Blackboard Learn by Anthology vs. Illuminate Data & Assessment (DnA)

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Blackboard Learn by Anthology
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Blackboard Inc. is an enterprise learning management systems vendor. Blackboard was founded in 1997 and became a public company in 2004. The company provides education, mobile, communication, and commerce software and related services to clients including education providers, corporations and government organizations. As of December 2010, Blackboard software and services are used by over 9,300 institutions in more than 60 countries. Blackboard Learn is the company's flagship LMS, supporting…N/A
Illuminate DnA
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
Illuminate Education offers their student assessment management platform, Illuminate Data & Assessment (or Illuminate DnA), providing a means of tracking student standardized testing, test data analysis, and other features.N/A
Pricing
Blackboard Learn by AnthologyIlluminate Data & Assessment (DnA)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Blackboard Learn by AnthologyIlluminate DnA
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional DetailsMust contact vendor for pricing information.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Blackboard Learn by AnthologyIlluminate Data & Assessment (DnA)
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Blackboard Learn by AnthologyIlluminate Data & Assessment (DnA)
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
Blackboard Learn by Anthology
8.5
30 Ratings
4% above category average
Illuminate Data & Assessment (DnA)
-
Ratings
Course authoring8.924 Ratings00 Ratings
Course catalog or library8.924 Ratings00 Ratings
Player/Portal8.021 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning content6.127 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile friendly8.830 Ratings00 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications7.024 Ratings00 Ratings
Assignments9.030 Ratings00 Ratings
Compliance management9.017 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning administration9.925 Ratings00 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics8.926 Ratings00 Ratings
Social learning8.922 Ratings00 Ratings
Single Sign On (SSO) Enabled Learning9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
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Blackboard Learn by AnthologyIlluminate Data & Assessment (DnA)
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User Ratings
Blackboard Learn by AnthologyIlluminate Data & Assessment (DnA)
Likelihood to Recommend
9.8
(58 ratings)
9.9
(4 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
4.6
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(5 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
7.7
(14 ratings)
3.0
(1 ratings)
Online Training
7.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Blackboard Learn by AnthologyIlluminate Data & Assessment (DnA)
Likelihood to Recommend
Anthology, Inc
A school with a well-established technology imprint with their students (for example, ours is a BYOB school where every student has their own laptop and must bring it to school every day and where over 99% of our families have reliable broadband at home) is a reasonable scenario for using The arrogance and intransigence of the sales force is quite disconcerting… They are no longer the only game in town and don't yet realize it. Less well-off schools/families may find it a challenge if students must be on campus or at a public library in order to use the technology. Obviously, during the pandemic, this became problematic for some districts.
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Illuminate Education
I think it is well suited for K-12 schools, especially for tracking student growth over time. The ability to easily upload state assessment results and produce pre-built reports provides teachers actionable data. The online assessment system is more appropriate for secondary (grades 6-12) students in our district due to the types of assessments our elementary (K-5) students complete. I have some experience with other systems and think that the illuminate software offers more flexibility in the types of data that can be stored.
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Pros
Anthology, Inc
  • Blackboard Learn makes submitting assignments electronically simple and provides a variety of built-in Web-based tools like e-portfolios, wikis, and blogs that our students use to create their own content.
  • Blackboard Learn is intuitive and easy to navigate from a students perspective
  • Blackboard Learn has many integrations available for connecting this LMS to other tools we use at our institution.
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Illuminate Education
  • Easy to use
  • Item banks
  • Outstanding customer service.
  • Reasonable pricing models.
  • Integrates well with student info systems.
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Cons
Anthology, Inc
  • Blackboard Learn has some limitations when it comes to submissions
  • It is not that user friendly, I had to spend some time to get a hang of it in the beginning
  • I have been struggling a bit with deletion of manually added courses
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Illuminate Education
  • Tech support seemed good but our main issue was never resolved. We received attention and someone was working on our issue, but they could never figure out why our student count was off for 1 grade level even though they said our data looked great.
  • The customized reports were powerful, but there was so much to learn for the average administrative user, like a principal, to get the detailed data they need. You would have to have a dedicated person to create customized reports.
  • At some point, our representative just stopped calling and there was no further contact. Then our rep left the company and the new rep only sent one email notifying us of the change. That was almost a year ago.
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Likelihood to Renew
Anthology, Inc
There are several aspects of Desire2Learn that outweigh the benefits of using Blackboard. I find that the Desire2Learn system is a bit more user friendly and looks more up-to-date. However, the decision to renew systems is not up to me because the entire University uses the same system. Regardless, I think I would choose Desire2Learn over Blackboard because of its improved user interface.
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Illuminate Education
No answers on this topic
Usability
Anthology, Inc
It is very usable for both faculty and students. The interface is pretty intuitive and most students can use it without a lot of additional training. Faculty do need some training to effectively use the interface, but they usually get it pretty quickly. We have had to create some additional programming to give faculty a way to delve deeper into the content.
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Illuminate Education
Illuminate DnA is a very usable system. A few items to learn and set up can be a bit time-consuming. However, once set up it is easy to use and powerful for a school that staff can master quickly. It has more features then we actually use but I hope we will over time.
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Support Rating
Anthology, Inc
My Blackboard support comes from the university I work with. They are responsive--eventually... but it takes them sometimes a week to respond to a reported issue. For example, I reported 2 issues last week and one was resolved and I was contacted about one still open option today. That is too long for a tech issue. I have not contacted any support offered directly by Blackboard, which may be a completely different experience altogether.
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Illuminate Education
Our issue was never resolved so that we could use the software to produce accurate reports. Their tech department looked into the issue several times and could never figure out why our student was off and then they just closed the case. They confirmed we were performing the correct steps to load the data and they confirmed our data looked accurate. Great, but again why was our student count off?
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Implementation Rating
Anthology, Inc
Blackboard's Managed Hosting was top-notch in getting us up and running quickly.
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Illuminate Education
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Anthology, Inc
Coursera offers a variety of modules in which a team is able to work on then, but [Blackboard Learn] offers more options to understand how are the team members developing and which tasks have offered a harder challenger for them. [Blackboard Learn] also offers a variety of reports that can be generate by a team lead.
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Illuminate Education
Illuminate DnA offers more flexibility and additional features that our previous Data Director system offered. We were looking for a system that offered an online assessment portal and the ability to create elementary standard-based report cards when we selected the illuminate DnA software. We were impressed with the ability to easily create custom reports and liked the comprehensive student profile page.
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Return on Investment
Anthology, Inc
  • At one of the institutions that I worked for, the ROI was excellent for the number of users we were serving; however, I could not speak to other instances as I was not aware of the overall cost of the contract.
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Illuminate Education
  • Better handle on student achievement.
  • Clarity around achievements on specific standards.
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ScreenShots

