Blackboard Learn vs iSpring Learn

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Our analysts compared Blackboard Learn vs iSpring Learn 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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The iSpring platform is a learning tool with over 54,000 clients worldwide. Overall, it has an authoring capability for creating interactive lessons, quizzes and assessments and reporting and analytics to track education in a corporate or institutional setting. With many integrations, it can be used for its content or act as a way to analyze skills in an organization.

One of its most notable functions is the way it works with PowerPoint.Through HyperPointe technology, it’s able to convert the slideshows into SCORM compliant HTML5 or MP4s. It has different levels of support and design abilities depending on the subscription.
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$9,500 Annually
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$2.82 Monthly, per-user
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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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  • More Effective Assessments The software has templates so instructors can quickly create multiple-choice, drag-and-drop, sequencing, matching and other types of questions. To ensure information is retained properly, it also has feedback capabilities, branching scenarios, randomized questions and customizable scoring rules.
  • Greater Security: The solution is compliant with the General Data Protection Regulation and uses Standard Contractual Clauses (SCC) for transferring data between EU and non-EU countries. The servers are hosted at Liquidweb, IBM Cloud, Amazon Web Services or FirstColo which all comply with various standards. It uses an https connection, thoroughly background checks all employees and undergoes security audits.
  • Higher Quality Content: Its ability to convert PowerPoint presentations makes it easier to create high-quality lessons with embedded links, images, animations and other elements. There’s also a library where administrators can find the necessary course materials and thousands of assets.
  • Better Communication: The platform comes with due dates and reminders to keep learners on track and centralizes knowledge so it’s easily accessible. In terms of video conferring, Zoom integrates within the application. This allows users to jump on calls without losing time switching applications.
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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: Instructors can create a PowerPoint presentation and then add screencasts, narrations, quizzes and more to make a dynamic lesson. Then, they can upload the content for their students.
  • Products: There are two main options:
    • Learn: This product contains the base course functionality for students and instructors.
    • Suite: The Suite has a Suite version and a Full-Service Suite version on the pricing page to indicate two different levels of functions. The full-service version comes with authoring tools, access to the cloud, access to priority support and access to an online library.
  • Conversion: The platform converts PowerPoint presentations to an HTML5 or MP4 format. Through HyperPointe technology, they can generally keep the same animations and formatting so no one needs to reformat for the web. PowerPoints are converted without having to leave the program. Users can then upload to Vimeo or YouTube.
  • Content Library: It comes with over 55,000 royalty-free assets such as templates, over 30,00 character images and more than 230 backgrounds from different locations. Aside from that, it also has various icons, paper clips, buttons and switches to complete a presentation. For assets created in-house like logos or brand guides, the built-in cloud allows all team members to have access.
  • Integrations: For organizations that are looking for more robust functionality, the solution integrates with 156 systems. It’s built to integrate with materials that meet AIIC, cmi5, SCORM or xAPI compliance. The apps include Absorb, Adobe, Flora, Schoology, SmarterU, TOPYX and more.
  • Video Lessons: It can capture video lectures, narration, screenshots and annotations that provide step-by-step guides and easy to follow lessons. The program comes with a simple video editor so it’s easy to tweak videos, add effects, include text, add music and more.
  • Responsive Design: The platform works across mobile devices, tablets, PCs and more across Android and iOS. Teachers only have to create courses once. It automatically adapts to other formats. Learners can access materials offline.
  • Corporate Training: It can facilitate many different kinds of business training. The solution manages deadlines, provides consistent branding, secures information and can conduct comprehensive reports on employee skill level. An administrator can assign specific training options. Some real-world applications include:
    • Onboarding: It lets new hires get accustomed to company culture, compliance and policy more quickly.
    • Partner/Channel Training: For associations who work with other affiliates, channels or partners, it offers an easy way to get everyone up to speed.
    • Compliance Training: It helps learners stay on top of annual or monthly compliance whether that means safety, privacy, anti-harassment or discrimination policies or more.
    • Certification Training: Administrators can make in-house certification training so they can see who has completed the necessary training.
    • Product Training: It provides uniform, accurate dissemination of information to all when new products or updates are released.
    • Sales Training: With the ability to make how-to guides and choice-based scenarios, instructors can create interactive sales training to ensure the funnel is working properly.
  • Quizmaker: It helps create more engaging quizzes to see the skill level of employees. It has assignments geared toward retention and testing at key moments to ensure the subject is understood. The activities provide hands-on experience while teachers can provide feedback with annotations.
  • Cam Pro: This function allows the user to share their screens and record to provide tutorials. It provides narration over a slideshow and highlights the cursor so it can be followed visually.
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Product Ranking

#6

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#14

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Analyst Rating Summary

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Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Blackboard Learn
iSpring Learn
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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 14 82 100 100 91 0 68 78 87 100 91 0 25 50 75 100
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User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 1521 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 237 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.

92%
of users recommend this product

iSpring Learn has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 92% when considering 237 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

4.9 (18)
4.7 (14)
3.9 (789)
4.7 (48)
4.1 (456)
n/a
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4.7 (135)
4.2 (54)
4.1 (3)
3.8 (204)
4.2 (37)

Awards

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

Compliance Award

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

User Favorite 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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User-Friendly Design: Around 80% of reviewers loved the interface and said it was easy to implement, learn and navigate.
Excellent Customer Service: Users found the customer service to be friendly, helpful and effective in 60% of all reviews.
Competitive Price: About 60% of users felt that the price was fair and that the functionality was well worth the money.
Overall Good Functionality: The features were described as working well in just over 40% of the reviews. The most popular mention was its quick course setup, learning paths, customization, integration, mobile functionality and course authoring capabilities.
Testing Assessments: Around 20% of users who left reviews said the platform had excellent capabilities when it came to delivering tests, surveys, quizzes, assessments and simulations.
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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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Problems with Features: While many felt the features worked well, around 40% found issues with the existing tools, with around10% disliking the reporting and customization features.
Missing Functionality: In 20% of the reviews, users requested add-ons to the current feature set with better native screen recording and screenshots capabilities mentioned the most.
Pricing Issues: Between 10% to 20% felt the price was too much for its functionality with just under 10% saying they felt pressured to buy more expensive subscriptions.
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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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The iSpring system is an extremely user-friendly option especially popular among educators. This is likely due to its tie-in with PowerPoint. Users can create a presentation in PowerPoint and then, without leaving the app, directly upload it to iSpring where it’s converted into the proper format. Its usability, quick adoption, good price and excellent customer service made for an overwhelming number of satisfied reviews. On the other hand, the satisfaction with the feature set was split with half saying it worked well and half finding the functionality wanting. Many users wanted new features, but the requests were mostly distinct from one another and for very specific capabilities. While iSpring does offer customization options, there are many features that are out of reach due to price, technological limitations or lack of knowledge on the part of the customer. Overall, this is a great solution for educators and corporate administrators looking to adopt a system quickly and easily. It may not be suitable for large businesses with more complex needs. Users should also look into exactly what they need so they don’t get bumped into the more expensive pricing tier.

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