Brightspace Reviews

Pros

I found this software very easy to use and pretty intuitive. It is fresh looking on the screen and I've not had any issues with the system not working as it should.

Cons

There are a few extra clicks that have to take place in some parts of the software to get back to where you want to be. That is somewhat annoying, but a minor issue.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Alternatives Considered

Edsby, CANVAS and Schoology

Reasons for Choosing Brightspace

We were looking for something that worked well out of the box. D2L manages all of the updating of the system, hosting, etc. Using something like Moodle requires at least one person on the team with a strong tech background. Brightspace can be run with little to no tech experience.

Switched From

Moodle

Reasons for Switching to Brightspace

We felt Brightspace packed in the most functionality and also looked (and felt the best).

Pros

I like the ability for there to be an online classroom and I like that it records the lectures. I like how the online classroom allows for screensharing and chatting also. I also like the look of the software; it doesn't look dated.

Cons

At this point, I have used several types of software like Brightspace as I have been in higher education for almost 7 years now as an undergraduate student and now, a graduate student. I think out of all those other software that I have used, Brightspace is the least intuitive to navigate. On the outset, I think the website looks clean and modern and it feels like a website that would be easy to navigate. But when you actually do start navigating the website, you find out how hard it is to find simple commands. For example, to simply program and then score a quiz online is much harder than it needs to be. Menus for basic things like how to see the students' grades were hard to find and I had to ultimately turn to google to figure out how to grade the quiz. I am new to this software, so maybe it just takes some getting used to, but so far, as a new user, I am finding that Brightspace is not intuitive or easy to navigate.

Pros

Everything about this software is super user-friendly they think about the student when they made this it’s not hard to years. It’s not hard to follow as long as you do the tutorials and follow what they say. At the beginning you can’t go wrong there’s nothing negative I can say about it. I’ve never had any issues using this and I’ve used this software at two different colleges. Hands down the best.

Cons

There’s only one thing that I kind of don’t really understand is the virtual classroom thing I’ve still not understood why some places use the virtual product classroom and sign the right space software and some don’t but I think that’s more of a college preference instead of a software preference to bright space

Pros

What I like most about this product is the ease of navigating each feature of the product. There are quite a few features, all of them being outstanding and easy to use.

Cons

There seem to be quite a few bugs for us with this product. However, the product has been integrated going on two years, so there is bound to be some issues going forward.

Alternatives Considered

CANVAS

Reasons for Choosing Brightspace

The other LMS was going away, and we had to look for a new product, also one that was cheaper.

Switched From

Blackboard Learn

Reasons for Switching to Brightspace

Brightspace was cheaper than others, with a much better quality.

Pros

The support, virtual events and advertising.

Cons

The IT support, video tutorials about features teacher or students use everyday. Features other platforms have very easy to implement.

Alternatives Considered

NEO LMS

Reasons for Choosing Brightspace

Because Blackboard was getting old, the licence is very expensive and no support.

Switched From

Blackboard Collaborate

Reasons for Switching to Brightspace

I did not choose Brightspace because it has less features than NEOLMS and the price is a lot higher.

Pros

Have used Brighspace as a student and as a faculty. As long as the faculty sets it up well it is exceedingly easy to navigate. The features really benefit the educational experience.

Cons

Setting up the individual course takes time. I felt like I needed to be a coder to actually use to features. We have two full time hired staff to help keep the online classes in this running. Also, the email is ridiculously complicated.

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

Module functions are easy to use. Great for asynchronous learning. Easy to copy over content each semester.

Cons

Turn it on doesn't work on pdfs. Students struggle to see answers on quizzes.

Pros

This app has everything students can use to avoid failing deadlines. It helps students to keep all critical data in one place, so it makes them more organized and aware of the education process. In Brightspace you can drag and drop all kind of files, as well as rearrange them, so new content can be easily seen. For teachers, it is also easy to create different types of tests or quizzes without spending much time or many resources. Brightspace is a well-known LMS and is used across our college as the learning management platform. It is used to distribute the different type of information, assignments tests, which makes the education process for both students and teachers more convenient.

