E-Learning Platforms Supporting the Educational Effectiveness of Distance Learning Programme : A Comparative Study on Administrative Sciences

Over the last decades the Education transformation through Technology is becoming a more extensive tool for enhancing the Bologna process on increasing the quality, effectiveness and accessibility of the higher education. In this context, the literature supports the importance of Web platforms for education in particular through comparative analysis, focusing on educational effectiveness and promoting quality education etc. Few studies have integrated the analysis on economic issues. The paper aims to achieve a comparative study on Web platforms in terms of raising the effectiveness of educational and economic costs required to implement them. The research methodology is using for the first time an adapted version of cost-effectiveness analysis. Empirical research will be carried out on two platforms of e-learning - Learning Management System (LMS) and Moodle - used by our university to support distance education programs. The working hypothesis starts from the fact that open source software is cheaper than those developed inside even if it does not meet fully the needs of the university