Blackboard Learn vs Cornerstone LMS

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Our analysts compared Blackboard Learn vs Cornerstone LMS 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

Blackboard is an educational management tool used commonly in K-12, higher education, online education and corporate training. It’s cloud-based and has several add ons including Learn, Open LMS, Classroom, Predict, Intelligence, Ally, Collaborate and more. All have different specialties that add to the primary online education functions.

The core product, Blackboard Learn, includes course management, mobile accessibility and insights into data and analytics. Upgraded versions have more robust facilities, including advanced web conferencing, virtual classrooms and more in-depth reporting.
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Cornerstone LMS is designed to help organizations create, deliver and manage employee training programs. It lets you create personalized learning experiences, facilitate real-time collaboration, and track learner and team performance. Features include content management, personalized learning, HR integration, reporting and insights, and compliance training.

User reviews generally commend its ease of use, scalability and effectiveness in improving employee engagement and knowledge retention. When compared to other LMS platforms, Cornerstone stands out with its strong focus on user experience, diverse feature set and insightful reporting capabilities.

While its pricing varies based on the specific modules and features chosen, it typically falls within the mid-range of similar products, offering a good balance of value and functionality.

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$9,500 Annually
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$6/User, Monthly
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Windows
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Chromebook
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Mac
Linux
Android
Chromebook
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile
Cloud
On-Premise
Mobile

Product Assistance

Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Documentation
In Person
Live Online
Videos
Webinars
Email
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
24/7 Live Support
Email
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24/7 Live Support