Cons

This app lacks an intuitive interface. It is difficult to get used it, and it requires time to understand how to activate one feature or another. You need time to customize your interface; otherwise, it will be cluttered and even more complicated to use. There is an option to create discussions, but it is hard to organize them. It also would be nice to have a video chat option so that some lectures can be given online. Tech support can be improved, as it is not helpful and it usually blames users instead of fixing the problem.

Pros

Brightspace is very easy to navigate and customize. It looks very nice and many uses familiar with something like Wordpress will have a pretty easy time. It is also in many ways similar to other popular social media platforms for students, I imagine, they are pretty comfortable with a platforms like this. Managing grades, assignments and embedding external links is very organic. There are some great tutorials too form D2L. It's also similar enough to other platforms that if you are migrating from another system, this shouldn't have too much of a learning curve. I love how easy it is to build a template course and transition various components or modules to a new one.

Cons

My only con is purely subjective, but I have had issues with embedded links like videos. I find it very hard to remove items from the Grades section (the gradebook). I constantly have to view a tutorial because it is so roundabout to remove an item from that section.

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.

Pros

D2L is the most organized and functional software for universities to use. Students have one place to access all their courses and find all information they need. Using d2L, professors post all the content from their course and organize it however they want. Quizzes, discussions, and assignment drop boxes are found on D2L as well. D2L provides easy online accessibility for both teachers and students, making going to school a much easier task.

Cons

The due dates for assignments get confusing, not sure if thats a user error via professors, but they always seem to have to email student to say they don't know how to change the due date for certain assignments.

Pros

Brightspace has tons of features and capabilities that teachers and students can use in learning! Through assignments with release conditions, video and audio recording for instructions and responses, homepage customization, and much more. There are few things that you are limited to with Brightspace.

Cons

Though there are many features in Brightspace, they can often be tedious and complicated to create and use. For example, creating tests/quizzes in brightspace is a very important tool for teachers to give formative assessments. The creation tool works, but takes many more steps and work when compared to other quiz creation tools, such as Google Forms. This applies to almost all features on Brightspace. When using this with younger students - Pre-K through 5th grade - that can take a toll on time and learning.

Pros

I really enjoy the simplicity of how to find assignments and course work. Something else that is great is that anytime you send it an assignment the software will send you a confirmation email assuring your completion and submission. Technical support always knows how to correct an issue that is going on.

Cons

I have experienced the software glitching on many occasions. I will need to complete an assignment and turn it in to a specific place and that submission title is not uploaded in my course selection for the week. I have also contacted technical support many times, in which they reply pretty slowly.

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.

Pros

Brightspace is an easy to navigate software for delivering online courses! It provides ample data, on things such as when a student last logged into the course materials, or how long students spent on an assignment. I find the information it provides is great!

Cons

I am a bit hesitant on some of the data Brightspace provides, such as how much time someone spends on an assignment, because they could have easily just downloaded it and looked at it on their own time.

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.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

Pros

It has improved some things, like being able to cut and paste into discussions.

Cons

1. The layout is not clear to students. Many have problems locating things in the Content because they don't understand the structure.

2.When I log in as a student and go to discussions, even when I have "grid view" and "threaded" selected, I don't really see a thread structure, just a list of messages. Since I teach literature, discussion is essential to the course, but this makes it almost impossible to use really well.

3. When I'm logged in as myself and switch to "student" view, I don't see what the students see. I have to log out and log in as a different user to see that.

4.The grading and attendance features are not flexible and don't allow me to keep the kinds of records I need.

5. The email is much too limited.

6. When I add a new topic to a module, I can't reorder the list of topics, but have to move the new one up one topic at a time. This takes a very long time.

Pros

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.

Cons

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.

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.

Pros

This software provides the bare minimum of what would be required from the software. It allows teachers to post assignments adequately (no better than any other system I have seen in class).

Cons

The system is not intuitive and takes a while to locate various functions. The grading component is awful on the student end. Overall grades cannot be seen by the student. Should a student wish to know his or her overall grade they must manually calculate it. This on its own is still a problem since Brightspace doesn't even show the point value of each grade, just the percentage. This program is only useful for students to know their grades a small period of time before they would be handed back in class.

Pros

The interface is pleasing to the eye and the text is easy to read. My school uses this for posting class material and compared to other platforms this one is the best so far because it is so well laid out.

Cons

Since there are so many tabs the material can go under it did take me a few days to explore everything to find the material and class powerpoints.