Brightspace vs Study Island

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Our analysts compared Brightspace vs Study Island based on data from our 400+ point analysis of LMS Software, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

Product Basics

Brightspace is a cloud-based LMS that supports personalized learning for educational institutions, corporations, healthcare institutions, nonprofits and more. For K-12 schools, it offers blended and virtual learning options, along with tools for professional learning. For companies, it provides an engaging learning platform to train employees, customers and partners.


Key features include tools for tailored learning experiences, intelligent agents, analytics for tracking progress, course authoring and a gradebook with a mastery view. You can choose from flexible options to build and curate content, and use its mobile-friendly design for on-the-go learning.

Users praise Brightspace for its extensive features, user-friendly interface and proactive support. A large number of reviews mention its exceptional implementation and onboarding process, praising the responsiveness and speed of the support team. While the majority of users are impressed by the solution’s capabilities, some mentioned that it may have a learning curve for new users.

The exact pricing of the solution isn’t mentioned online. For accurate pricing details based on the size and requirements of your institution, you can contact the vendor for a custom quote.

On the bright side, you can access the 30-day free trial to get hands-on experience with the platform. It includes a variety of pre-loaded courses to explore and a sandbox area where you can experiment with creating your own course.

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Study Island is an online learning platform that lets teachers individualize student learning through virtual, classroom or hybrid lessons. It combines technology with quality content and customizable teaching concepts to ensure higher success.

Teachers can increase student engagement and retention through game-based assignments, formative assessment tools and flexible, state-standardized learning modules. Analytics features allow teachers to track class progress and gain insight into student performance.
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$5.50/Student, Monthly
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Product Insights

  • Revolutionizes Learning with AI: D2L Lumi uses AI to simplify tasks for both teachers and admins in Brightspace. It can automatically generate practice questions and custom learning paths for students, speeding up course setup. For learners, Lumi provides personalized feedback and helps with note-taking, making learning more efficient and boosting training outcomes.
  • Digitizes Courses: Brightspace’s Content Experience platform makes it easy to build interactive courses with videos, images and even external tools like Google Drive and OneDrive. Pre-made templates simplify course design, and tools like Video Note come with automatic captions, ensuring accessibility for learners with special needs.
  • Facilitates Performance Review With Grading Tools: Based on our data, Brightspace scores 93 for the Assessments module. Its Gradebook and Mastery View make it easy to grade and track student progress in one place. With the Creator+ add-on, AI helps you by automatically generating quizzes and practice questions, saving you time. Advanced Analytics give you clear insights into student engagement and performance, so you can quickly spot who may need extra support and adjust your teaching to fit their needs.
  • Improves Decision-Making: With predictive models, you can actually forecast how learners will perform and fill in any knowledge gaps with personalized learning paths. Plus, real-time reports and visualizations give you a clear view of how effective your courses are and how engaged learners are.
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  • Monitor Progress: Ensure impactful, effective and continuous virtual learning though flexible classroom instruction. Gain insight into performance factors such as pace, grade and progress with intuitive data, like real-time progress dashboards and customizable reports. 
  • Fill Gaps in Learning: Allow students to work only on what they need to. Provide opportunities for students to recover missing or incomplete skills and credits, and offer aid to those with poor academic performance through equivalent options, including accredited college courses. 
  • Improve Knowledge Retention: Engage students through customizable lessons and tailor educational pathways to individual aptitude. Success coaches are available to communicate with students, families and teachers. 
  • Provide a Complete Education: Teach students at every stage of their education, across all grades and skill levels. 
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  • Roles and Permissions: Create, define, modify and delete user roles, and assign permissions to control access to features like creating discussions or editing navigation bars. Apply roles to users for specific org units to determine their access levels, and use cascading roles to extend permissions to all subordinate org units for easier management.
  • Calendar: Display all upcoming events to learners in one central location. Post essential dates like project deadlines, office hours, in-class events and more on the calendar.
  • Assignments: Create and edit assignments using the Assignments tool, track submission times and review work directly. Associate assignments with rubrics and competencies, and return them with grades and feedback. Organize them into categories, and set restrictions by date, group membership or special access.
  • Mobile App: Use the Brightspace Pulse mobile app to let learners access course calendars, assignments, grades and announcements from one place. Send real-time alerts for cancellations, room changes, and new content or grades. Allow them to view schedules and weekly tasks with built-in visualization tools to track what’s due today, this week and later.
  • Portfolio: Use the Portfolio tool to help learners capture and showcase their learning journey. Create and update digital portfolios to track progress over time. Use the app to collect evidence, record audio and video reflections, and document achievements.
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  • Digital Curriculum: Implement traditional and specialized core subject courses for elementary, middle and high school. Additional offerings include college entry courses, high school equivalency and advanced placement exams. 
  • Language Options: Offer multiple language options for high school students to fulfill college criteria. ELL (English language learning) courses are also available for adults to improve proficiency in English listening, speaking, reading and writing. 
  • Cognia Accreditation: Allow students to transfer credits to new institutions and receive universally recognized diplomas. 
  • Growth Assistance Tools: Combine existing school data with NWEA, MAP and Renaissance integrations. Sort students by performance level to identify trends and stage interventions. Analyze student progress and responsiveness. Automatically detect potentially dangerous language in student work. 
  • Custom Study Plan: Create custom assignments and lessons tailored to specific students, classes, subjects or events. 
  • Shared Credentials: Use a single account to sign in into Clever, ClassLink, Google and Microsoft. 
  • Grade Record: View individual reports and maintain course records. Auto-generate and fill templates. 
  • Reading Eggspress For Pre K–6: Improve phonetics, spelling and syllable manipulation through engaging animations. Adjust lessons in spelling, sentences, words, letters and sounds based on knowledge level. Track and ensure completion of milestones with Lexile measure and growth charts. 
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Product Ranking

