With over 30,000 members, ASM International is the world’s largest association of metals-centric materials scientists and engineers. Founded in 1913, ASM serves its members to inform, educate and connect the worldwide materials community. ASM carries out this mission as a centralized body that gathers the latest research from the field and disseminates it back to industry, academia and government. Such research and applied information is delivered in the form of published content, classes, events and chapter engagement. With 70+ courses delivered to over 2600 ASM members through Moodle, ASM International helps to keep the global materials community informed and engaged, catalyzing innovation.
The Challenge
Prior to partnering with Lambda Solutions and adopting Moodle, ASM International was struggling with a costly, proprietary learning management system. Paying per-student on the previous LSM, ASM came to realize that the cost structure was unsustainable and poorly aligned with their growth strategy. Recognizing that open source learning management would give ASM the flexibility and functionality they needed for sustainable growth, John Cerne, Senior Manager of Education at ASM, conducted a search for an open source solution that would support ASM’s growth strategy while meeting its budgetary requirements.
The Solution
Cerne didn’t have to look far before finding an LMS that met all of his requirements. Moodle, the world’s most widely used open-source LMS, surpassed his expectations. Cerne was delighted to learn that Moodle itself is free to download. The only costs to fully-implement Moodle are for Managed Cloud Hosting and Application Support. By migrating from ASM’s former proprietary learning management system, Cerne decreased costs by $30,000 per year.
The wide array of features and functionality in Moodle has served our business needs very well. Moodle’s open source structure allows us to benefit from ongoing improvements including add-ons, plugins and security – all of which improve the administration of courses and enhance our students’ learning experience!
