I think Benoit needs to take a step back and outline how he wants his course to look online compared to an in person course. Assuming his face to face course is successful he then needs to choose the best way to recreate the experience for the online environment.
The big question is what functionality does he need in order to present his materials, and in order to deliver his course? It is a difficult question for anyone, but it sounds like he has no experience in delivering a class online, so I’m not sure he even knows what functionality he would need.
Looking at the Two Solutions
From the description Blackboard Learn doesn’t sound like a great option for a few different reasons. A big one is limited functionality. If Benoit isn’t quite sure how he wants his final product to be this could be helpful as it would limit the choices that he has to make to deliver the experience. The issue however, is the help desk. Benoit already has the content, he’s just changing the way it’s delivered. If he gets stuck and needs assistance from the help desk he may be waiting a while before he gets any help. There is also an assumption that the issue will be resolved on the first try.
Moodle being an open source product has a lot of flexibility and add-ons that can really add to the course experiences. From the description it sounds like this tool is sanctioned by the university and Benoit doesn’t need to administer the LMS, just the course. This opens up a great deal of functionality in terms of the activities and enhancements that can be made to engage students, such as digital badging. It is also important to note that although there is no official help desk, there is a community of users that he is able to tap into for assistance. This exists both in his faculty and in a thriving online Moodle community.
Course Development
Development time is a little tougher as without knowing the course material and the functionality he needs, it is impossible to know how far down the development rabbit hole he is planning to go. If he keeps things simple it would benefit him as he already has the course material developed, but for the benefit of the students he may want to augment his existing content. A minimum effort on his part, he could have his course up and running within just a couple of weeks, again he already has the content. It would only benefit him, and his students in the long run to them rework the course week by week to add in interacting and engaging content.
Looking at how much time he has budgeted to create this course, I would be nervous. Yes, he already has content and some of the instructional design which is roughly 35% of the work completed. There is a good chart from the Association of Talent Development that outlines how long it takes to create training. I think Benoit is going to have to rethink his time otherwise his students are going to be very disappointed in him next semester.
Reference:
Kapp, K. M., & Defelice, R. A. (2009, August 31). Time to Develop One Hour of Training. Retrieved January 21, 2016, from https://www.td.org/Publications/Newsletters/Learning-Circuits/Learning-Circuits-Archives/2009/08/Time-to-Develop-One-Hour-of-Training