Brightspace vs NEO LMS Comparison

The most impactful features of BrightSpace are discussion opportunities, auto-grading, and navigation.

The cost of the LMS is the only drawback.

Students love the user interface and module layout

I found it more challenging to use than Matrix LMS

The LMS is very robust and flexible. It is also reliable.

The interface is often not intuitive. Often multiple clicks are needed to find an important setting in an assessment. The communications piece ("intelligent agents") which allows the faculty to send automated emails when a student meets certain criteria (for example, sending a note to the student if they haven't logged into the course in 5 days) is quite limited and lacking in "intelligence."

There are lots of good ways to use it. The upgrades seem to be responsive to what users need.

This is not particularly about Brightspace, but all LMS products seem a little clunky and sometimes not intuitive.

This blended LMS is a great tool for corporate training, comprehension testing, and retention tracking. Put the Kirkpatrick model into full use.

All LMS software can be wonky at times. Include too many features and it can overload the user experience.

D2L is doing a great job of integrating modern technologies into their ILP (LMS). They are adding collaborative tools, video capturing tools, and multimedia interfaces very well. I've been an administrator of this LMS for about 3 years now and have been very impressed with the improvements each year.

It's hard to say. I guess with any technology, there are periodic problems. We felt like we were almost beta testers when we switched to 10.1, and we reported many bugs. I think also, the help desk folks are nice, but the turn-around time to get tickets resolved can linger onwards of a month or so.

Takes the LMS to the next level with ease of use, focus on the learner and on learning analytics.

Not always stable, sometimes the learning curve can be challenging for new users.

Good features and functionality. Easy to navigate. Not all products are bundled together in the base learning platform.

Reporting and integration needs improvement. Implementation takes longer that other LMS. Annual licensing fees are very high. Many changes to Customer assigned resources. Currently, API calls to production Database is unavailable.

Nothing at all. The LMS has a LONG list of features but nearly all of them are poorly designed and frustrating to use. I have moved back to old solutions that I used before I was given this piece of software. Clearly no teachers with any experience were consulted in the design of this. There was a huge opportunity for D2L when they moved from their old solution to a new Cloud based one. They missed the opportunity

The interface was not intuitive. There were very few clear best practices in the interface. The way that you complete tasks changes depending on which part of the interface you are using. Non-technical users will become quickly frustrated with the number of steps required to complete even the most basic of tasks. The interface feels like it was built by different groups of developers and designers...

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Our school needed a lot of flexibility and customization, as well as integration capability. They have a rich API layer that allowed us to create an "uber" system - a next-gen learning system that all appeared to be a single entity even though it was made up of multiple platforms.

The costs for flexibility and data are problematic - it's an issue for all LMS companies but it would be great to see more progressive thinking around our school's data.

Brightspace is very intuitive; users can jump into the LMS and figure out what they need to do with little to no instructions. I like the power it gives admins to build in automation and customize how students work through the course. This is done via intelligent agents and release conditions. Brightspace just looks great. Is the most aesthetically pleasing LMS on the market as far as I have seen.

The platform seems more geared toward traditional schooling systems rather than asynchronous models at times. For example, there is no easy way for students to add their own due dates to assessments; they can only be added for the entire course, which does not work when students are all pacing differently. Brightspace for Parents is also not as strong as I would have expected. There seems to be limited features and out parents are just not really interested in using it.

BrightSpace includes all of the typical features of any LMS. However, D2L has improved the platform over time and has made the system more intuitive and user friendly. I also use CourseDen (the higher ed version of BrightSpace) for my college courses and the features are essentially the same with a few differences. However, the two platforms are enough alike that, once you know one system, learning to use the other one is a cinch. The features allow for very specific customization of assessments, discussions, and other features. I have built my own courses within the LMS, so I am familiar with a majority of the features and capabilities of the LMS.

No cons were added to this review

It’s extremely customizable, but no matter how each course might be built, there is a feeling of familiarity. I love the assessments, open ended plugins to embed for my faculty, user support, and the student experience. I really love the course builder. It’s an easy to use yet extremely effective tool.

I would say the fact that it is so customizable and open ended at first is daunting to faculty. However with proper training and support, my faculty have really excelled with the LMS.

I love BrightSpace. My old school switched from another LMS that did not have near as many features as BrightSpace. I was happy to learn that my new school also uses BrightSpace.

I cannot think of any cons about BrightSpace. However, starting a job at another school after using BrightSpace taught me that it is very important that it is set up right. My new school is not using many of the features that my old school uses. I think it is important to make sure that each school sets it up to make sure that students are able to get everything they can from it.