Product Insights

  • Mass Communications: A message can be written and then sent via social media, email, voice message, SMS or push notification to everyone who needs to see it.nbsp;
  • Student Retention: It provides data on incoming and outgoing students, which helps with the development of student retention strategies. Some functions within the dashboard are also specifically geared toward targeting at-risk learners. 
  • Accessibility: Not only does it allow for accessible file formats such as semantic HTML, audio files, ePub and electronic braille, but it can audit content sent out by instructors and return with annotations to improve accessibility. It is also fully compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. 
  • Parental Involvement: Parents get access to see how students are doing and address potential problems early in the process. 
  • Multiple Translations: Over 15 different languages are available, including Arabic, English, Chinese (both simplified and traditional), Dutch, Russian, Korean and more. 
  • Implementation: Through a partner program, users can get help with implementation through technical support and strategy analysis. 
  • Accreditation Tracking/Documentation: The assessment and accreditation solution makes institutional reporting automatic, helps provide documentation where needed and streamlines evidence collection. 
  • Partnerships: More services are available for buyers who use partner programs. This support may be technical, marketing or strategic and varies depending on the different levels of partnership.  
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  • Exceptional Online Course Selling and Learning Analytics Features: In our analysis, Cornerstone scored exceptionally well for features that help you sell courses online, generate analytical reports, enable learning on the mobile app and gamify training activities. All the basics are available out of the box — from course selling and subscription management to mobile course tracking and custom reports.
  • Helps Identify and Fill Skill Gaps: Identify top talent and create development paths today with Cornerstone Succession.
    • Bird’s Eye View: Visualize employees on a customizable grid with filters and intuitive color-coding to easily spot high-potential talent and those at risk.
    • Resume Profiles: Use highly configurable pages to specify and view the qualifications, interests and career aspirations of employees.
    • Succession Snapshot: Access key succession metrics such as performance, successors, impact of loss, potential and probability of loss on a configurable dashboard.
    • Succession Tasks: Set up forms and workflows to collect relevant succession information from managers throughout the year.
    • Talent Search: Conduct attribute-based searches using resume data to find matches among high-potential employees.
    • Talent Pools: Filter and search within manually created collections of employees based on your talent searches.
  • Powers AI-driven Learning: Identify skills gaps, develop skill development opportunities and retain top talent with Cornerstone Galaxy, the AI-powered Workforce Agility platform. By leveraging AI, Galaxy provides actionable insights into your employee’s skills, and helps you make data-driven decisions about your training program.
  • Award-Winning LMS: In the SelectHub Awards 2024, Cornerstone won best-in-class honors for assessments, user management and gamification, and integrations and extensibility.
  • Helps Deliver Immersive Learning Experiences: Cornerstone leverages XR simulations to immerse employees in realistic work scenarios and develop their skills. It offers secure, effective simulations of customer service situations and builds emotional confidence through authentic, controlled conversations. Additionally, the platform facilitates virtual hands-on learning, allowing employees to acquire new skills and adapt to new tools without interrupting their current workflows.
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  • Integration: It can be integrated with other essential educational programs such as Student Information Systems, lunch systems, online grade books and others to make collecting data easy. 
  • Collaboration: Through web conferencing and virtual classrooms, students, peers and coworkers can collaborate on projects and content creation. 
  • Mobile App: The app, which is available across several devices, offers mobile-friendly content that’s been adjusted to flip less on a phone screen. Learners can access tests, quizzes, notes and more. 
  • SaaS: It’s a software-as-a-service or cloud-based product. This means the hosting is online and not local. 
  • Templates: When instructors create courses, they can choose from several pre-made templates and customize as needed. 
  • Strategic Planning: Extra services include strategic planning, which comes with market research, help to develop a comprehensive strategy, deployment support and more. 
  • E-Commerce: It allows users to buy or sell courses, training materials and other content. This can be used as a revenue source or to find more information for a program. 
  • Sales Training and Development: In addition to its uses in K-12 and higher education, it helps with the training of employees to keep them in compliance or certified in a corporate setting. Individual workers can be tracked, and areas of improvement can be easily identified. 
  • Registration: It manages learners throughout the enrollment process and can help them sign up along pre-defined learning paths or prerequisites. 
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  • Content Creation: Tailor existing Grovo courses or create new ones to fit your organization’s needs quickly.
    • Use various media types, including documents, videos, images and PowerPoint slides to enrich your content.
    • Enhance learning with interactive elements like quizzes to reinforce key concepts.
    • Design responsive, mobile-friendly courses using an intuitive interface.
    • Create, manage and analyze custom training materials efficiently.
  • Integrations Marketplace: Browse and select from a variety of partner-built integrations, including APIs, import loads and content subscriptions. Use pre-built integrations, connectors and flexible APIs to manage integrations easily, with a self-service platform for efficient data handling.
  • Immersive Learning: Use the Immerse tool to build personalized learning experiences in extended reality (XR) simulations of real-life work situations.
