I think it's a clunky platform that feels like it is was made in 2003.
We use D2L Brightspace to teach online courses. I think in comparison to CANVAS it is very clunky and counter intuitive. Grading an …
Overview
What is D2L Brightspace?
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.
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- Learning content (9)9.696%
- Assignments (10)2.121%
- Learning reporting & analytics (10)2.121%
- Course authoring (10)2.121%
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What is D2L Brightspace?
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.
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Product Demos
D2L Brightspace | Tips & Tricks | How to Use Virtual Classrooms to Increase Student Engagement
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D2L Brightspace | Tips & Tricks | Using Intelligent Agents to Automate a Welcome Message
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D2L Brightspace v10.4 Creating Dropbox Folders
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D2L Brightspace v10.4 Grading Discussion Topics
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D2L Brightspace v10.4 Creating Discussion Forums
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Demo of Shuffling Quiz Questions in Brightspace
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Product Details
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- Competitors
- Tech Details
- FAQs
What is D2L Brightspace?
Brightspace is a learning management platform used to drive better learning outcomes by offering every learner a personalized, digital experience. From the kindergarten classroom, to college campuses, to global corporations, Brightspace aims to help create inspired and engaging learning for all.
It's key capabilities and benefits include:
It's key capabilities and benefits include:
- Mobile-first design - Brightspace works on any device – whether a laptop or hand-me-down smartphone or tablet.
- Personalized learning - Release Conditions and Intelligent Agents in Brightspace offer a high level of granularity and control over individual learning paths.
- Teaching tools for educators and instructors.
- Automation of routine course management tasks.
- Built-in analytics to improve decision-making.
- Tools like gamification, videos, badges, and others to increase learner engagement.
- Learning experience that meet all accessibility standards.
- Support for in-the-moment feedback as well as automation of assessments.
D2L Brightspace Features
Learning Management Features
- Supported: Course authoring
- Supported: Course catalog or library
- Supported: Player/Portal
- Supported: Learning content
- Supported: Mobile friendly
- Supported: Progress tracking & certifications
- Supported: Assignments
- Supported: Learning administration
- Supported: Learning reporting & analytics
- Supported: eLearning
- Supported: Assessments
- Supported: Live online learning
- Supported: In-person learning
- Supported: Micro-learning
- Supported: Video learning
- Supported: SCORM-compliant
- Supported: Social learning
Additional Features
- Supported: Social Assessment
D2L Brightspace Screenshots
D2L Brightspace Videos
D2L Brightspace 101: Building Better Learning Experiences
Establishing Student Engagement and Confidence with Brightspace Pulse
Virtual Classroom for Brightspace
D2L Brightspace for K-12 Learning
D2L Brightspace Integrations
- Google Drive
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium
- Credly
- Top Hat
- Ellucian Banner
- Ellucian Colleague
- Equatio
- Google Workspace
- Honorlock
- Alta from Knewton, a Wiley brand
- MATLAB
- Mercer Mettl Online Examination and Proctoring Solutions
- Mercer Mettl Coding Assessments
- McGraw-Hill Connect
- Microsoft 365
- OneNote
- OpenSesame
- Zoom
- YuJa
- WileyPLUS
- Unicheck
D2L Brightspace Competitors
D2L Brightspace Technical Details
| Deployment Types | Software as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based |
|---|---|
| Operating Systems | Unspecified |
| Mobile Application | Apple iOS, Android, Mobile Web |
| Supported Countries | Global |
| Supported Languages | English, Arabic, Danish, German, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, Turkish, Chinese |
Frequently Asked Questions
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.
Blackboard Learn by Anthology, Canvas, and Schoology Learning are common alternatives for D2L Brightspace.
Reviewers rate Course catalog or library highest, with a score of 10.
The most common users of D2L Brightspace are from Enterprises (1,001+ employees).
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Community Insights
TrustRadius Insights are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, 3rd-party data sources. Have feedback on this content? Let us know!
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- Pros
- Cons
- Recommendations
D2L Brightspace has proven to be a versatile and essential tool for a wide range of users. For instructors, it has been instrumental in facilitating online and face-to-face courses, eliminating the need for paper and allowing for the review and assessment of student coursework in a digital format. The platform has also served as a communication tool within educational institutions, enabling customized training, departmental collaboration, and the distribution of course materials. Moreover, it has supported faculty advancement portfolios, continuous learning in administrative departments, and the delivery of professional development training.
Additionally, D2L Brightspace has been widely utilized by students across various educational settings. It has provided a unique and personalized continuing educational tool, offering options for presenting and managing content to create efficient and engaging learning opportunities. The platform has served as a common repository for storing information, allowing students to access course materials, submit assignments, participate in discussions, and take quizzes online. With its user-friendly interface and flexibility in posting material and grading, D2L Brightspace has made online learning accessible and convenient for students.