#11

among all
LMS Software

#42

among all
LMS Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

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AI-based Capabilities Assessments Collaboration Compliance Content And Course Management ECommerce Learning Delivery Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Reporting And Dashboard User Management And Gamification 43 93 100 100 86 92 100 87 93 100 81 0 25 50 75 100
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User Sentiment Summary

Great User Sentiment 911 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 9 reviews
87%
of users recommend this product

Brightspace has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 87% when considering 911 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

92%
of users recommend this product

Study Island has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 92% when considering 9 user reviews from 1 recognized software review sites.

4.4 (598)
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4.3 (217)
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4.1 (18)
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4.4 (78)
4.6 (9)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Brightspace and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Assessments, Compliance and Learning Delivery.

Assessments Award
Compliance Award
Learning Delivery Award

Study Island stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Comprehensive Feature Set: Brightspace gets major props for its "all-in-one" feature set that includes tools for creating and managing courses, delivering content in various formats (videos, quizzes, documents) and promoting collaboration. Users appreciate its support for different instructional approaches, whether it's entirely online, blended or traditional classroom settings.
User-Friendly Interface: The platform's interface is generally described as clean and intuitive, which is crucial for both instructors and students. This minimizes the learning curve, allowing users to focus on teaching and learning rather than navigating a complex system.
Customization: Institutions and instructors like the ability to tailor the platform to their branding and specific needs. This includes customizing themes, layouts and navigation.
Analytics and Reporting: Brightspace provides detailed analytics and reporting tools that allow instructors to track student progress, identify areas where students might be struggling and measure the effectiveness of their teaching methods.
Accessibility: Brightspace is built with accessibility in mind, complying with standards like WCAG 2.1, Section 508 and EN 301 549. Features like screen reader compatibility, keyboard navigation and alternative text for images ensure that all learners, including those with disabilities, have equal access to educational content.
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Standards-aligned Content: Study Island's content is aligned with state and Common Core standards, ensuring students learn what they need to know for their grade level.
Personalized Learning: The platform creates a personalized learning path for each student based on their individual strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to focus on areas where they need the most help.
Engaging Activities: Study Island offers a variety of engaging activities, such as games, quizzes, and simulations, to help students learn and retain information.
Data and Reporting: Teachers and administrators can track student progress and performance through detailed data and reports, allowing them to identify areas where students need additional support.
Test Preparation: Study Island provides practice tests and other resources to help students prepare for standardized tests.
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Learning Curve: While the interface is generally user-friendly, some users, especially those new to Brightspace or transitioning from another LMS, may find the initial setup and learning process to be challenging.
Limited Customization in Certain Areas: Although Brightspace offers extensive customization in many areas, some users have reported limitations in specific areas, such as fine-grained control over page layouts and graphics.
Cost: Depending on your organization's size and requirements, the cost of Brightspace can be a significant factor. Additional costs for add-ons or premium features can further increase the overall investment.
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Content Accuracy Issues: Some users have reported encountering outdated or inaccurate information within the platform's learning materials, particularly in subjects like science and history. This can lead to confusion and frustration for students who rely on the platform for accurate and up-to-date information.
Technical Issues and Glitches: Users have expressed concerns about technical problems and glitches within the platform, such as slow loading times, freezing, and occasional crashes. These technical issues can disrupt the learning process and cause frustration for both students and educators.
Limited Customization Options: Study Island offers limited options for educators to customize the learning experience for their students. This lack of flexibility can make it challenging for teachers to tailor the platform to meet the specific needs and learning styles of their students.
