Skip to main content
TrustRadius
D2L Brightspace

D2L Brightspace

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.

Read more
Recent Reviews

TrustRadius Insights

D2L Brightspace has proven to be a versatile and essential tool for a wide range of users. For instructors, it has been instrumental in …
Continue reading

Love it!

9 out of 10
April 06, 2019
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 …
Continue reading

D2L does the job

8 out of 10
March 12, 2018
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 …
Continue reading

My D2L Experience in Higher Ed

9 out of 10
September 30, 2015
There are 31 colleges within the MN State Colleges and Universities System (MnSCU). To improve access to higher education, Minnesota State …
Continue reading
Read all reviews

Popular Features

View all 11 features
  • Learning content (9)
    9.6
    96%
  • Assignments (10)
    2.1
    21%
  • Learning reporting & analytics (10)
    2.1
    21%
  • Course authoring (10)
    2.1
    21%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

View all pros & cons
Return to navigation

Pricing

View all pricing
N/A
Unavailable

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.

Entry-level set up fee?

  • No setup fee

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Would you like us to let the vendor know that you want pricing?

80 people also want pricing

Alternatives Pricing

What is iSpring Learn?

iSpring Learn is an LMS for automating corporate training and improving employee performance.The system aims to enable users without technical skills to launch eLearning in one day without training. To start training with the platform, administrators upload learning content, assign courses, and…

What is ProProfs LMS Software?

ProProfs LMS is a learning management system software that is designed to help instructors create and deliver online training courses. The LMS offers both businesses and educational institutions comprehensive training solutions by allowing them to create online courses, complemented by tests,…

Return to navigation

Product Demos

D2L Brightspace | Tips & Tricks | How to Use Virtual Classrooms to Increase Student Engagement

YouTube

D2L Brightspace | Tips & Tricks | Using Intelligent Agents to Automate a Welcome Message

YouTube

D2L Brightspace v10.4 Creating Dropbox Folders

YouTube

D2L Brightspace v10.4 Grading Discussion Topics

YouTube

D2L Brightspace v10.4 Creating Discussion Forums

YouTube

Demo of Shuffling Quiz Questions in Brightspace

YouTube
Return to navigation

Features

Learning Management

Features of LMS and LCMS systems, related to designing, administering, and consuming learning content in an educational, corporate, or on-the-job context.

5.9
Avg 8.2
Return to navigation

Product Details

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:

  • 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

Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of Screenshot of

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 Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Android, Mobile Web
Supported CountriesGlobal
Supported LanguagesEnglish, 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).
Return to navigation

Comparisons

View all alternatives
Return to navigation

Reviews and Ratings

(77)

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!

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

(1-3 of 3)
Companies can't remove reviews or game the system. Here's why
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.
  • Make you click a thing to click a thing to click a thing to get what you are looking for.
  • Make you click a thing to click a thing to click a thing to get what you are looking for.
  • Make you click a thing to click a thing to click a thing to get what you are looking for.
  • Create a to-do list.
  • Let users customize course page layouts.
  • Embedded videos take forever to even appear on a page when you get there. This gives me the false impression that content is missing.
  • I think Gradebook sucks. It has question marks and weird icons all over, but there is no tooltip explaining what they mean.
  • In my experience, grading is clunky and takes a lot of clicks to get to an assignment.
In my opinion, it is not well-suited for teaching online courses. The design is clunky and outdated. It opens pop-ups for a lot of things that don't need pop-ups. It has unexplained icons (e.g., a question mark in a rectangle) with no tooltips.

