Blackboard Learn vs Tovuti

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Our analysts compared Blackboard Learn vs Tovuti 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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Tovuti is an e-learning platform that allows users to build, analyze and manage training. It helps human resources and other such departments by examining employee learning, displaying a leaderboard and other gamified elements to get salespeople fired up and provides recertification reminders and tracking. When used by educational institutions, teachers use the virtual classrooms, engaging media, flashcards and matching games to help students stay on top of the material.

Through its e-commerce capabilities, administrators can buy and sell classes, design a public-facing website, show reviews of classes and offer subscription packages for high-value training. Ultimately, it supports several teaching styles, comes with comprehensive reporting and has special customization and branding.
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$9,500 Annually
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Tailored to your specific needs
$775 Monthly
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Tailored to your specific needs
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Windows
Mac
Linux
Android
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
Phone
Chat
FAQ
Forum
Knowledge Base
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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  • Engaged Learners: It uses gamification, communities, interactive content and other measures to keep uses engaged and active. Students can create profiles that show up on their communities, forums, dashboards and comments. The solution also comes with virtual classrooms where teachers can showcase video, slide decks and other materials in real-time to recreate the in-the-classroom experience.
  • Centralized Company Data: The content library is a convenient place to store branding guidelines, worker handbooks, company assets and other bits of important data so everyone has the access they need. It has a responsive design making it accessible by mobile as well as PCs.
  • More Efficient Systems: Automation helps divide and deliver information to those who need it most. It does this by segmenting learners, recommending courses, using geofencing for notifications, automatically assigning classrooms, having gated content and giving users the invites to live classrooms and events they need. Managers can set up learning paths so learners get class suggestions after they hit certain milestones. Students can even comment and rate courses to help evaluate the program.
  • Supports All Learning Styles: The preferred education style varies depending on the organization or even the individual. Its functionality is suited to various educational ideologies when it comes to education. This includes blended learning, e-learning, instructor-led training, synchronous or asynchronous learning, microlearning and social learning.
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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 access the library to build courses. Once created, they can import audio, PDFs, PowerPoints, videos (i.e. native host, Vimeo or YouTube) and other SCORM standardized files.
  • Course Authoring and Management: If instructors don’t have enough material, there are over 7,000 courses to choose from. Classes get downloaded in their entirety or users can pick and choose various lessons. The course authoring capabilities come with over 40 tools for interactive content and are built into the app so there’s no need to export. This includes image hotspots, interactive videos, virtual 360° tours, matching games, flashcards, drag and drop images, voice recognition and branching scenarios for different activities. For testing purposes, it offers quizzes, tests, assessments and has multiple question formats and logic rules.
  • Web and Class Design: The solution covers the public face of the website. This is important if an organization plans on selling classes. Class creators can access the easier tools or add custom CSS, HTML or Javascript. Landing pages for learners can also offer general announcements.
  • Ecommerce: For organizations looking to sell courses, it has pricing capabilities, online purchasing and promo codes. It allows storefronts to control orders, SKUs, product images, taxes, reviews and more. For payment, it works with Authorize.net, Converge (Elavon), Heartland and Stripe.
  • Subscriptions and Affiliates: For recurring subscriptions, it lets users manage, discount, pause, renew and comp where appropriate. It also lets the manager know if and when payments have failed. Last, it also contains affiliate functions such as assigning commissions and setting up various levels for a program.
  • Corporate Training: HR departments can use the solution to ensure their employees are filling in the necessary skill gaps. In addition to the tracking and reporting tools, it comes with directories so anyone can see the organization map, various departments, partners or members and other important stakeholders.
  • Customization: Companies can make their own branded portals with custom logos, navigation, course thumbnails, icons, colors and branding. For more complex operations, there are different portals and subdomains for various departments, branches and locations. Student portals can be specialized with upcoming events, due dates, courses, checklists, badges, and certifications. Employees can even use a personal banner image to make their experience unique. Leaderboards provide a good way to recognize high performers and encourage friendly competition.
  • Role Management: Administrators can adjust the capabilities and permissions for different user roles. This digital manager can set permissions, sort and filter reports, add and remove people from groups and more. User profile information can be uploaded all at once from an Excel template. It can add as many custom fields as needed for the form. For exclusive events or groups, attendees can fill a form to get a registration link.
  • Microlearning: When students need quick answers to important questions, the microlearning library gives them what they need. It offers PDFs, videos, slides and has a rating system so they can choose the most engaging media.
  • Communication: The platform sends reminders by email or geofenced pop-up notifications. Progress reports are automatically sent out to learners. The pop-ups don’t disappear until an issue is resolved to require the user to deal with the issue.
  • Reporting and Analytics: It can track data on a large and small scale to evaluate the effectiveness of a program. They can build a custom dashboard for KPIs and pull reports that follow the most important data. Instructors can follow learner progress, export information to Excel, look at class sales, filter, group, sort and auto calculate data. It can manually add grades, keep track of courses and auto-create transcripts.
  • Compliance: The software tracks certified employees, looks at when their credentials expire and sends reminders when they need to be renewed. The website contains a guide to provide for HIPPA compliance.
  • Events: It can create a registration page, monitor attendance, sell tickets and more for users looking for event management. The solution simultaneously supports both in-person and online participants. It has forms for registration, payment, booking rules and managing attendees.
  • Integrations: The platform connects well with other software through its single sign-on functionality (SAML & OAuth 2.0), open API and a beta connection with Zapier to over 1,000 apps. Integrations include BizLibrary, Google Hangouts, SendGrid and Skype.
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Product Ranking

