What users are saying about
27 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 7.9 out of 101
Based on 27 reviews and ratings
61 Ratings
<a href='https://www.trustradius.com/static/about-trustradius-scoring' target='_blank' rel='nofollow noopener noreferrer'>trScore algorithm: Learn more.</a>Score 8.3 out of 101
Based on 61 reviews and ratings
Likelihood to Recommend
Articulate Studio
If you need to build courses that have quizzes and want to control the audience's attention to the course, rather than starting a course and watching YouTube while it plays in the background, or if you need to have the results go to a proprietary system that you control, then Articulate Studio will be a well suited software solution for you.
IT Manager
Travel Planners InternationalLeisure, Travel & Tourism, 1001-5000 employees
Brightspace
Brightspace can be a great platform for institutions looking for a multi-platform solution that works with standard cloud technologies and can provide a beautiful experience. The LMS can work well for online-only courses as sections can be segmented from each other inside of the same course, and grading can be automated depending on the scheme being implemented. Experienced instructors can still create useful workshops and courses with this tool, but it can be frustrating for newcomers or those used to other "plug-and-play" or "drag-and-drop" options. I would recommend trying the tool out and making some demonstration courses in which you are a student and learner in order to feel how it works and compares to other options on the market. Brightspace is definitely powerful and can provide a good experience once all stakeholders adjust to its handling.

Verified User
Professional in Professional Services
Higher Education Company, 10,001+ employeesFeature Rating Comparison
Learning Management
Articulate Studio
8.2
Brightspace
8.8
Course authoring
Articulate Studio
8.6
Brightspace
8.7
Course catalog or library
Articulate Studio
9.0
Brightspace
8.8
Player/Portal
Articulate Studio
7.6
Brightspace
9.4
Learning content
Articulate Studio
7.4
Brightspace
8.8
Mobile friendly
Articulate Studio
8.0
Brightspace
8.8
Progress tracking & certifications
Articulate Studio
7.7
Brightspace
8.6
Assignments
Articulate Studio
9.0
Brightspace
9.4
Compliance management
Articulate Studio
8.0
Brightspace
8.0
Learning administration
Articulate Studio
8.4
Brightspace
8.9
Learning reporting & analytics
Articulate Studio
8.6
Brightspace
8.7
Social learning
Articulate Studio
8.0
Brightspace
8.5
Pros
Articulate Studio
- Easy learning curve. Just some button clicks for recording narration, syncing animations, and adding annotations.
- They made some fairly recent improvements to how you sync animations and add annotations. With the timeline, you can manually move the timing around. Much better than the earlier task of having to just re-do it from the beginning and hope you get the timing right.
- If you're using Studio in the Articulate 360 subscription, you can easily review the course before it publishes.
- The included Quizmaker program is just great. Simple to use, but you can make a varied mix of questions, and the customization options are great.
- You can add background music in slides, which is pretty great in certain situations.
Enablement Training Program Manager
Constant ContactComputer Software, 1001-5000 employees
Brightspace
- File sharing capability between users is largely unparalleled in the LMS space (from my experience).
- The user interface has continued to receive valuable updates that have created an incredibly efficient platform to navigate.
- Brightspace offers a single source of truth for standardized learning outcomes based on company objectives.
Process Optimization Analyst
QuadPrinting, 10,001+ employees
Cons
Articulate Studio
- It's icing on the cake. It provides a lot of usability with its quiz-maker and presenter. The presenter can sometimes feel like an unnecessary add on. If it didn't come apart of a package, I don't think we would have purchased it outright.
Learning Management System Analyst -- CornerstoneOnDemand
H&E Equipment Services, Inc.Machinery, 1001-5000 employees
Brightspace
- D2L should find a way to allow markup of student writing directly in the review panel of the dropbox. Blackboard and Canvas do this.
- When you set the number of points an item is worth in the dropbox, it doesn't carry this value over into the grade book automatically, which means you have to be careful to enter the same information in two different interfaces.
- The rubric function needs a wider range of options. It should be possible to upload rubrics from external files and make them usable within D2L.
- The discussions are hard to reorganize. Grading discussions using a rubric is not possible inside D2L, as far as I know.
- When using the Record audio function to provide student feedback, the audio quality is too poor to be used in many situations.
Instructional Academic Staff
University of Wisconsin-Eau ClaireHigher Education, 501-1000 employees
Likelihood to Renew
Articulate Studio
Articulate Studio 10.0
Based on 1 answer
There is very little chance that this software wold not be renewed. It has become an integral part of our standard software for elearning development.
e-Learning Analyst
Interior Health AuthorityHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees
Brightspace
Brightspace 9.0
Based on 25 answers
I would never give any system a perfect score. In the technology environment today we need to be constantly looking at ways to improve the user experience and LMS companies like Desire2Learn need to know that we have options today with other systems and they need to stay current with features and listen to their customers.
Director, Distance Learning
Johnson County Community CollegeHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees
Usability
Articulate Studio
Articulate Studio 10.0
Based on 1 answer
This is very useable software even for novice eLearning authoring users. People with some PowerPoint experience should be fine with this software and even Excel!
e-Learning Analyst
Interior Health AuthorityHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees
Brightspace
Brightspace 6.4
Based on 11 answers
Overall, the learning environment works as expected. However, there are plenty of bugs. For example, for a few versions, trying to print out a PDF from the Content screen in several browsers would produce a blank page. We inform D2L support about these issues, most of which are known issues. However, they are very slow to respond. D2L seems to spend more time selling than actually coding and testing their product. Most of the issues are not major -- however, there have been a few that are unbelievable. In fact, this past week we had a sudden issue where the "Submit" button in quizzes would not appear if users had a certain browser/operating system combination. This is a major problem, if students cannot submit their exams! D2L is slow to respond to these kinds of situations, which do occur more often than I would like.