I think it may be well-suited for wasting your time and graying out your hair.
  • Online teaching
  • Course design
  • Course delivery
  • Instructional media hosting
Learning Management (10)
9%
0.9
Course authoring
20%
2.0
Course catalog or library
N/A
N/A
Player/Portal
N/A
N/A
Learning content
N/A
N/A
Mobile friendly
10%
1.0
Progress tracking & certifications
N/A
N/A
Assignments
20%
2.0
Learning administration
20%
2.0
Learning reporting & analytics
20%
2.0
Social learning
N/A
N/A
  • It will make me quit my job
In my opinion, D2L Brightspace is inferior to CANVAS and Blackboard. I didn't choose it. It was selected by my employer.
John Bayerl | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
  • Provide an online platform for education/training.
  • Serve as a institution-wide communication channel.
  • Allow for customization to institutional needs.
  • Consistency across the platform.
  • May take time to customize to best fit institutional needs.
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.
  • Individual/customizable sites that can be used for specific purposes.
  • Organization-wide communication tools.
  • User/Group-based roles/permissions.
  • Integrations with other products.
Learning Management (10)
96%
9.6
Course authoring
100%
10.0
Course catalog or library
100%
10.0
Player/Portal
100%
10.0
Learning content
100%
10.0
Mobile friendly
100%
10.0
Progress tracking & certifications
90%
9.0
Assignments
100%
10.0
Learning administration
100%
10.0
Learning reporting & analytics
100%
10.0
Social learning
70%
7.0
  • Increased customer/student retention.
  • Increased ability for service offerings to customer/student.
  • Improved data gathering ability of customer/student behavior, interest, etc.
In looking at Brightspace versus its competitors currently, it continues to provide the widest functionality, great value, and better ability to tailor the user experience of it to our organizations needs. The longer that our institution has had Brightspace, the more we've been able to leverage it for one-off projects and long-term organizational needs, many of which would not have been possible if we would've had a competitor's product.
There are many avenues for support with Brightspace. D2L manages a great community website that customers can collaborate in. Our institution has our own dedicated Technical Account Manager who is always available if we ever have questions or needs. The site itself runs really well, and luckily there's not a large need for us, institutionally, to contact support from D2L directly very regularly. Even if we did need to contact support, the service is always excellent.
I'm not sure if we have purchased premium support, and if we did, I'm not sure what that support is in contrast to what would be considered just "regular support" provided when purchasing/using the product.
Yes
Some bugs take time to identify, solve, and ultimately fix. So, I feel as though when we identify a bug and then report it to D2L, it is resolved in a timely fashion based on the appropriate severity of the bug. I have never experienced a time where I thought, "D2L should've fixed this already, it has taken way too long and is hurting my users/organization."
Traci Rushing | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
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.
  • The layout is amazing! Students who have used other LMS's have often commented on the ease of navigability Brightspace offers.
  • The annotation features for course assignments are easy to follow.
  • The layout of the homepage is very user-friendly and places focus on course announcements.
  • Brightspace email is also a bonus feature!
  • I wish there was a way that we could block students from their courses and provide notification as to why they have been locked out of their accounts.
  • I wish there was a way to change the order of pinned course in the my courses widget.
  • The instant messenger features in Brightspace are not really that great. I wish there was a way to link it to your phone or that it would provide a different alert. It currently works pretty similar to email.
Brightspace offers, by far, the best customer support! I am always able to connect with chat support instantly to solve any issues. Our account managers check in monthly to make sure there are no issues on our end and Brightspace host frequent trainings for both faculty and administrators. Brightspace also host excellent professional development trainings with tips for facilitating online courses.

Their platform is also very easy to use.
  • The announcements widget.
  • Brightspace email.
  • Integration capabilities with 3rd party softwares such as Evaluation Kit, Concourse Syllabus Management, Teaching tools (Cengage, Pearson, etc.), and Respondus.
  • The fact that they are constantly finding ways to improve their software!
Learning Management (9)
100%
10.0
Course authoring
100%
10.0
Player/Portal
100%
10.0
Learning content
100%
10.0
Mobile friendly
100%
10.0
Progress tracking & certifications
100%
10.0
Assignments
100%
10.0
Learning administration
100%
10.0
Learning reporting & analytics
100%
10.0
Social learning
100%
10.0
  • Since moving to Brightspace we have seen an increase in students returning to take our online courses.
  • We have a higher satisfaction rate among our faculty members where LMS is concerned.
Brightspace is by far the most user-friendly LMS I have ever used. Faculty with a lower technical skill set have an easier time navigating Brightspace features. Teaching wise, I have also found Brightspace to be easier for students to navigate than its competitors. I adjunct for another institution using Blackboard and always have students that struggle with the features and navigation of Blackboard even after hosting a zoom session to go over layout. This is rarely ever an issue for my students at my full-time institution using Brightspace.
Zoom, Harmonize, Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365), Blackboard Collaborate
Return to navigation