Overall, D2L Brightspace's use cases span from supporting traditional classroom environments to facilitating distance learning and hybrid courses. Its integration with other technologies further enhances the learning experience by embedding tools like the Google Suite and Adobe Cloud. The customizable nature of D2L Brightspace enables instructors and institutions to tailor the platform to their specific needs and deliver classes in various formats – in-person, hybrid or fully online. Additionally, its mobile accessibility ensures that users can access course materials anytime and anywhere. With positive feedback from faculty regarding its functionality and ease of use, D2L Brightspace continues to serve as a reliable Learning Management System for universities, colleges, community colleges, and other educational organizations nationwide.
Seamless migration process: Several users have stated that the migration process from ANGEL to D2L Brightspace was smooth and hassle-free. This suggests that D2L Brightspace has effective tools and support in place to ensure a seamless transition, minimizing disruptions for educational institutions.
Flexible customization options: Many reviewers have appreciated the ability to customize widgets and change the layout of home pages in D2L Brightspace. This feature allows instructors to personalize their course pages and create a tailored learning experience for students. It highlights the software's flexibility and adaptability in catering to individual instructor preferences and instructional needs.
Commitment to user feedback: The user community has expressed appreciation for D2L Brightspace's collection and prioritization of new ideas. This showcases the software's dedication to incorporating user feedback and continuously improving its features based on customer input. The emphasis on user feedback demonstrates D2L Brightspace's commitment to meeting the evolving needs and expectations of its users.
Confusing and Non-Intuitive User Interface: Some users have found the user interface of D2L Brightspace to be confusing and not intuitive, requiring multiple steps to complete tasks.
Limited Customization Options: Several reviewers have mentioned that the customization options for page layouts and graphics in D2L Brightspace are limited. Users desired easier customization capabilities to personalize their courses.
Difficulties with Calendar Tool: The Calendar Tool in D2L Brightspace has been reported as difficult to navigate and manage by some users. They have expressed challenges in using this tool effectively for scheduling and keeping track of important dates.
Based on user reviews, there are three common recommendations for Brightspace. One important recommendation is to carefully consider the ease of use and quality of customer service. Users recommend thoroughly exploring all available options, asking questions, and taking into account potential future updates and improvements. Brightspace stands out for its highly intuitive interface and responsive customer service, making it an excellent choice for educational purposes.
Another key recommendation is to ensure proper setup and configuration of Brightspace during implementation in order to align with long-term goals. Users highly advise engaging a Technical Account Manager for comprehensive support and successful deployment. It is also recommended to compare costs and assess essential features when evaluating competing alternatives.
Users strongly advocate for utilizing the abundant resources and features offered by Brightspace. They recommend taking advantage of the available tutorials and other platform resources to enhance usage and instruction. While Brightspace is generally considered reliable, user-friendly, and intuitive, some users have noted that entering notes may not be as seamless as desired. It is also suggested to explore different areas within Brightspace to become familiar with its functionalities, and to enable direct communication between the messaging system and external email platforms for improved correspondence.
Overall, Brightspace is regarded as an outstanding learning management system (LMS) that offers great control and customization options for instructors. Users highly recommend it for effectively organizing students' classwork and facilitating video conferences. However, it is advised to carefully evaluate the pros and cons of implementing Brightspace, considering the additional time commitments it may require for professors.
Attribute Ratings
Reviews
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Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use D2L Brightspace to teach online courses. I think in comparison to CANVAS it is very clunky and counter intuitive. Grading an assignment, for instance, requires you to manually open the grade book, find the ungraded assignments one by one, open them as pop ups, and choose the attempt number. I don't understand why there isn't a simple 'to-do' list like in Canvas. Part of the problem might be my institution randomly restricting user abilities to prevent people from messing up their course pages, but I spent hours trying to streamline my page and nothing works well. I will quit my job primarily because I hate working with this platform.
November 22, 2021
A robust yet simple to use LMS - Brightspace
We utilize Brightspace across our institution to serve as the single unified platform for teaching and learning. Our institution is robust in the fact that it has many different locations and modalities. Online, face-to-face, hybrid and self-paced are all types of education we provide. Brightspace provides an avenue to connect all of our students and instructors. Instructors are asked to utilize Brightspace for all of their courses. Sometimes this means something simple, like uploading the syllabus -- but other courses (especially online) are built entirely into Brightspace. Students complete activities in Brightspace, and instructors evaluate and assess in Brightspace.
November 16, 2021
Brightspace - It's the whole package and more!