    • AI-Powered Content Authoring: Design immersive simulations with a range of environments, avatars and voices without needing coding or animation skills.
    • Skills Analytics Dashboard: Manage learning content and evaluations all from one dashboard.
    • Immersive Learning Content: Develop essential soft skills like leadership and communication through roleplay with virtual characters. Access a variety of pre-made content or create your own to fit your needs.
  • Surveys: Use various question types and response formats to collect information beyond course-based evaluations. Create detailed reports on individual survey responses or track trends over time with recurring surveys. Gather valuable information, such as employee interest in development opportunities or skills assessments for new roles.
  • Products: The company offers several solutions. Learning is the training, education and informational tool. However, several other applications with complementary goals are provided through the same company. All integrate with Learning and each other as part of the larger suite.
    • Careers: This coaching software helps managers praise over performers and give extra help to underperformers. Staff can use them to figure out their interests and build a path to growth within a company.
    • Content Anytime: For organizations looking to supplement their information with pre-made content, it has classes aimed at skill building in subjects such as communication, leadership and coaching, customer services, emotional intelligence, listening, personal growth, stress management and more.
    • Development: This helps with continuous growth by suggesting content so employees can build valuable skills. Whereas coaching is more geared toward building career goals, this focuses on the information from preferred sources whether that be books, podcasts, videos or something else.
    • HR: It provides HR data management to aid in decisions about the workforce, management and other organization-wide initiatives. The platform manages the human capital component of a business.
    • Performance: As a performance and workforce management platform, this aids in the high-level work of seeing the broader trends in skill gaps, performance and the overall talent pipeline. It has tools for giving staff reviews and ensuring performance processes are compliant.
    • Recruiting: Aimed at solving talent acquisition issues, this program helps with the discovery, acquisition and onboarding of talent. Some of its capabilities include attracting qualified candidates, AI insights for recruiting and showcasing a company’s unique brand and culture.
    • Other Solutions: It also has applications for SMB talent management, compliance, e-commerce, sales and other integrations.
  • Instructor-Led Training (ILT): ILT sessions are available in both virtual and physical classroom settings. This includes interest tracking, reservation capabilities, session rosters and waitlists. The solution has a wide range of delivery options including audio, digital files and documents, instructor-led classes, video and VR.
  • Grovo Microlearning Content: Use Grovo’s exclusive microlearning content through Cornerstone to provide impactful training on key topics that engage employees and support business goals.
    • Modify existing content or build new materials with the Grovo Create tool to fit your organization’s needs.
    • Access a wide range of content, including professional skills, leadership and management, modern compliance, diversity, equity, inclusion, and remote work essentials and fundamentals.
  • Mobile App: The Cornerstone CSX app allows you to access key features and a fast, intuitive learning experience on your device.
  • Core Features
    • Learner Home: View a personalized dashboard with company banners, training metrics and recommended content driven by machine learning.
    • Learning Search: Quickly find and filter courses by topic and duration to view relevant training options.
    • Learning Transcript: Manage your training history, track progress, and access ongoing and completed courses.
  • Use Cases
    • Log In: Switch language settings based on company preferences after logging in.
    • Learner Home: Receive personalized content recommendations and interact with training on your dashboard.
    • Learning Search: Locate and filter short courses to find relevant training.
  • Check-ins: Use Check-Ins to hold regular meetings and discussions with teams, focusing on alignment, coaching and performance development. Set up templates to guide discussions, help employees set goals, discuss career development and provide feedback. Schedule one-on-one or regular Check-Ins to ensure continuous communication and manage performance effectively.
  • Engage: Set up and schedule recurring feedback campaigns to capture employee satisfaction, engagement and commitment, and gain a complete view of workforce dynamics. Allow managers with the right permissions to access and review campaign results through a dedicated dashboard without creating or editing campaigns.
  • Assessments: Create tests and assignments to assess learner performance.
    • Use the Search bar to find specific assessments quickly.
    • View all assessments in the table, including their title, version, number of questions, last updated date and last updater.
    • Edit assessments, view current and previous versions, and manage version status (Draft or Published).
    • Publish assessments to make them available in the Course Console and Learning Assignment Tool. Note that once published, assessments are locked and cannot be edited.
  • Course Catalog: Manage and update metadata for learning objects (LOs) in your system. Adjust details like titles, keywords, subjects, recurrence settings, recommendations and email notifications.
  • Security: Keep your data safe on a foolproof learning platform.
    • Protect your data with 256-bit TLS encryption for secure data in transit.
    • Authenticate clients to control application access and ensure users only see what they’re authorized to view.
    • Benefit from FedRAMP authorization and regular audits to meet global and regional compliance requirements.
    • Use advanced cloud security measures to support heavy workloads.
    • Align with data protection regulations through integrated privacy features and commit to responsible AI technology in the workplace.
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Product Ranking