Blackboard Learn by Anthology Screenshots

Screenshot of A modern and intuitive learning management system (LMS) designed in collaboration with the global education community, providing students and faculty with a more inclusive, flexible, and insightful experience.Screenshot of Fostering a sense of belonging is essential to student success. To truly create an inclusive learning environment requires a holistic approach, and Blackboard Learn leads the market in many critical areas which allow your institution to meet students of all backgrounds where they are. Built to be mobile-first, Blackboard Learn is the only LMS that provides the same great experience on PC, tablet, and smartphone. And we're proud that Blackboard Learn was the First LMS to achieve accessibility Certification from the National Federation of the Blind and all of our interfaces undergo rigorous accessibility testing. Learn also has the best integration with our market-leading accessibility product, Ally, of any LMS. Learn also ensures that every user has an experience which reflects – and celebrates – their unique identity. To take just one example, users can record their name pronunciation, and choose their preferred pronouns.Screenshot of Blackboard Learn supports instructors with multiple formative and summative assessment methods, and features capabilities that reduce stress for students. For example, we’ve recently released features that allow students to use different test-taking strategies and understand their progress through assessments – including a timer that can be hidden – to maximize their result and minimize anxiety. Grading workflows have been designed to increase efficiency for instructors and give more insightful feedback to students. For instance, we’ve recently revamped the overall grade functionality to make it easier for instructors to change weightings between tasks and tailor to individual students. Blackboard Learn also offers deep integrations with hundreds of partners to create even more interactive and engaging courses, including the deepest interaction of any LMS with Microsoft Teams.Screenshot of Blackboard Learn presents insights embedded right into instructor and student workflows - making useful information readily available, and making it easier for instructors to help students where and when they need it most. Learn's progress tracking tools help students and instructors always know how they're tracking to achieve their goals - and where there is opportunity for improvement. Quick actions are tied to these insights, like following up with students in groups or individually. Blackboard Learn also provides built-in value with Blackboard Data Reporting to help leaders understand how the LMS is being used, student performance, and surfacing opportunities for continuous improvement.