I use D2L, Moodle, and Blackboard in my multiple jobs. D2L is the most visually attractive of these, and the "drag and drop" functionality of course building makes things much easier than in Blackboard, for example.

When grading, I wish the rubrics appeared in the margin of same tab as the assignment, rather than a separate pop-up window, though this is already an improvement from earlier iterations.

Brightspace offers a great LMS with lots of options for customization. You can completely run an online or in-person class with ease using Brightspace. Everything from assignments to discussions to grading to groupwork is integrated.

Brightspace isn't especially user-friendly and there's a pretty steep learning curve. Also, there aren't a lot of good tools for collaborative work, and I typically rely on Google Drive for when I want to have students collaborate.

I like the complex features that are offered by this LMS. Course creators can embed external sources, create several nested modules and access plenty of documentation. Users can also access content on nearly all browsers and operating systems.

There is a steep learning curve, and it can be difficult to even access basic course information as a learner, or to even find out how to create a single module for students as an administrator. The issues related to mobile access, Safari, and flash are still present in this LMS as well. It will be difficult to access certain pages, and some external links do not allow you to access them either.

Brightspace offers a clean UI and flexibility to meet our LMS needs. Our faculty and student body enjoy using it daily to manage course activities. Our staff like the openness of the platform for implementing new integrations and working with data.

We've had significant issues with the vendor-provided API in the past. We push grades from Brightspace to our SIS to populate student transcripts. When the API stopped working, it left us in a tight spot. Thankfully, the newer API seems more reliable.

This Learning Management System is GOOD but not the best. It is great that D2L and Brightspace have an easy-to-use portal that differentiates between student, instructor, and even TAs. However, the options that come with competitors like CANVAS are far superior...

CANVAS, a competing LMS, provides more external resource use, such as Virtual Office Hours during Conferences, and even grouping students into smaller groups to use MS Office through Collaborations. Brightspace is user friendly for students but more difficult to manage for administrators/teachers.

The support team is very fast in replying to any issues that may arise. Additionally they provide many webinars and conferences that help the users to create a network and exchange knowledge.

The not so intuitive construction of the LMS. Some navigation buttons can be confusing. One of the drawbacks is that it doesn't keep preferences like restrictions as default and you have to push lots of buttons or tick many boxes for each course.

This LMS is an upgrade from Sakai. The overall platform is more aesthetically pleasing. Some added features like uploading of video and student-teacher interaction capacity. Grading interface is more professional and user-friendly; before you had to cut and paste, now the rubrics are embedded.

I've been using it for almost two years and am only now discovering features. The company should provide schools with a new user training webinar or course. I feel that there are so many untapped resources.

Customer support is very qualitative. You can have any of features you need. Interaction and collaboration tools of every kind are available and compatable. Creativity is supported by many tools such quiz , rubric-as , polls builder etc

It depends totally on the internet connection and this may cause problems of connectivity sometimes. In addition the costs to enrich with additional tools may be very high. It doesn't support many of the speaking languages.

To be fair to D2L, the LMS has a nice look and feel about it (especially in the student facing view). Hence, students seem reasonably happy with D2L most times. They also seem to be able to navigate around the various tabs with some ease. Students DO have issues with the e-Portfolio feature which is far from intuitive and simply doesn't work at times.

From the course creation standpoint, the software is very unintuitive and inconsistent. It appears that this LMS was created by a team of software engineers that did not commit to a consistent architecture. Hence, methods to accomplish certain tasks vary by where you may be in the LMS. This makes it very challenging and time consuming to use. The discussion forum functionality is very dysfunctional and quite restricting. Many students have commented on how archaic this feature is and I agree with them. The help function is virtually useless. One flounders until an answer is "discovered" or one gives up. Finally, the number of clicks to accomplish the simplest of tasks is mind numbering.

It is very easy to set up and maintain a course. I really like that there are multiple means to complete tasks (i.e. upload course content, grade assignments/quizzes, contact students, change course structure). To add, the availability of supports and video is phenomenal. I was part of the Brightspace implementation team for our campus. The amount of time and effort put into making sure the product met the needs of the faculty and unique student body, and training of the first use faculty was quite impressive. It is also helpful to have easy access to student progress and monitor learning out comes.

It is a bit difficult setting up the gradebook. It is not impossible, but not easy. Also, since it is required that one create a new rubric, it is time consuming. It would be much easier if one could upload a rubric from another LMS (as is done with quiz content).

The user interface is logical and intuitive. Support is wonderful.

So far, I haven't found anything I don't like! Hard to believe, but true. My institution has just moved to BrightSpace and I love it. Integration with my publishers appears seemless and course management is a breeze.