Working within a higher education institution, we need a product to deliver online courses through and to enhance all our other offerings, Brightspace has been that product for us. We are also part of a larger system of colleges/universities, of which there's about 32 of them, whom all use Brightspace. It is used throughout our entire institution, and we've even found uses for it beyond the primary purpose we purchased it for. We have found it to be a tremendously useful tool in delivering our regular credit-based courses through (online, face-to-face, hybrid, etc.), facilitate customized training, use for departmental collaboration, a communication tool for our whole institution (including with our students), and more. Without Brightspace, we would likely need multiple other software contracts and tools to effectively be able to do all the things we end up using it for. It may be one of our most costly software contracts that we have, but because it does so much for our organization, we would have to spend a lot more and be less efficient without it.
Brightspace is currently being used as the LMS system for our campus. This is how we facilitate our online courses and also house various materials for our in-class sections. All in-class courses must complete their syllabi through Concourses integrated into Brightspace, use Brightspace email to communicate with the instructor, and also keep a gradebook in Brightspace. We have also used Brightspace to keep information for faculty and employee training materials.
March 06, 2021
Brightspace LMS Review
Brightspace is a learning management system used by the college in all aspects of managing student learning, student achievement, student communication and teacher training.
August 03, 2019
A bright, flexible learning management system
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Brightspace is used throughout the organization with the exception of a few smaller departments. The LMS allows our instructors, employees, and students to access courses from their personal and work machines. The platform supports our traditional, hybrid, and online courses. With Brightspace, we are able to not only provide traditional slideshows and documents online for students to access, but we can also embed other technologies such as the Google Suite and the Adobe Cloud for further enhanced learning. The platform works on mobile and traditional machines as it allows developers to provide scalable resources and resources specific to each platform. I have used the service to provide three traditional in-person courses to students over the past year as well as one intensive online course. Materials are easily accessible and managing the platform becomes straightforward after a brief learning curve.
June 18, 2019
Employee-Tailored LMS Tool That Offers Unparalleled Customization for Improved Engagement
I work in a large-scale corporation that strongly emphasizes continuous learning and improvement. Brightspace is an LMS tool that has been implemented within some administrative departments of the company. Brightspace enables employees within my organization to further engage in their development by interacting with content across multiple mediums. Brightspace has offered an extremely efficient platform to engage in continuous learning via mobile, social, and video content while also providing an adaptive toolset to meet employees at their current knowledge level. Our organization sets monthly learning outcomes for employees with access to the platform depending on their position within the company. Our business has experimented with a variety of LMS tools for organizational use (Skillsoft, ANA, and in-house options) and Brightspace has offered one of the more unique and personalized continuing educational tools that we've experienced thus far!
April 06, 2019
Love it!
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
We use Brightspace for all of our classes. All students have access to Brightspace in order to access their classes, and many of the staff and faculty have access to either teach classes, keep up with calendars, or in my case, keep up with all of the syllabi and grades.
December 11, 2018
Not always intuitive but powerful and diverse LMS
Desire2Learn (now called Brightspace by D2L I believe) is used across our university as the learning management platform. Assignments, information, quizzes, etc. are distributed and submitted by students to this platform. I've used it for all of the classes that I've taught and taken over the past five years as a PhD student and instructor of undergraduate students. I've used it in face-to-face, online, and hybrid courses.
Brightspace is used as the virtual or online component to classes, either as a blended class, as an extra form of communication to students, or as a completely online course. It's also used college-wide as a way for employees to remain up-to-date on different HR topics. It's very organized and, I believe, user-friendly. I've used it in the capacity as a student, as an employee, and have helped professors use it to create content for their students.
March 12, 2018
D2L does the job
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
D2L is being used by the entire state university system. It has been, as I understand it, since 2010. The decision was made by the system regents to switch to Canvas by 2020, and I will be among the "early adopters". D2L is used as an option to support any and all courses taught anywhere in the UW system. Many instructors choose to use nothing. Some opt to use Blackboard, as that was what was used before D2L came on board, but without updates. I came in 2012 and have used D2L exclusively so far at this institution, Blackboard at others.
November 23, 2016
Desire to Learn or Desire to suffer
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
In my program, we have been using D2L since 2012. At the beginning our school was adapting it and it was quite buggy, then at the end of 2013 it got a lot better and became the go to system. However for whatever reason (I think business reasons and cost) D2L switched their servers and they claim that they are using a cloud based system. This switch happened in august of 2015 and since then all the wrong things started happening.
