iSpring Ascends but Fails to Take Flight
November 08, 2020

iSpring Ascends but Fails to Take Flight

Kathleen M Jarchow | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with iSpring Suite

iSpring was formerly used by myself to aid my university department with quick and easy assessment building. The decision to use iSpring was not made at the organization level, rather, by individual departments depending on their specific needs. iSpring, for my department, addresses the deficits and shortcomings extant in my organization's Learning Management System (LMS) in the areas of assessment building. iSpring's SaaS-enabled my department to produce a wider variety of high quality and easy-to-implement assessments that were better suited and tailored to helping faculty create course objective yet learner-centered questions.

Pros

  • Ease of assessment creation.
  • Interfaces that integrate with existing software.
  • Easy exportation through SCORM packages.

Cons

  • iSpring does have an asset repository that is decent; however, it falls woefully short as it is not up-to-date and the assets are either poor quality or out of date.
  • The accompanying asset library catalog is too minimal in scope and the navigation thereof is difficult.
  • The software forces the user into employing an awkward presentation model that is not intuitive.
  • Older faculty were less intimidated by iSpring than some of the other flashier SaaS options out there due to iSpring's easy integration with familiar software (PowerPoint).
  • People who are looking for a well-indexed and diverse asset catalog should skip iSpring as this is one area where the department had to lay out more money for another service to have access to more up-to-date and readily searchable assets.
  • If time is money, then iSpring does help the bottom line due to its ease of assessment creation; however, the time is only saved by professors who have their own well-developed asset collection.
During the pandemic, iSpring seemed the most understanding of the difficulties facing the education industry and they made their SasS products either a) reasonably priced or b) extended the period of time over which one could receive the education discount. It was simply a matter of the company's willingness to help during a time of crisis. Sadly, as soon as the pandemic ended, the company was recalcitrant in their flexibility and willingness to see my organization as a business opportunity; ergo, iSpring is among several SaaS that we will no longer use.
The software integration was appealing to our department--particularly to the faculty who had not, prior to the pandemic, taught online--because it integrates with an already known entity: PowerPoint. Furthermore, iSpring's assessment builder with its wide variety of questions is extremely easy to use--basically plug and play--for any level of comfort that a faculty member has in terms of online teaching.
iSpring has a great response time when it comes to answering tech questions. However, their customer service side of the company leaves a lot to be desired. Once the extended pandemic pricing was nullified, getting anyone to budge to help with scaling costs or even someone to extend the pricing discount in exchange for a future contract agreement was like asking iSpring to donate a kidney to a stranger. The company was simply not helpful.

Do you think iSpring Suite delivers good value for the price?

No

Are you happy with iSpring Suite's feature set?

No

Did iSpring Suite live up to sales and marketing promises?

No

Did implementation of iSpring Suite go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy iSpring Suite again?

No

iSpring Suite is a great choice for smaller-scale assessment building needs. It has a great variety of questions and the assessments are easily integrated with an existing Learning Management System through a SCORM export. There is a higher positive student response with the lengthier assessments, which was not observed with student feedback with the shorter formative assessments.

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