Brightspace LMS Reviews

Pros

The grading and feedback system in Brightspace is very efficient. It allows instructors to provide detailed feedback on assignments, exams, and discussions. The grading rubrics can be customized to align with specific criteria, making it easier for students to understand their strengths and areas for improvement. The system also automatically calculates grades, saving time for instructors and providing students with instant access to their scores.

Cons

The features are so user-friendly that I can't think of anything I dislike about D2L.

Pros

The mobile app for Brightspace is fantastic. It's user-friendly and provides access to all course materials, grades, and notifications on the go. I can easily stay updated with my coursework and engage in discussions even when I'm away from my computer.

Cons

While Brightspace has many features, they can often be laborious and complex to create and use. For instance, creating tests/quizzes in Brightspace is an essential tool for teachers to provide formative assessments. The creation tool works, but it involves many more steps and efforts compared to other quiz creation tools like Google Forms. This applies to almost all features in Brightspace. When working with younger students, from Pre-K through 5th grade, this can be time-consuming and impact the learning process.

Pros

The content creation and management features in Brightspace are robust. Instructors can easily upload and organize course materials, including documents, videos, and multimedia resources. The drag-and-drop functionality simplifies the process of creating and updating course content. It also supports embedding external content from various sources, expanding the range of learning materials available to students.

Cons

I would say that the initial customizability and open-endedness of Brightspace can be daunting for faculty. However, with proper training and support, my faculty have excelled with the LMS.

Pros

Brightspace offers a variety of assessment tools that go beyond traditional quizzes and exams. It allows instructors to create interactive assignments, presentations, and multimedia projects. This diversity in assessment methods caters to different learning styles and encourages creativity and critical thinking.

Cons

I don't receive any notifications from Brightspace when grades are released or when there are notifications or discussion responses. It would be great to have a way to receive these notifications so I don't have to check the website every day.

Pros

The analytics and reporting capabilities in Brightspace provide valuable insights into student performance and engagement. Instructors can track students' progress, identify at-risk students, and intervene when necessary. The data-driven approach helps instructors make informed decisions about instructional strategies and support individual student needs.

Cons

Since there are numerous tabs where materials can be placed, it took me a few days to exploreeverything and find the class powerpoints and other materials.

Pros

I find that adding modules and changing the course image is quite simple in this software.

Cons

The gradebook becomes a headache every semester. Something that should be easy is so confusing on Brightspace. When I create an assignment, it doesn't just go into the gradebook and I have to link it manually. But when Brightspace duplicates a column, I can't simply delete it. You can't do anything in the gradebook easily! Also, I can't trust its calculations because it will count some things and skip others. One semester, it duplicated an entire assignment (but I had only ONE dropbox for it?!?) and I couldn't remove it. All students ended up with duplicate grades for it. I miss the old D2L, it was so much simpler to use!

Pros

Makes online course delivery so much easier. It gives great insights into things like when students last logged in or how long they spent on assignments which is super useful for tracking progress.

Cons

I'm a little skeptical about some of the data Brightspace provides like how much time someone spends on an assignment. They could have easily downloaded it and reviewed it on their own time.

Pros

The interface is well laid out and it's so easy to go through the courses. It's perfect for blended learning environments.

Cons

It is great but it would be awesome if they added more colors and graphics to make it even better.

Pros

What I really appreciate about it is how clear and organized everything is. When I design courses, everything is in the right place. You can also customize things deeply with html, css and javascript if you want to.

Cons

I have to enter scores for assignments in multiple places. It would be much easier if there were a way to set them all at once or at least be notified of the score to match other places.

Pros

It does a great job at keeping track of everything. I can see how much time instructors and students are spending on specific parts of the course. It even tracks which pages or assignments are being accessed and for how long which is really helpful.

Cons

Tracking metrics is nice but the software feels complex when it comes to ease of use. It's hard to find resources within the platform and that can be frustrating.

Pros

The migration process for D2L was pretty simple and I have to say I'm really grateful for how smooth it was.

Cons

I think the issue with D2L is that many professors misunderstand certain features, which leads to confusing and hard-to-use course interfaces.

Pros

Having all my grades in one place and seeing them update in real time is a big time-saver. I can easily keep track of everything that's due or completed.

Cons

Few of the features are difficult to locate. Links to live seminars sometimes don't work and if the professor doesn't set up the course properly, it becomes impossible to organize the content for each class.

Pros

I think it's design is much better than Google Classroom. It's way cleaner and easier to use.

Cons

I've used it on both my laptop and iPad. It's a bit complicated on the iPad. It would be great if both platforms worked more similarly.

Pros

I love how easy it is for students to use. They can watch seminars, talk to instructors and access everything they need, like assignments and documents.

Cons

It crashes too often. There have been several times when it went down due to technical issues.

Pros

The support team is very helpful and I appreciate the virtual events and the advertising opportunities that come with it.

Cons

Video tutorials could be more helpful especially for teachers and students who use the platform every day. Other platforms have features that are much easier to implement.

Pros

Been using Brightspace (D2L) for about three years at the university I work at. I really like how the integration of video and multimedia assignments works and the rubrics are really easy to use.

Cons

Integration with external apps like Bongo can be a little rough but it's improved over the past year. The transcription of videos has also gotten better.

Pros

It has solved a lot of the problems we used to have. The user interface is clean and it's super easy to create courses, quizzes and tests without spending too much time on them. The grading features are great too and show percentages easily.

Cons

It's hard to use certain menus. For example, I had a hard time figuring out how to set deadline dates for assignments so the software would no longer accept submissions. The UI is also too spread out and it doesn't make good use of space on smaller tablets.

Pros

I'd say Brightspace is pretty similar to Canvas but there are features here that work better for my needs. I used it at UW-Whitewater and it suited my workflow well.

Cons

Less user-friendly compared to Canvas. If they added more features and made it easier to use, it would be much better.

Pros

I really liked how the dashboard clearly shows the classes I'm taking. It's all displayed in a simple way that's easy to follow.

Cons

When I logged in, I really wished there was more info about who my professor was.

Pros

Offers a very thorough menu system. When you log in, the dashboard view makes it simple to see what needs to be done. Announcements and alerts are easily accessible and user-friendly.

Cons

I think it's interface feels outdated. The menu system is very detailed but it requires too many clicks to get to the different areas of the course. Some parts of the view feel too cramped for all the content.