D2L Brightspace vs. PiiQ by Cornerstone

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
D2L Brightspace
Score 5.1 out of 10
N/A
Brightspace is an academic and corporate learning management platform. It provides core e-learning features, as well as mobile accessibility and granular personalization and analytics insights.N/A
PiiQ by Cornerstone
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
Cornerstone’s PiiQ is an SMB offering formerly known as Sonar6. PiiQ is aimed at small-to-medium sized businesses and includes core learning management and performance management systems, including content creation, mobile accessibility, and in-product reporting.
$8
per user per month
Pricing
D2L BrightspacePiiQ by Cornerstone
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
PiiQ Performance
$8.00
per user per month
PiiQ Learning + Content
$8.00
per user per month
PiiQ Learning + Content & Performance
$15.00
per user per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
D2L BrightspacePiiQ by Cornerstone
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee$1,000 per installation
Additional DetailsMust contact vendor for pricing information. 30-day free trial is available.
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
D2L BrightspacePiiQ by Cornerstone
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
D2L BrightspacePiiQ by Cornerstone
Learning Management
Comparison of Learning Management features of Product A and Product B
D2L Brightspace
5.9
10 Ratings
32% below category average
PiiQ by Cornerstone
6.6
11 Ratings
22% below category average
Course authoring2.110 Ratings6.011 Ratings
Course catalog or library10.06 Ratings6.811 Ratings
Player/Portal9.87 Ratings6.810 Ratings
Learning content9.69 Ratings6.611 Ratings
Mobile friendly1.19 Ratings7.98 Ratings
Progress tracking & certifications9.49 Ratings6.210 Ratings
Assignments2.110 Ratings6.711 Ratings
Compliance management8.01 Ratings5.89 Ratings
Learning administration2.19 Ratings6.611 Ratings
Learning reporting & analytics2.110 Ratings6.911 Ratings
Social learning8.49 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
D2L BrightspacePiiQ by Cornerstone
Small Businesses
Tovuti LMS
Tovuti LMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
Tovuti LMS
Tovuti LMS
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Sakai
Sakai
Score 8.7 out of 10
Bridge Learning Platform
Bridge Learning Platform
Score 9.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Intellum
Intellum
Score 9.2 out of 10
Bridge Learning Platform
Bridge Learning Platform
Score 9.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
D2L BrightspacePiiQ by Cornerstone
Likelihood to Recommend
1.5
(45 ratings)
8.6
(40 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(25 ratings)
3.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
6.4
(11 ratings)
8.5
(37 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(2 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(6 ratings)
9.2
(36 ratings)
Online Training
4.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Implementation Rating
1.6
(3 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
6.5
(9 ratings)
Product Scalability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
D2L BrightspacePiiQ by Cornerstone
Likelihood to Recommend
D2L
If you're an educational institution (K-12, Higher Ed, etc.), this is an amazing tool, and it will provide you all the functionality to support anything you may want and need it to do. If you are looking at Brightspace as a tool for corporate training, I'm not sure exactly how good or bad it will be for you. My guess would be that it likely depends on your organization's size. Along that line, what I can speak to is how we use it for our customized training and in-house professional development/training, and it works fantastically for that. While we primarily use it for normal higher ed coursework, we regularly do training and professional development for all of our employees and I manage those along with our HR department. Because we use it for many other things as well, all of our employees are familiar with the product, which makes our trainings go that much smoother and makes my job that much easier.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
Well suited for:
  • A busy environment where you want learners to be self-sufficient and to be able to access learning solutions at a time that suits them.
  • For anyone who wants to access learning using different platforms such as iPad, mobile, PC, etc
  • Anyone who needs a more in-depth learning solution rather than an overview of key learning points.
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Pros
D2L
  • Allowing users to embed content links from YouTube or Google Drive enables learners to experience a richer lesson.
  • Providing a powerful editor that allows developers to also include content from Adobe Stock as well as textbook publishers and cloud storage companies gives more power and creative ability to instructors.
  • Providing scaling for mobile and traditional computer systems ensures students will not have issues on the go.
  • The customization of home pages and groups enable courses to be used for small training sessions with breakout groups, large courses with separate sections, and even just more engaging courses that present themed icons and logos.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
  • Enables employees to draft work goals and collaborate with their supervisors on a final version - improves mutual understanding right up front.
  • Combines performance goal ratings with competency ratings and provides a blended score. Simplifies the goal weighting so you don't have to do any calculations.
  • 9-box matrix provides useful definitions and descriptions so managers can prepare development notes or plans for individual employees.
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Cons
D2L
  • One can feel a bit rushed on the Brightspace platform during the log-out period. Security requirements may require this, but it makes end-users more conscious about getting through content than taking notes.
  • From my experience, there is not a direct connection between the platform and Outlook.
  • Some content on the platform can feel redundant.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
  • Would be good to have have a virtual "top level" (eg board) user built in to allow senior execs without a direct manager to be able to be set up with KPIs instead of having to create a dummy user
  • Reports have difficulty downloading if pop ups disabled or in some browser environments
  • When competencies are updated while a cycle is open, any changes don't effect that open cycle but only future ones. Would be nice to be able to have the option to apply changes to existing "open" cycles
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Likelihood to Renew
D2L
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.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
It's not that CSB isn't a decent performance management system, but we have decided to go with just one vendor (Workday) for an HRIS/performance management/payroll system so we can directly relate pay to performance. We are more interested in having just one system that "talks" to the other pieces instead of having to work with several vendors. It reduces the hassle of having to communicate with different support teams, having different contracts, and so on.
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Usability
D2L
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.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
There are specific things within the goals and competencies that are user-friendly. For example, the rating slider isn't great in my opinion. You can slide in between ratings which can create some odd scoring (if you use scoring). It seems a better solution would be a drop down where you select your rating. There are also some glitches in the system and have been told Cornerstone is aware of them but are focused on delivering new features. There are workarounds, but that doesn't seem to be a great answer.
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Reliability and Availability
D2L
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.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
So far 100%.
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Performance
D2L
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.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
The saving process slows it down. It doesn’t auto save. If you leave a page, it will sometimes warn you, but not always. When you hit the save button, a window pops up that says creating/saving packets. It feels very archaic.
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Support Rating
D2L
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.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
My assistant could better address this issue. My perception is that there is not immediate assistance, and that there can be a wait for help. That is not a negative, just a perception. I have not used support in two years.
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In-Person Training
D2L
Did not participate in the in-person training due to distance; training was completed online
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Cornerstone OnDemand
No answers on this topic
Online Training
D2L
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.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
We bought training provided by 3rd party – it was fabulous.
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Implementation Rating
D2L
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.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
I think we could have done a better job of rolling out the tool to our managers. We were under a tight timeline. In the training, we showed them everything and said go do it by this date. Looking back, I would have done it in pieces: for example, 2 weeks to write goals, 2 weeks to get sign-off from direct reports. I just let them go at it. Since then we’ve moved to agile development environment and are applying the technique to everything. In future would only do through change sprint. It is a big change I didn’t take it seriously enough.

