Blackboard Learn by Anthology vs. Pointerpro vs. WileyPLUS

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.

Incentivized

They get the job done. We were able to do everything that our client wanted and needed. Its a free quiz on their website, so having to pay $1,500 a year for this service is hurting our bank. My only complaint is the price. If you are able to lower your price or offer promotions, then I would have no problem staying. We are currently looking for cheaper alternatives.

Incentivized

It's a good platform that has some very good content. We use Canvas as our learning management platform. It is nice to be able to integrate some of the pre-build WileyPLUS course modules into our Canvas course. Other publishers are good too and they sync with Canvas, but I find Wiley's Canvas modules easy to use and customize.

• 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.

Incentivized

• Intuitive branching logic mechanics. Survey Anyplace offers a nicely pipeline/process map format to visually see the branching logic for more robust question sets.
• Reliable results. Survey Anyplace offers important tracking data to evaluate and hold respondents accountable to completing the surveys.
• Users can save progress and come back. This allows busy respondents time to think about deeper questions, specifically when the surveys are being used in an interviewing approach.

Incentivized

• Auto-grading- provides immediate feedback to students.
• Adaptive assignment- helps the students see their weak areas.
• Video, videos, and more videos! There are solution walk-through videos, interactive tutorials, and real-world videos.
• Tech support- I get help when I need it, right away!

• 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

Incentivized

• Creating something highly customized at the ReportR level means you will need to have some savvy with CSS if you want to do it yourself. But it also means you can create something truly incredible and they do not have the same limitations as other similar software.

• There are a few errors in the homework answers.
• Some questions could be worded better to help students better match the formatting expectations when they change throughout the chapter.
• The offline PDF of the text should always be included in any online package.

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.

Reliable effective tool.

Incentivized

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.

This is a great platform. The ease of use and ability to generate instant reports is killer. I highly recommend this platform for those who want to showcase a professional survey to impress their clients and employees. For us, this helps expand our product offering greatly, which also supplements our other services. [Survey Anyplace is a] great product and platform!

Incentivized

It is so easy to pick up and students have no issues learning to use it.

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.

Incentivized

I wish there was a better live chat feature. Seems like I have to wait 30-60 every time I need to talk to someone. Though once I am able to speak with someone via the chat in my account, they have been very helpful in answering my questions or pointing me in the right direction.

Incentivized

24-7 support is available by phone, chat, or email. They also hold annual events which I have been blessed to attend twice. The staff is excellent. They are knowledgeable and genuinely care about you and your students. There are online forums for instructors to collaborate, learn, and have fun. Instructors receive gift cards for their participation too!

Incentivized

Blackboard's Managed Hosting was top-notch in getting us up and running quickly.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Survey Anyplace is an excellent piece of software.

It can create in depth surveys and has a huge functional capability! I would highly recommend using Survey Anyplace for any business as it is so adaptable!

The support team are fabulous and always on hand to answer any queries and set up Zoom calls for more tailored help! Mark has been brilliant in helping me to create a complex survey!

Incentivized

WileyPLUS is far better than one competing product I have used and noticeably better than a second competing product I have tested. I prefer not to name the other products. It is much easier to operate from an instructor perspective. Given the low level of questions it generates from students, I am certain it is easy for students to pick up and the level of Wiley support given to me and to students is great.

• 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.

Incentivized

• As a publisher, the quizzes provide us with compelling type of "advertising" product to engage our clients' audiences.
• We use the quizzes to direct respondents to thought leadership content for lead gen. The "correct response" feature in the quizzes provide the most interesting sample of our clients' content.

Incentivized

• Decreased, significantly, my grading time. No more manual grading of work. It is more of a review that allows me to target specific areas and specific students.
• Students now have resources to help them learn the content when they are away from class.
• Students get immediate feedback (depending on instructor settings) on problem areas and the ability to learn from their mistakes without having to wait for the instructor.