Brightspace Reviews

Pros
As an administrator at my previous employer, I appreciated the flexibility to change pretty much anything that I wanted in the system. The ability to change what things were called in the system were very nice. In the most recent version that I had used, Brightspace had taken steps to make some changes on how system settings were handled to update the interface. Previously, the interface of the DOME was one of the most painful parts of the system. I also appreciated the service desk that Brightspace has built up over the last three years. When I began using Brightspace, items could get lost very easily with the technical teams, but after some difficult issues, Brightspace has turned around a great deal, and updates to tickets were timely and applicable for a while before I stopped using it.

Cons
I found that there were little things that Brightspace did not do well. For instance, workflows between different tools were very different based on the time that the original tool was designed. This led to user frustration and an increase of time training users on the common functions of the LMS. I also found that Brightspace tended to minimize small updates or fixes in order to focus on major updates. While major updates are important to survive in the field, sometimes known bugs would remain for years without a fix.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
I love that I can take these classes outside of school. I am currently taking four classes on Brightspace (Sociology, Psychology, Spanish III Semesters 1 & 2) because I could not fit them into my schedule for my senior year. In addition, each class comes with a "90 Day Plan" in the course materials, which helps keep me on track; I try to do more per day than what is on the plan, as I'm trying to get most of the workload finished before school starts again. This brings me to my next point: Working at my own speed! As evidenced by my taking four classes over the summer, I am an advanced student who is serious about her education. Brightspace gives students the flexibility of working at their own speed. Although a "90 Day Plan" is offered as a guideline, there are no daily requirements set by the software itself. As a high schooler, some days I'm just busy, plain and simple. I don't have to worry about fulfilling a daily requirement with Brightspace. Again, the flexibility of completing online courses at my own pace is invaluable to a busy student like myself.

Cons
There's not much to complain about with this software. However, there is one issue I face on the daily with Brightspace. When working on a lesson, every now and again there will be a little box that pops up warning the user that if the session exceeds 30 minutes of inactivity, they will be logged out and will have to log back in again. I understand that it is set to do this for security reasons, but it is incredibly annoying when I'm taking notes on the lesson (which takes a decent amount of time) to have to be wary of the pop up appearing.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Technological advances in modern platforms seek, in one way or another, to redefine the concept of human learning. That is why platforms like Brightspace seek not only to manage all the most important aspects of educational management, ranging from the earliest ages to the most advanced students of high school, changing with them and adapting to their cognitive and emotional needs, accompanying them, but without imposing rhythms. And this is possible because Brightspace seeks to personalize learning, focusing them, in a very short time, effectively and in a very simple way. The versatility of the platform makes it absolutely compatible with the wide range of smart devices. The process of teaching is not limited to the simple act of speaking or explaining in the classroom, this process must be thought, planned, developed, executed and, more importantly, evaluated. Brightspace all those tasks, using their useful tools. As a direct consequence, we can observe a significant improvement in classroom work, which will be noticed, due to the amount of activities that users will begin to share, which will involve parents and tutors, who will be able to manage feedback processes in real time. with personal messages.

Cons
Platforms such as Brightspace must have control or ability to configure pop-up windows, as well as other tools that must adapt to the changing requirements of users. The platform must be more managed so that it can reach more places and be more recommended.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
Brightspace puts a lot of options at the user's disposal. It is a powerful, robust LMS that can be customized to fit a wide variety of preferences. As an admin and as an instructor, I really appreciated that the system did not lock me in to one way of doing things. I also really like how much, especially in recent years, the Brightspace development team seeks for input from its users (and provides great forums for sharing ideas for improvements).

Cons
Currently, Brightspace does not have a very robust way of setting up communications throughout the course. They use a feature called "intelligent agents" for sending notices to students when they meet certain criteria (for example, sending a particular note to a student when he is inactive in the course or performs particularly well on an assessment). This feature, however, lacks a good deal of "intelligence" and is pretty restricted in what it can do. I also feel that much of Brightspace is not particularly intuitive or streamlined. I'd like to see them improve on ease of use (without sacrificing power). A good example of this is the quiz feature where finding the exact page you need to get to in order to edit questions and grade values is a bit like a scavenger hunt.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
I have loved using D2L for both my undergraduate and graduate studies. It has made submitting and keeping track of my assignments very easy. I love that it keeps everything on one easy to navigate website. I don't know what other options are out there, but I can't imagine anything being more user-friendly for students than this!

Cons
I did not realize course access expires when I first started using D2L for my school work. I didn't bother downloading a lot of my class materials to my computer beacuse I assumed it would always be there for me to reference. I looked back a year or two later and saw that my classes had disappeared. I understand why, but I really wish there was a counter or notification before course removal so I could download any content I wanted. This is probably something managable by the school, but it would be great if D2L would notify the students.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
As a college student, I have used D2L for 3 years. I have taken a handful of all online classes whose only presence was via Brightspace. Brightspace has created a really nice online environment for classes, you can host all your content there, provide quizzes/tests within Brightspace. Theres even a discussion board for talking with other class members or the instructor. I like being able to work at my own pace, which is what an online class provides, and Brightspace provides all the features to host a well developed online class.