Verified User
Program Manager in Information Technology
Higher Education Company, 501-1000 employeesReliability and Availability
Brightspace
Brightspace 9.0
Based on 1 answer
Both students and instructor enjoy the 24-hoiur access. After, all isn't that the point of online learning. As an instructor located in an Eastern time zone state it is great to connect with students located in a Pacific time zone state. I have gotten comments about the early hours I am in the course room grading assignments . . . 4:00 a.m. PST; 7:00 a.m. EST So, it's sleep time for my students and "first cup of coffee" time for me.
Online Course Professor
Trine UniversityHigher Education, 201-500 employees
Performance
Brightspace
Brightspace 9.0
Based on 2 answers
Easy to navigate; little to no delay from one section of the course room to another; actually fun to use after overcoming the learning curve.
Online Course Professor
Trine UniversityHigher Education, 201-500 employees
Support
Articulate Studio
Articulate Studio 8.0
Based on 2 answers
Overall support is great for issues that they are able to help with. Other times it seems like instead of fixing the bugs you are told to wait for the newest version so instead of getting a fix for free you have to pay to upgrade. I have found this frustrating
e-Learning Analyst
Interior Health AuthorityHospital & Health Care, 10,001+ employees
Brightspace
Brightspace 9.9
Based on 5 answers
I have had excellent support from Desire2Learn. Any ticket that I submit is acknowledged immediately and the correction is usually almost as quick. We use this for thousands of classes and it is pretty well liked by both faculty and students. We have been using it for almost 4 years now and most of our instructors have become pretty proficient with it.
Microcomputer Systems Specialist II
Southern Illinois UniversityHigher Education, 5001-10,000 employees
In-Person Training
Articulate Studio
No answers on this topic
Brightspace
Did not participate in the in-person training due to distance; training was completed online
Online Course Professor
Trine UniversityHigher Education, 201-500 employees
Online Training
Brightspace
Brightspace 4.0
Based on 2 answers
The training provided online did not, necessarily, fit the version of the system that I was using. Screens were somewhat different and not all options were readily available. This could have been due to customization on the part of my institution however, I rather believe it was due to version changes and training materials not yet being updated.
Instructional Development Specialist
The Ohio State UniversityHigher Education, 10,001+ employees
Implementation
Brightspace
Brightspace 1.6
Based on 3 answers
The D2L implementation team listened to our concerns and built a system based upon our needs. We wanted to keep them after the initial implementation.
Director, Distance Learning
Johnson County Community CollegeHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees
Alternatives Considered
Articulate Studio
We look at Captivate first, which Adobe oddly leaves out of its Creative Cloud suite, and I can see why it seems to be completely foreign in term of UI vs other Adobe products. The familiar PPT structure Captivate leverages is completely absent and the tools are much more rigid. Exporting was also more difficult - it's pretty night and day different. Captivate is AWFUL, especially for an Adobe product.
Sr. IT Consultant
The Johns Hopkins University - Carey Business SchoolEducation Management, 10,001+ employees
Brightspace
Desire2Learn is similar to Blackboard but with less functionality and intuitiveness in terms of use. Grading options are more limited. Desire2Learn uses a cluttered interface with many tabs and options needing to be used to create even basic assignments for upload and grading. When entering grades in Blackboard, changes are instantly saved but Desire2Learn requires you hit a Save button at the bottom of the interface. If you fail to hit save, your grade changes will not be entered.

Verified User
Professional in Research & Development
Higher Education Company, 5001-10,000 employeesScalability
Brightspace
Brightspace 9.0
Based on 1 answer
During my first semester working with Desire2Learn the integrated learning management system was more down than up. This meant reconfiguring assignment due dates, frustration for both the instructor, students, and help desk staff. After an upgrade, Desire2Learn has been reliable.
Online Course Professor
Trine UniversityHigher Education, 201-500 employees
Return on Investment
Articulate Studio
- I only see positive impact since it is a very easy to use tool for rapid learning. The only point is to know what is possible to develop using this tool to avoid any kind of frustration afterwards.
- Another positive impact is that we don't need a diversified development team. There is no need of technical professionals, and a creative instructional designer is enough to develop effective learning content using Studio.
- The third positive impact is that Studio makes possible to realize short-term projects, mainly when there's already a PowerPoint presentation.
Account Executive
Clarity SolutionsE-Learning, 11-50 employees
Brightspace
- D2L has allowed us to create master courses that are regularly updated and then copied over from semester to semester. The copy process is very quick and easy so this have been a time saver for us.
- Sometimes the learning curve for end users has been a little difficult as the recent upgrades (9.4 to 10 to 10.1) have had some very significant changes. In the end I think the changes are an improvement but sometime faculty and students get nervous because "things look different".
Instructional Technology Coordinator
University of Wisconsin Colleges OnlineHigher Education, 11-50 employees
Screenshots
Articulate Studio
—Pricing Details
Articulate Studio
General
Free Trial
—Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
No
Brightspace
General
Free Trial
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
—Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Yes
Entry-level set up fee?
No