#6

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LMS Software

#13

among all
LMS Software

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Analyst Rating Summary

74
74
14
0
82
54
100
50
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Collaboration
Compliance
Reporting and Dashboard
Content and Course Management
User Management and Gamification
Learning Delivery
eCommerce
Platform Capabilities
Content and Course Management
User Management and Gamification

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

Blackboard Learn
Tovuti
+ 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 0 54 50 67 93 100 100 74 96 80 91 0 25 50 75 100
14%
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86%
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100%
80%
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67%
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87%
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13%
93%
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7%
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100%
100%
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38%
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62%
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75%
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87%
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13%
93%
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7%
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80%
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91%
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9%
91%
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9%

Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

71%
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29%
50%
0%
50%

User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 1521 reviews
Excellent User Sentiment 477 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.

95%
of users recommend this product

Tovuti has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 95% when considering 477 user reviews from 5 recognized software review sites.

4.9 (18)
4.9 (32)
3.9 (789)
4.7 (205)
4.1 (456)
n/a
n/a
4.9 (85)
4.2 (54)
4.8 (103)
3.8 (204)
4.5 (52)

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 Tovuti and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Learning Delivery. Tovuti stands above the rest by achieving an ‘Excellent’ rating as a User Favorite.

User Favorite Award
Learning Delivery 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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Interactive Content: Over 90% of users who discussed the content creation were happy with its engaging use of interactive elements.
Digital Classrooms: Reviewers who mentioned the virtual classroom felt it was a rich learning environment in over 90% of reviews.
Excellent Customer Service: Over 90% of users who discussed the customer service felt it was helpful, knowledgeable and responded quickly.
Affordable: Users were pleased with the price in more than 90% of reviewers that discussed the cost.
Customization Options: Reviewers who discussed the customization features were pleased with the capabilities in over 80% of reviews.
Gamification: Over 80% of reviewers who discussed the gamification elements liked the leaderboard and other competitive features.
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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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Professional Training Lacking: In over 60% of reviews about professional development aspects, users felt these elements were underdeveloped.
Issues with Implementation: While users felt the system was easy to use once adapted, more than 50% of users who discussed the transitional period said it was difficult to learn to use.
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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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Tovuti is an e-learning solution that online reviews favor for multiple reasons including its helpful features and user management. Its content is interactive with options for customizing and personalizing learning depending on the application. It also has a leaderboard to spur competition and comes with customer service that’s widely liked by most people who left reviews. Reviews said that this solution is more suited to academic learning than professional development or training. While organizations can certainly consider it while looking for learning platforms, it’s important to examine if it really has the needed features. Though the product is easy to use, users said it takes time to learn during implementation. However, they also felt that customer service was extremely helpful in the early transition stage. Tovuti could be an appropriate choice for small to mid-sized academic settings.

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