TrustRadius Insights for Blackboard Learn by Anthology are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.
Recommendations
Based on user reviews, here are the three most common recommendations for Blackboard Learn:
Consider Blackboard Learn for higher education and communication with parents. Users recommend it as the learning management system of choice, especially for higher education institutions. It is also recommended for effective communication with parents.
Explore and utilize interactive functions. Many users find Blackboard Learn easy to manage and recommend taking the time to explore and utilize its interactive functions. The platform is considered convenient for classes and easy to use.
Take advantage of Blackboard's tools for education. Users believe that Blackboard Learn offers a complete and effective educational forum. It is recommended for institutions with a large number of students, as it allows for uploading assignments, having timed tests, and recording live videos. Expert guidance is suggested during implementation.
While these are the most common recommendations, it is also advised to do research and consider the return on investment before choosing a learning management system. Additionally, some users suggest exploring alternative options and trying trials of other systems before making a final decision.
I used it as an alternative to our learning website during our COVID year of school. Some of our students understood how to use Blackboard better than they did Google Classroom. It helped me to better reach out to our students and gave them an alternative to Google Classroom. Some of my students even chose Blackboard over Google Classroom.
Pros
Easier setup
easier to upload materials
easier to communicate with individual students
Cons
I cannot think of an area where Blackboard Learn needs to improve.
Likelihood to Recommend
I have used Blackboard in a class that I took recently. It was very user-friendly. Would definitely recommend it to anyone who is teaching a a class.
Blackboard Learn is the learning management system at the private Catholic college-prep high school where I work. We use it for classes as well as for clubs/organizations. All classes are required to use Blackboard Learn while clubs and organizations are encouraged but not required. We treat Blackboard Learn as an extension of the physical classroom. Only students have access to Blackboard Learn, not parents/guardians. Some teachers give tests or quizzes on Blackboard Learn while others use it primarily as a communication vehicle and to distribute/collect assignments. Obviously during the spring semester of 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Blackboard Learn became the primary vehicle for education at the school.
Pros
The import tool is fairly robust
Online tasks/quizzes are straightforward to administer and grade
If consistently applied across the organization, navigation can be streamlined and students know what to expect where
Cons
The mobile app/platform is seriously lacking in stability and feature set
Interoperability with other systems, such as school information systems, is limited (data are relatively easy to import but virtually impossible to export from Blackboard Learn)
[In my opinion] the arrogance and intransigence of the sales force are quite disconcerting. They are no longer the only game in town and don't yet realize it.
Likelihood to Recommend
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.
VU
Verified User
Team Lead in Information Technology (201-500 employees)
We use Blackboard Learn as a course management system for providing learning content to our students, facilitating collaboration, and streamlining communications between faculty and students. We use it institution wide. Blackboard Learn allows us to deliver courses to our students 100% online, hybrid or as a means to organize and disseminate materials for in person courses.
Pros
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.
Cons
Blackboard Learn requires cloud-based SaaS configuration which we were not set up for initially. This was an additional step for us before deployment
Some new release courses lack features available in legacy courses, this tends to be a problem when we roll out upgrades, as we need to extend our testing phase to ensure all courses are functional
Blackboard Learn is expensive. In comparison to its competition, there really isn't a reason (other than name recognition) that the software should be as much higher priced from it's competition as it is.
Likelihood to Recommend
Blackboard Learn is well suited for institutions with moderate to complex training needs. Since it is quite costly, an institution or business that has simple training/educational needs, there are more cost effective solutions available. Blackboard Learn does not support e-commerce, so it may not be the best choice for companies that desire to sell courses online or accept payments for training. It works well for institutions of education when paired with a student information system for enrollment purposes.
Blackboard Learn is not the easiest platform to use but has ample training available. If start up time does not allow for a lot of training hours, there are less complex LMS's out there.
VU
Verified User
Project Manager in Research & Development (201-500 employees)
I've used Blackboard Learn in my own area (Work Force), we use this to take Excel Courses so that our team lead keeps a track of our learning process. We started using this product because there wasn't a way of keeping a track of the new thing we were learning at the time, this has allowed everyone across my area to know which courses are still missing and which courses have already been taken.
Pros
Easy access to modules
Easy access to documents
Tracking progesss
Cons
Mobile version view
Document sharing
Document uploading
Likelihood to Recommend
[Blackboard Learn] is well suited when a group of people needs to learn new things but there isn't a product that allows a team lead to keep a track of all the progress, it's also resourceful when several modules have to be published.
[Blackboard Learn] is not suited for small groups of people that will only learn a few courses since [Blackboard Learn] is oriented on publishing several courses at the same time.
Blackboard Learn is currently being used as the learning management software to host courses that a student enrolls for a certain semester. Almost all the activities such as quizzes, classes, assignments and more are hosted on Blackboard Learn. I have used the mobile version as well. It is the perfect answer for students pursuing distance learning education along with their respective jobs. The best part is the panopto video integration that allows students to listen to lectures at their convenience.