#6

among all
LMS Software

#25

among all
LMS Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

74
79
14
43
82
71
100
67
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Collaboration
Compliance
Reporting and Dashboard
Content and Course Management
User Management and Gamification
Mobile Capabilities
Reporting and Dashboard
User Management and Gamification
eCommerce
Platform Capabilities

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Blackboard Learn
Cornerstone LMS
+ Add Product + Add Product
AI-based Capabilities Assessments Collaboration Compliance Content And Course Management ECommerce Learning Delivery Mobile Capabilities Platform Capabilities Reporting And Dashboard User Management And Gamification 14 82 100 100 91 0 68 78 87 100 91 43 71 67 67 91 100 76 100 96 100 100 0 25 50 75 100
14%
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86%
43%
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57%
80%
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20%
70%
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30%
100%
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50%
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50%
100%
0%
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67%
0%
33%
87%
0%
13%
87%
0%
13%
0%
0%
100%
100%
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38%
0%
62%
54%
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46%
75%
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25%
100%
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87%
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13%
93%
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7%
100%
0%
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100%
0%
0%
91%
0%
9%
100%
0%
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

71%
0%
29%
71%
0%
29%

User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 1521 reviews
Great User Sentiment 1306 reviews
79%
of users recommend this product

Blackboard Learn has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 79% when considering 1521 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

83%
of users recommend this product

Cornerstone LMS has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 83% when considering 1306 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

4.9 (18)
5.0 (21)
3.9 (789)
4.1 (495)
4.1 (456)
n/a
n/a
4.3 (220)
4.2 (54)
4.3 (137)
3.8 (204)
4.1 (433)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Blackboard Learn and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Compliance.

Compliance Award

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated Cornerstone LMS and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Mobile Capabilities.

Mobile Capabilities Award

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Grading: A total of 80% of users who mentioned the grading capabilities felt it worked well and saved them time.
Effective Communication: Over 70% of users who mentioned communications features were thrilled with the discussion boards, messaging, live classrooms and other features.
Great Customer Support: More than two-thirds of reviewers who mentioned the customer support had good experiences with the staff.
Easy to Use: Users felt that the UI worked well in over 50% of reviews.
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Easy to Learn: Users adjusted well to the system and navigated it easily in about 40% of reviews.
Satisfactory Features: Between 30% and 40% of users were happy with the features and 20% felt the platform frequently added improved functionality. The most popular features included customization options, course and content creation tools, third-party integrations and communication capabilities.
Excellent Reporting: Around 20% found the reporting comprehensive, usable and suited to their needs.
Fair Pricing: In 20% of user reviews, administrators felt they got good value for their money.
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Poor Mobile Function: Around 75% who mentioned the app said they had issues with the design, especially on mobile.
Issues with Features: Over 41% of users said there were holes in the functionality of the integrations, grading features and said there was too much text on the website.
Steep Learning Curve: While many said the UI was easy-to-use, over 40% of those mentioned it said it took a long time to learn.
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Poor Customer Support: By far, the biggest complaint was the customer service, with almost 40% of reviewers complaining about slow turnaround times, ineffective solutions or other issues.
Unintuitive User Experience: Around 30% of users disliked the overall user experience, with the most common complaints surrounding glitches, the data importing process, integration and reporting.
Overwhelming and Confusing: Between 10% and 20% found the number of features hard to learn.
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Blackboard is an online learning solution used most commonly in educational institutions. As one of the biggest players in the market, its users appreciate its features, useability, grading functions and the different channels of communication. The most common complaint was that it’s hard to learn. However, many said it was easy to navigate after getting over the initial learning curve. Though many people liked its features, there were gaps and additional functionalities wished for in almost every category. Its lack of accessibility was also an issue for some users. This solution is good for institutions looking to implement a standardized learning solution. However, it’s important to compare it to its big competitors as some complained it was generic or too similar to other systems. Still, this can be an extremely efficient platform for online and blended learning.

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Cornerstone Learning is an all-in-one LMS that brings together learning, growth, skills and capabilities into a personalized, curated experience for employees. Trusted by thousands of organizations across all sizes and industries, it supports employees from hire to retire.Users generally find the system easy to learn and navigate and praise its frequent updates and improved functionality. They also find the reporting comprehensive and usable and feel it provides good value for their money.The biggest drawback of Cornerstone among users is poor customer support, with reviewers complaining about slow turnaround times and ineffective solutions. Some users also reported issues with glitches, data importing, integration and reporting.Overall, Cornerstone Learning is a comprehensive and customizable LMS that helps organizations provide personalized, engaging and compliant learning experiences for their employees. It’s particularly well-suited for organizations looking to boost productivity with version management and smooth inline content workflows

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