDF, video, text, etc.

Open Moodle is a learning platform that offers (Open) Coursewares with self-paced learning paths.

If your educational materials are not structured as an autonomous learning path, we recommend using http://oer.uclouvain.be. On the opposite side, if you have a lot of resources that can be structured into chapters, we recommend using the platform https://openmoodle.uclouvain.be/local/ucl/home.php?lang=en.    

What is the difference between Open Moodle and UCLearn ?

The UCLearn platform was launched at the start of the 2025–2026 academic year. It is also based on the open-source Moodle LMS. It hosts online courses offered by UCLouvain teaching community and partners. Course access is by invitation only, meaning that the teacher personally enrolls UCLouvain students or students from partner institutions and supervises their learning progress (whether the program is certified or not). An invitation will be sent by the teacher to their learners after registration, and the participant list will be reset by the teacher after each session. Unlike Open Moodle, student.uclouvain.be email addresses are accepted.

On Open Moodle, one of the four access modalities is also by invitation (Access by invitation), meaning that the teacher personally enrolls students from around the world and supervises their learning progress. These programs are not certified and are free of charge. An invitation will be sent by the teacher to their learners, and the participant list will be reset by the teacher after each session.