Blackboard Collaborate vs GoGuardian Teacher | TrustRadius

What users are saying about

Score 6.7 out of 10

Based on 98 reviews and ratings

Score 9.1 out of 10

Based on 6 reviews and ratings

Feature Rating Comparison

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

High quality audio

High quality video

Low bandwidth requirements

Mobile support

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

Desktop sharing

Whiteboards

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

Calendar integration

Meeting initiation

Integrates with social media

Record meetings / events

Slideshows

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

Live chat

Audience polling

Q&A

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

User authentication

Participant roles & permissions

Confidential attendee list

Pros

The ability to host a number of people in a meeting and manage their participation via text and audio.
The screen sharing features allows presenters to demonstrate procedures exactly as instructed on the screen. This also allows the presenter to permit others to share their screens if they need clarification of something or to share further ideas.
The software gives you the freedom to use a whiteboard to draw/demonstrate concepts to students and other employees.

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Carly Pietrzyk, PhD

Teacher/Curricululm Consultant

Robert Morris UniversityEducation Management, 501-1000 employees

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Account setup is very easy.
The software is extremely intuitive.

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Coordinator of Network and Technical Services

Hudson Falls Central School DistrictEducation Management, 201-500 employees

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Cons

Logging in can be challenging for students who are not exactly computer literate. The program's reliance on an updated Java can be a real source of frustration for students and parents.
Accessing sessions once they've been recorded is a bit cumbersome. It is especially difficult for professors who are not as computer literate.
Accessing a virtual classroom could be improved. I would like to see a customizable "button" or "widget" option that can be placed on a professor's webpage.

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Laura Abercrombie

Adjunct English Professor

Polk State CollegeHigher Education, 201-500 employees

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The initial learning curve of the program took some time, but then was easy to follow.
We were only able to start using it after our IT department sent our classes to us.

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Verified User

Employee in Other

Education Management Company, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

Blackboard Collaborate 9.0

Based on 1 answer

It is a tool that faculty likes to use. It has so much flexibility to allow students to see a class even if they happen to not be available in the classroom.

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Verified User

Project Manager in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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GoGuardian Teacher 10.0

Based on 1 answer

For a technology-heavy school, it is a necessary and good tool for managing classroom use of laptops. It is easy to set up and use. Helps track time on task and internet usage. Another source of data when speaking to parents about student work and activity. Can help plan and manage work time when you have limited devices.

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Laurance J. Specht

Manager of Personalized Learning and Dean of Instruction

Brooklyn Laboratory Charter SchoolEducation Management, 51-200 employees

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Usability

Blackboard Collaborate 7.0

Based on 6 answers

It's good but could use some improvement in the ease-of-use category. The interface is not bad, but not always the most intuitive, which makes it a bit more difficult to learn. Performance is very good, limited mainly by the quality of the internet connection. Having the ability to use the phone for audio helps with that.

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Verified User

Professional in Other

Higher Education Company, 201-500 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Reliability and Availability

Blackboard Collaborate 8.0

Based on 2 answers

The availability of the software is quite impressive. You can access it at any time that you want and from anywhere that you want, but that depends on how the software is set up by the University. There might be sudden outages due to not having enough space on your database, which we had that very issue happen recently here at our University. During that time, you could not access their blackboard at all until it was brought up online again.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Computer Software Company, 11-50 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Performance

Blackboard Collaborate 9.0

Based on 2 answers

The performance of the software is remarkable. The loading speed of the pages is more than satisfying, it all depends on the users internet package. So far, there wasn't any issue of Blackboard slowing down other software or systems when integrated with them

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Computer Software Company, 11-50 employees

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No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Support Rating

Blackboard Collaborate 8.7

Based on 5 answers

Blackboard Collaborate offers great value for the price. It delivers excellent consistency in terms of a content interface across campus. Because of this, the system is student-friendly for their entire campus career. The product is also user friendly and our faculty picked up the necessary skills rather quickly after a few weeks of training.

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Francis Moninger

Administrative Coordinator

Bowling Green State UniversityEducation Management, 201-500 employees

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GoGuardian Teacher 9.6

Based on 6 answers

The support is great. On the rare occasion that I've had to reach out to support they have been very quick to respond and extremely helpful. I've also had teachers reach out directly to support themselves. Most of the time I don't even know that a teacher has reached out to support until after the fact. They always seem satisfied.

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Coordinator of Network and Technical Services

Hudson Falls Central School DistrictEducation Management, 201-500 employees

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Alternatives Considered

While other products can handle more active participants in a meeting at one time, Blackboard Collaborate has a much simpler and easy-to-use interface that makes it an ideal product for one to many presentations. It integrates fully with multiple learning management systems to allow simply scheduling as well as has a separate front-end to allow for use outside of the LMS.

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Verified User

Administrator in Information Technology

Higher Education Company, 1001-5000 employees

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LanSchool had the same idea as GoGuardian but it was not cloud-based. This meant that LanSchool was unable to be used on multiple devices because it only tracked the data from one desktop device. This made it more difficult for teachers to monitor students because they had to use one specific device to track student's device data.

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Rebecca Vold Preston

First Grade Teacher

Pleasant Hope School DistrictPrimary/Secondary Education, 51-200 employees

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Scalability

Blackboard Collaborate 8.0

Based on 1 answer

The reason for this rating is that the software is a pretty good tool that can be utilized for use in all of the Universities around the world. It has the capability to fulfill the needs of various different education systems. Although, there are slight improvements that are needed, therefore the rating is at 8.

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Verified User

Former Employee in Information Technology

Computer Software Company, 11-50 employees

View all 1 answers on this topic

No score

No answers yet

No answers on this topic

Return on Investment

Collaborate Ultra has been the most effective for us for training faculty virtually.
Faculty have been excited that they can have a remote guest speaker in their classroom, and all they need to do for set up is to e-mail that guest speaker a link to join the session.
Collaborate Ultra is beyond useful for faculty to meet with online students who are either across the country, or even in other countries, with tools that really help to focus on course work.

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Joseph Axenroth

LMS Administrator

Westfield State UniversityHigher Education, 1001-5000 employees

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It allows us real-time information to handle situations.
It has increased students adherence to online behavior norms.

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Verified User

Employee in Other

Education Management Company, 51-200 employees

View all 4 answers on this topic

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

Blackboard Collaborate Editions & Modules

Edition

Classroom	$300.00¹
Department	$9000.00¹

Per Year

Additional Pricing Details

—

General

Free Trial

—

Free/Freemium Version

—

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

—

Entry-level set up fee?

No

GoGuardian Teacher Editions & Modules

—

Additional Pricing Details

—

Rating Summary

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

Blackboard Collaborate

GoGuardian Teacher

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