Blackboard Collaborate vs. WebinarJam

I would say it is very useful for group collaborations online, as well as virtual classrooms where you wish your students/guests to collaborate in an adaptable environment; however I would advise against using the shared screen to display audio or video, nor would I encourage the use of the shared board with a group of people with disciplinary issues (as there is no accountability for who wrote/drew what).

Incentivized

We have used WebinarJam for many reasons. Our main reason is to host large free webinars but we have also used it for smaller live training courses that people paid for, we have held private training classes for companies, and so on. I guess you could get creative and use it for a conference-style virtual event but wouldn't really recommend it for that. You could use it for internal training within an organization and things but I still feel it best suited for webinars and marketing purposes.

Incentivized

• The Whiteboard feature is perfect for tutoring. We use it to write out formulas, draw diagrams, etc while in video chat to enhance explanations.
• The file attachment feature is also very handy. This means we don't have to do a follow-up with a student using their email to send files of handouts, etc.
• It's great that we only have to share a classroom access link for a student to enter a session. With other products, they had to set up a username and log-in with an account. Link access means 1 less hassle.
• We are currently beginning to use the "record session" feature video sessions to use as training for new employees.

Incentivized

• ADMIN/USER STRENGTHS: Easy to use the dashboard to start a webinar on demand, or schedule one in the future. Each step has a video tutorial made to set you up for success, understanding each set-up step along the way. If I want to practice a session live, I can set up a webinar instantly (called Right Now-takes 6 clicks and 30 seconds to set this up), and stream it through my YouTube Channel, or schedule a full campaign for a later date (takes about 10 minutes) and drive people to attend. I can set up one date, or multiple dates. It's very easy to follow the nine initial steps to (configuration, schedule, registration, notifications, integration, thank you, live, replay and finish) setting up your webinar. Once you have created a campaign, you can always clone them for future use.
• ADMIN/USER STRENGTH: You can inject a pre-recorded video seamlessly. Let's say you did an incredible sales pitch on one of your webinars, you can inject this into future webinars to ensure a perfect presentation.
• ADMIN/USER STRENGTH: Poll your customers BEFORE the webinar, on the registration page to find out what they are looking for, why they have signed up, to be sure the presenter covers each participant's needs.
• ADMIN/USER STRENGTH: Autoresponder reminders can come from Webinar Jam (this is what I have always done to keep it simple) or integrate it with the top systems (AWeber, Active Campaign, Infusionsoft, IContact, MailChimp, ConvertKit, Drip, Kartra, Zapier).
• ADMIN/USER STRENGTH: I can set up a replay for those who missed the event, or even a replica replay where I can go into the video, fix up my sales presentation, and add a new video for people to see. I can also see who watches the replay.
• ADMIN/USER STRENGTH: In the analytics page I can see the numbers of people who visited the webinar registration page (to get an idea of how popular my topic was/change headings or topics if it's low, keep presenting if there's a high number), registrants, people in the room when I go live, and numbers for those who watched the replays. I can connect my autoresponder to communicate with people who missed the webinar/replay vs those who attended and even can see when people dropped off so I know if they were engaged for the entire webinar.

Incentivized

• Some of the newest computer high resolution screens are not as compatible with the interface. The font and windows are much smaller and the user is not able to increase the size of the windows to make it easier to read/navigate.
• The audio can sometimes be inconsistent and tune in and out when someone is speaking. This is not every time though and many times the audio is clear.
• The login process takes a bit longer to get into the program. You have to go through a few step process and loading time to get into the application.

Incentivized

• One of the biggest problems we have is that WebinarJam was sold to us as a lifetime license, and it was supposed to include broadcasting on Facebook. For reasons that were never clear, they stopped providing that functionality, which greatly reduced our use for the product.
• WebinarJam started out life as an innovative product, full of promise. Things changed within the organization, key staff and players changed, and it seems that key players just moved on to other projects. Users were required to pay for upgrades in order to get the best use out of the product.
• A big problem that was never really solved was the Lag/Delay between realtime and what the users were seeing and hearing.
• We really wanted to be able to administer Surveys to people during webinars and be able to store their responses and export them to a database. We were told there was no way to do that.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Blackboard Collaborate is reliable and feature-rich. It's a great web conferencing tool for teaching & learning, offering polls, chat, video and audio, whiteboard, content sharing, and breakout rooms. Blackboard Collaborate can be used for virtual office hours, lectures, guest speakers, training, professional development, conferences, technical support, academic advising, and so much more. Blackboard Collaborate can be used separately from the learning management system or it can be integrated for a single sign-on experience. It supports recordings, playbacks, private sharing, and MP4 downloads. Overall, it's a solid tool and very reliable.

Incentivized

The platform is really hard to use and they have a habit of pushing out updates without telling their users first. The last update completely reverted all of our customizations back to the default EverWebinar layout. I only found out about this after a lead kindly send an email to the firm letting us know that [our] registration confirmation page was showing lorem ipsum script. Customization is lacking as well

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.

Incentivized

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

Incentivized

Sometimes they do planned maintenance. Depending on the time zone you’re in, this may be in the middle of the night. That’s great. Sometimes this maintenance isn’t completed overnight however, and you need to use the platform and it is down. I’ve never been able to successfully contact them to report an outage or get assistance when it is down. I just have to wait until it comes back up to go to class, review sessions, etc.

Incentivized

The support overall is good. In the early days, it wasn't the best but they have definitely stepped it up lately. If you have questions about the platform, issues, setup, etc, and don't mind waiting 24 hours to get a response then it's good. They may have faster response times now but when they updated to 4.0 it took a while as they were getting hammered with emails cause there were issues. It seems like they have worked out some of the kinks so I imagine their support can respond much faster now. There is no phone number to call so there is no way to get immediate help or answers which can be frustrating when you have issues right before or during your webinar

Incentivized

Nearpod does not allow for the same type of synchronous environment that Blackboard collaborate does. Further, Nearpod, as the name suggests is best suited for a face-to-face classroom that is, preferably, one-to-one. While it has some of the same functions as Nearpod, Blackboard collaborate is best suited for remote transmission rather than face-to-face

Incentivized

I prefer WebinarJam due to its super-easy setup and great integration options. It works well with other tools like ClickFunnels, Hubspot and Mailchimp. From the tools we tried, this one seems to work the best for our company and clients!

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

• Because faculty can schedule sessions on-the-fly without IT involvement, they are able to accomplish goals that they plan for weeks in advance as well as impromptu goals that come up at a moments notice.
• Integration with the campus Learning Management Systems provides quick and easy scheduling of sessions that can be joined easily by students in those courses.
• Scheduling of meetings can also be done through the web interface directly which enables administrative departments not associated with courses in the learning management system to also schedule meetings not affiliated with courses.
• On-campus users can schedule meetings without outside participants by sending an open "guest link" URL that allows users to participate despite not having an account within the system iteself.

Incentivized

• WebinarJam has allowed us to present to multiple audiences at our prospective customers, rather than just a few individuals which made it difficult to get to the next sales step. By engaging a larger audience, we were able to drive more attention to our product and made follow up with the customer much easier.

Incentivized