Repetitive Question Format: The platform's question format can become repetitive over time, which may lead to student boredom and disengagement. The lack of variety in question types can also limit the development of critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
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Brightspace is one of our top-rated LMSs with a solid analyst score of 92. It’s designed for large organizations and is popular for both education and corporate training. According to our data, Brightspace has a high score for several LMS modules. These include:  Collaboration: 100 Compliance: 100 Reporting and Dashboard: 100 Assessments: 93One of its standout features is the flexible course builder, allowing you to create interactive courses without technical expertise. With Creator+, you can use ready-made templates to quickly build professional-looking content, complete with quizzes and polls to keep learners engaged.Brightspace also makes it easy to add videos and multimedia, giving courses a dynamic feel. Built-in design styles help ensure that everything looks consistent and polished. The platform’s grading system, including the Gradebook, simplifies the grading process by automatically pulling in scores from assignments, quizzes and discussions. Setting up grading is easy with a step-by-step wizard, and you can provide feedback through text, audio or even annotations.Brightspace’s predictive analytics helps you spot students who might need extra support by analyzing grades, engagement, and activity. Performance+ adds even more reporting power, letting you generate detailed reports, track learning patterns and set up personalized learning paths for each student based on their progress.If you need advanced reporting across courses, the Achievement+ package includes tools for tracking learning outcomes and viewing results over time. This package includes features like the Outcome Achievement Dashboard and the Course Achievement Overview, which offer visual reports that can also be exported for offline use.Brightspace integrates with third-party tools like video conferencing and student information systems. Plus, its mobile-friendly design allows students to access courses from any device, anytime. Based on our data, Brightspace stands out in collaboration, compliance and reporting. Its Performance+ suite offers real-time training insights, and it complies with standards like WCAG and SCORM, while providing strong security measures like encryption and backups.However, compared to other platforms like Docebo or LearnUpon, Brightspace lacks certain AI-powered features such as AI-based tagging and content recommendations, which could be a disadvantage for organizations wanting advanced AI tools. Absorb LMS also offers more options for subscription management and interactive learning, which Brightspace doesn’t fully support — potentially making it less ideal for businesses looking to monetize training or enhance engagement with interactive features.Although Brightspace excels in core features like tracking, reporting, and compliance, it’s missing some capabilities like workload balancing and lesson gating, which can help manage learner progress. Pricing varies by organization size, making it scalable, though some users note a steeper learning curve than with other platforms.For organizations that need a customizable LMS with strong analytics, Brightspace is a worthwhile investment, especially for businesses focused on data-driven training and development strategies.

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Ready to embark on a learning adventure and navigate the vast sea of educational software? Let's set sail and chart a course through the user reviews of Study Island! Study Island receives praise for its user-friendly interface and engaging content, making it a popular choice among educators. The platform's gamified approach, with features like earning points and badges, motivates students and fosters a sense of accomplishment. Its comprehensive coverage of various subjects and grade levels, aligned with state standards, ensures that students have access to the necessary materials for academic success. The flexibility to assign specific topics or skills allows teachers to personalize learning and address individual student needs. However, some users note that the question format can become repetitive, potentially limiting its effectiveness for long-term engagement. Additionally, while Study Island offers a wide range of content, it may not always align perfectly with specific curriculum requirements, requiring teachers to supplement with additional resources. Despite these limitations, Study Island's strengths in user-friendliness, engaging content, and standards alignment make it a valuable tool for educators seeking to enhance student learning and track progress. Its adaptability to different learning styles and its ability to provide personalized instruction make it particularly well-suited for students who benefit from a structured and gamified learning environment. Please note that user experiences and software functionalities can evolve over time. It's always a good idea to check the latest online reviews and resources for the most current information on Study Island and similar educational software options.

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