Cons
Auto-saving responses on tests doesn't work always. This is a relatively new feature though so, I'm sure it will get fixed soon.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
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...

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 6/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
I like that I've been able to do away with collecting paper in most of my courses. I am also able to easily arrange course materials for my students to access. Depending on your course, the original setup can be intense, but it is very easy to copy the course over for a new semester of a different section. I enjoy being able to post grades and attendance in D2L. I love that I can grade a quiz by question. Sometimes, I need to only look at one question.

Cons
There can be some misleading language such as "locked" on the calendar list next to a discussion assignment. Students see this as meaning that they cannot access the activity. But what it really means is that there is a period of time for which the assignment will be locked. It doesn't necessarily mean that the assignment can't be accessed at that time. I get lots of questions about this. I still find the grade calculating tool is not as robust as I need it to be.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
So many options for different uses.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Format, structure, and ease of use in navigating the site. I like how it is easy to drag and drop files, and if a mistake is made, to erase the file. I also like the Dropbox feature and how students receive a confirmation they have successfully uploaded a file. Though other faculty may have not liked the change, I very much like how you can move through student discussion posts to read their responses. The menu on the side allowing us to click on posts and to see which ones we haven't read yet is a big help. (Please do not change the discussion board.)

Cons
I do not really like the email client. I find it tough to easily search through email, though it is a minor complaint. I have most of my email forwarded to Outlook and use its search feature when needed.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
The customer support team is excellent, providing very helpful advice and bug fixes almost at a whim! Whenever we've had a problem, Brightspace were they almost instantly to lend a hand. There are a huge list of features on offer, allowing for a wide variety of lessons and exercises be taught. The session in-activity is incredibly useful, we use this in shared-classrooms where its not guaranteed that the user will log-out when finished.

Cons
Not very easy to use, buttons and tools seem to be hidden away either within a menu or a seemingly random location. Communicating with attendees via Brightspace is a pain, there isn't an easy way to send out bulk emails to students. There is some automated process here, but just sending out a basic text email to all students on a course would be very useful.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 7/10

Pros
The everything in one place aspect of it. This means fewer different logins and software platforms to keep up with, which means more focus on things that matter.

Cons
Occasionally there is maintenance that prevents logins, but it is usually announced in plenty of time to make arrangements for alternatives. And they do try to make it happen during off-peak hours.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Flexible and versatile. Provides many basic features that facilitate the learning of students in our K-12 DL school. Students and parents find it easy to use and teachers find it easy to provide quality content in their courses.

Cons
Difficult to get specific detailed help on specific issues particular to our K-12 organization. Help to implement single sign on and Google integration to our Education Google Apps account seems difficult to get.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Course management overall is relatively easy. The ability to administer assessments that are timed or not, set different parameters for students. Dropbox for student's homework submissions is easy to work with, although I really wish I could specify filename for submissions when downloaded. The new numbers added to the front of the filename that I can't remove automatically is a real pain.

Cons
The new filename for Dropbox submissions that is not able to be changed is a real pain. I also don't like the additional assessment views that no longer work unless you specifically specify a minimum and maximum score. Attendance is not linked to the Seating Chart, so if I take attendance using chart, I must still put in the attendance in the attendance tool.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
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

Cons
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 who didn't communicate with each other. Every developer had their own idea about how to accomplish a task. Many default options are counter to what an actual teacher would need in their day-to-day tasks. Nothing in the interface saves you work. Every task prolongs how long it takes me to do something. After months of trying to use this tool I have given up and am now searching for alternative tools that make my life easier not harder.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 0/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
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.

Cons
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.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
We switched to BrightSpace about a year ago when the company that owns cOllege went out of business. BS is way better than cOllege! It is much more up to date and you can do so much more with it. For example, I like the IM feature, and the app is pretty good.

Cons
From an instructor stand point it seems like there are some things that could improve. For example, the process of entering feedback with grades. At first, some of our instructors were entering feedback, but students couldn't find it. Um not sure if that was used errors or what.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10

Pros
I like that platform in that it has so much available from one login. Grading, student contact, administering assessments, and pretty much everything that one might possibly need all in one spot.

Cons
Because of the amount of things it does, at times switching from one thing to another can be a bit clunky. That is merely a minor inconvenience, however.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
My university was previously using Blackboard before switching to Brightspace. During the transition we were able to explore and train in the new Brightspace course shells. The menu organization and dashboard tools are wonderfully intuitive, and I can easily switch between multiple courses.

Cons
While adaptable, there is some jumping required in some of the thread grading. I would love to see that set up become more harmonious with fewer windows to navigate.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I like how teachers can organize the different parts of the lesson for the week into different categories. Also, I love that you can sign up for text notifications for when new items are posted. It makes taking online classes so much easier!

Cons
I don't like how there are so many different tab options. Maybe if navigation were simplified a bit, it would be easier to use. With that being said, they updated D2L a while ago and the new update has had some major improvements.

Rating breakdown

Pros
The Brightspace has excellent resources for learning to navigate the system. The tutorials are very useful.

Cons
It has many updates throughout the year.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10