What is the cloud of the HfG

In cloud.hfg-karlsruhe.de you will find the instance of Nextcloud for the HfG, also known as the HfG-Cloud. In their website they describe Nextcloud as follows:

Nextcloud offers a modern, on-premises content collaboration platform with real-time document editing, video chat & groupware on mobile, desktop and web.

In other words, it is the software to share files and develop collaborative projects.

The HfG Cloud integrates different platforms such as:

Email client
File sharing
Groups management
Chat services
Calendars and Tasklists

Difference between Nextcloud and Moodle

Both Nextcloud and Moodle are mature, extended Open Source / Free Software projects with a big community behind them and lot of modules or plug-ins. The main difference is their approach: while Moodle hat the classroom context in mind, Nextcloud is project oriented. It’s not impossible to develop a project in Moodle or a classroom in Nextcloud, but that was not the goal they have in mind when they develop it. Moodle for example differentiates clearly between teacher and student role, allowing students to enroll in courses and teachers to grade or give feedback on assigned tasks.

Should I use Moodle or Nextcloud for project….

Well, that’s up to you. More didactical projects may feel comfortable in Moodle, which generally is more clear on the expected task a student should perform and could integrate better in the university organization.

In Nextcloud is more difficult to implement this approach, but in general is more flexible and though for the collaboration of coworkers inside a project. On the other hand, you can always create a working group in Nextcloud, while Moodle is always connected to a seminar with one (or more than one teacher).

As a rule of thumb: if you’re developing a project probably is better to use Nextcloud, for a seminar probably is better to use Moodle. But nothing speaks against using both in different moments. In any case, try to be clear what you expect form other people.

Moodle courses will disappear on every new semester, Nextcloud projects can stay longer.

Alternative to GoogleDrive, Dropbox and similar software

You can think of Nextcloud as the institutional approved (which means privacy policy complain , etc.) alternative to other sharing solutions as the mentioned before. Private companies may offer cloud-services in exchange for a price or for free, but their business model consists generally on the revenues of selling data after profiling the users or use the data to extract patterns (among many other problems). As a public institution we should remain sovereign of our data.

There is also a second reason to avoid this software and it’s the support and responsibility related to it: our IT is responabile for mantain this infrastructure and will help you gladly if you have any problem, and taking the responsability in case of something going wrong. Depending on the plan you have, you will get better or worse support and (you will need to check the Terms and conditions) no responsability on what you are doing.

If your main reason to use this software is that is “really easy to manage”, “i just have an icon over there and everything get synchonized” you should continue reading: Nextcloud has a web interface but also also a client you can install.