I had a team of 3 project managing. You need a champion from every department to make sure you’re getting it right and to make sure what’s happening is communicated. It’s not something you can do without input from department heads
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Alternatives Considered
D2L
I have used Blackboard Learn 8 and 9. I am currently learning about Canvas. Blackboard is overall much clunkier and lacks the intuitive feel in some parts of D2L. Its grade book is much harder to control and manipulate than D2L's. Its navigation menu can be more radically modified from the default than D2L's, but this doesn't seem that useful to me. Discussions in Blackboard can be more easily reorganized than in D2L, but no grading of discussions is possible. Blackboard Assignments is a good innovation which allows markup directly in the students' submissions, but it displays student work in a confusing manner that doesn't allow for any customization, and its markup options need further tweaking. Furthermore, no rubrics can be used in Blackboard in any way to grade any kind of work (that I am aware of). Overall, I would choose D2L over Blackboard.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
Lesson.ly has been great to work with but it is a very clear and simple, user-friendly system that anyone can pick up with very little training as it is self-explanatory. It also has a great mobile interface and lots of different features that are easy to add for the admin but really impactful for the user.
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Scalability
D2L
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.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
D2L
  • I cannot speak to whether this system is less expensive than the more fully featured Blackboard, but employees are far less efficient, frustrated, and require frequent calls to the help center to set up fairly simple course templates.
  • I have been asked to consider teaching courses which will be completely online at my current institution. I have done such online courses several times at other universities, but I have decided Desire2Learn is too frustrating and cumbersome to do so. I am now exploring using Google Drive to teach a course online. Otherwise, I will not teach online until required or I find an alternate system.
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Cornerstone OnDemand
  • It's tool and it's only as good as the person wielding it. The investment in PiiQ was accompanied by a quarterly cadence and manager feedback training. We feel like our employees are given regular feedback and bonuses are tied to objective accomplishment.
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ScreenShots

D2L Brightspace Screenshots

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PiiQ by Cornerstone Screenshots

Screenshot of PiiQ Performance Employee ReviewScreenshot of PiiQ Learning on DevicesScreenshot of PiiQ Manager/Employee Check-insScreenshot of PiiQ 9-box Talent MatrixScreenshot of PiiQ Learning Publish New ContentScreenshot of PiiQ Learning Searchable Library & Self-registration