Pros
Hosting of courses associated with a particular semester
Integration with zoom and panopto
Grading of the respecitive courses and also hosts the submission of student work related to the particular home work assignments, quizzes etc.,
Cons
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
Likelihood to Recommend
It is hard to think of scenarios that Blackboard Learn is not appropriate, I think it is one stop for all the learning management solutions and is well suited especially for distance learning students. It works the best for:
Hosting quizzes, assignments, powerpoints related to course content
Grading
Surveys related to course progress etc,.
The only area where I did notice (probably a bug) is the submission of word documents. To be more elaborate the word documents submitted for assignments etc,. sometimes get messed up especially from a formatting perspective. Hence I always convert my word documents to pdf to submit them.
The content formatting features are, well, how should I say this, terrible.
Likelihood to Recommend
I've used Blackboard for many, many years. With each version I remain hopeful that the formatting tools will improve. Battling simple text formatting considerations have looong been a struggle, with the most recent "upgrade" leaving me in total and complete exasperation. No, that's not an exaggeration.
Yes, I do understand that importing text, and the process of copying and pasting can often include residual coding which can sometimes create havoc. Sadly however, I'm referring to the direct keystroke entry of content, directly within the Blackboard pane. Plain and simple, it's an absolute buggy nightmare.
Even the limited formatting tools that I found here on TrustRadius are:
Fabulous by comparison to Blackboard
Easy to use
Intuitive for the first time user
Don't result in a wonky, embarrassing presentation
All of the above
Wow, look, even the bullet points and indents worked! Honestly Blackboard, this is getting really, really old. Two words of advise, beta testing.
Blackboard is used as a platform for students to send and receive school work. This program is operated by teachers as a web-based user software device to connect them to their students. It is incredibly important now due to the current world events regarding distancing.
Pros
It does what it is intended to do such as connecting students and teachers alike.
It allows teachers to upload assignments online to eliminate the use of paper.
Good platform to take tests and quizzes.
Cons
Sign-on errors are common and it may inhibit the students' ability to submit and receive assignments as directed.
It is hard to navigate at times if you are unfamiliar.
Not exactly user friendly.
Sometimes locations of assignments are not clear, very obscure.
Not a very appealing layout.
Likelihood to Recommend
It is definitely something to use during a time of separation and "social distancing" but mainly because there are not that many options to begin with.
Blackboard Learn is used across the entire organization. It is used by professors for classes and by the administration to provide information for new employees on how to use certain solutions or procedures that are currently in place for various software solutions.
Pros
Easy maintenance
Good support
Friendly people
Cons
Bad UI (unless you migrate to BB Ultra)
Does not integrate well with other software solutions
It is not very user-friendly
It could be pricey
Likelihood to Recommend
It is hard to say what scenarios are good to use Blackboard Learn because UI is not very flexible or mobile-friendly, and if you are looking to integrate with other solutions, that would be hard. They have companies that create "building blocks" to integrate with Blackboard, but that would require other companies to develop specifically for Blackboard Learn platform, which in higher education is hard. They should focus on delivering solutions that can easily integrate Blackboard Learn, and they should work on UI. It is a terrible user experience.
VU
Verified User
Administrator in Information Technology (501-1000 employees)
Blackboard Learn is used primarily as an online classroom. Blackboard Collaborate can be utilized to facilitate and record real-time lectures and discussions, but the main function of Blackboard is to provide a secure online space for professors to load course guidelines, content and student grades, as well as host non-synchronous discussion boards. It is also used by academic support programs such as mentoring and tutoring to post content and planning support for student access.
Pros
Accepts wide variety of file types.
Choice of layout options to fit different styles of courses.
Cons
Interface isn't very modern.
Low use of icons and heavy text make it tricky to navigate.
Likelihood to Recommend
It works well for situations where lots of content needs to be posted and made available to students. The ability to make subfolders means that with just a little work, you can really make a LOT of resources readily available. It is not well-suited to resource CREATION, only posting/uploads, as it lacks capabilities to design and manipulate information in anything other than basic text forms and hyperlinks.
Blackboard Learn is being used by my organization primarily for e-learning for a variety of courses. It is used for reading, submitting, and tracking assignments as well as real-time feedback during assignments. Blackboard Learn "solves the problem" of holding classrooms electronically while giving students the flexibility to engage with the class on their own time with their varying schedules.
Pros
Asynchronous classrooms.
Clear communication of assignments.
Cons
Semi-clunky UX.
Slow page load times (depending on content).
Likelihood to Recommend
Blackboard Learn is great for universities with courses that are offered online. Reading, submitting, and tracking assignments is straightforward in functionality and provides the ability to synchronously teach classrooms with a variety of types of content. I wouldn't recommend Blackboard Learn for anything outside of university education -- even private courses would be more appropriate for Udemy or similar sites.