The file transfer speed (upload and download) went as low as %5 of what it should be. To make things worse, their server kicks you out when your upload or download is not done in 30 minutes. Their tech support after 7 months still does absolutely nothing. They practically ignore the existence of this issue. And worse than that many times my faculty and students reported issues such as file transfer termination, or when the transfer is done, the file is corrupt. This system is pretty much useless for us and our IT has told that D2L is not accepting the problem and they are blaming it on our ISP and web traffics. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
The file transfer speed (upload and download) went as low as %5 of what it should be. To make things worse, their server kicks you out when your upload or download is not done in 30 minutes. Their tech support after 7 months still does absolutely nothing. They practically ignore the existence of this issue. And worse than that many times my faculty and students reported issues such as file transfer termination, or when the transfer is done, the file is corrupt. This system is pretty much useless for us and our IT has told that D2L is not accepting the problem and they are blaming it on our ISP and web traffics. ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
February 12, 2016
Lots of Bang for Your Buck
Desire2Learn is utilized by the entire campus as a learning management platform.
September 30, 2015
My D2L Experience in Higher Ed
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
There are 31 colleges within the MN State Colleges and Universities System (MnSCU). To improve access to higher education, Minnesota State Colleges and Universities implemented a management system from Desire2Learn. The schools have simplified management and access with the centralized solution, which has achieved nearly 100 percent uptime. In addition, the new system will support future growth and enhances online services to help achieve the Chancellor's "Charting the Future.".
September 28, 2015
D2L Gives A Solid Performance
Desire2Learn is being used across the Colorado Community College System. I use it to teach my hybrid computer networking courses. It gives students and teachers a common repository to store information to be used in class as well as to upload all homework assignments, take quizzes, and interact through discussions. For example, I've been able to eliminate printing the syllabus and assignment sheets out for each class because they are posted in the Desire2Learn Course Shell and I can project it on the first day of class, and each student has their own copy at their fingertips whenever they need it during the course.
September 26, 2015
Item level copy is a strength
Hi, I'm Jennifer DeMack and I am an adjunct instructor with Front Range Community College. I teach ENG122: Composition II, a guaranteed transfer course centered on argument. Desire2Learn offers [our] faculty many options for presenting and managing content to create efficient and engaging learning opportunities for students.
September 25, 2015
Desire2Learn review from a HelpDesk point of view.
Desire2Learn is being used by the University to host classes for students and faculty.
September 25, 2015
Many Useful Features for those Willing to Explore
We use Desire2Learn as a part of a statewide collaborative of colleges and universities to offer college courses to students at our member institutions. Desire2Learn makes it possible for end users to create, modify and engage in a wide variety of course offerings across a complex system.
September 23, 2015
D2L is not all BS
I am the Desire2Learn administrator and an instructional designer for the University of West Georgia. Most of the universities in Georgia, including UWG, use Desire2Learn Brightspace as their primary Learning Management System. We use Desire2Learn in an "attempt" to gain some consistency across classes in our online classes as well as for a single point of entrance for students accessing online learning.
September 18, 2015
Desire2Learn rating
We use Desire2Learn as our online course platform in the University System of Georgia. I am writing this as an individual, not as a representative of my institution or the USG. D2L is an easy platform to use once you have a little familiarity with it. The system allows a fair amount of flexibility with posting material, choosing when it should be posted, allowing flexibility with discussions and grading. I have used several other course management systems and so far, I like D2L the best of the ones I have used. My students report fewer problems with this system than with other systems that we use. It allows easy portability of materials between classes and has a lot of options for how materials are presented to students.
September 15, 2015
I would take Desire2Learn over any version of Blackboard, always!
Desire2Learn is being used for distance learning and in the school of social work. It provided a platform for students and instructors to supplement regular classes.
August 19, 2015
Using D2L at The Ohio State University
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
D2L is being used across the entire university. At this college we use it as a means of distributing course materials as well as quizzing, discussions, surveys, dropbox, etc.
July 08, 2015
Does it give you a Desire2Learn?
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Desire2Learn is our campus Learning Environment System here at Southern Illinois University. My job as Help Desk supervisor is to make sure that faculty and students are familiar with the system. I have found that, although there are some tools that are not intuitive to use, for the most part it is user friendly. We switched over from another LMS approximately three years ago and, although there are a few holdouts, for the most part faculty is happy with it.
April 29, 2015
Desire2Learn Review
Score 1 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
I used Desire2Learn at my previous institution - a large, public university of about 30,000 students. The product was selected as the LMS of choice because of its capabilities, full array of features, solid technical support, and ease of use. Faculty using the software were very pleased with its functionality. I would recommend the product to colleagues.
February 25, 2015
D2L from an Instructional Designer's Point of View
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
D2L is used as an Learning Management System by the entire PASSHE system. At West Chester University it is used to host online classes. It is also used as a supplement to face-to-face courses (posting reading materials, links to additional information, out of class discussions, etc..) In my role, I design and develop fully online and hybrid courses using D2L. D2L (or any commercial LMS for that matter) allows us to organize students in classes and organize materials into learning modules, assess students online, communicate with students both synchronously and asynchronously online.