D2L Brightspace

What do you like best about the product?

After 17 years of working with D2L Brightspace, I continue to be impressed by its reliability, accessibility, and user centered design. The platform is easy to navigate, with clearly organized tools that support both instructors and learners. Brightspace’s emphasis on accessibility has consistently made it possible to create inclusive, high quality online learning experiences.
Equally valuable is the outstanding support provided by the D2L team. Their responsiveness, expertise, and genuine commitment to customer success have been consistent throughout my experience. Combined with the system’s long term stability and dependable performance, Brightspace has proven to be a trustworthy, well evolved LMS that I’m proud to recommend.

What do you dislike about the product?

I wouldn’t really use the word “dislike.” There are just a few things I’d like to see improved, especially in the attendance area. For example, the name column isn’t fixed the way it is in the gradebook, which makes the attendance view less user-friendly and a bit harder to navigate.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Brightspace has been a reliable learning management system for us, and we’ve been using it for 17 years. It provides a clean, well-organized space for both instructors and students. That reliability has helped me in my job because I can spend less time dealing with day-to-day issues and more time focusing on other priorities, including introducing new features and improvements within Brightspace.

What do you like best about the product?

I like that D2L Brightspace is easy to use and has a good, simple, forward facing design. It keeps all of my coursework in one place and organized.

What do you dislike about the product?

I don’t have any negative feedback.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

D2L Brightspace keeps all of my coursework in one place and organized.

What do you like best about the product?

What I like best about D2L is the ease of creating and managing a course, especially for instructors who want to get up and running quickly without heavy technical overhead. I also appreciate that most features are well supported by in‑platform help and documentation, which makes it easier to troubleshoot and self‑serve answers when questions come up. From an institutional perspective, having a dedicated Technical Account Manager (TAM) has been extremely valuable for continuity, support, and long‑term planning. Overall, D2L has been a stable and reliable platform for our university since we adopted it in 2012, and that longevity has helped build strong internal expertise and processes around it.

What do you dislike about the product?

One of my main concerns is the pace and timing of platform changes. Changes are sometimes introduced with limited advance notice, which does not always provide institutions enough time to properly plan, test, update documentation, and communicate effectively with faculty and students. While individual changes may appear simple from a product perspective, they often have broader downstream impacts on support processes, training materials, and user expectations.
I also feel there is an opportunity to improve administrator‑focused resources, particularly videos and walkthroughs related to reporting and major upcoming changes. These types of resources would help administrators better understand not just how something works, but why it is changing and what the operational implications are.
Finally, I would like to see D2L engage more broadly with a larger group of universities earlier in the change process. Broader consultation would help ensure that proposed changes better reflect the diversity of institutional contexts and reduce unintended impacts on support teams and end users.

I would like D2L to place greater emphasis on listening to the institutions that actively use and support the platform. As customers who have invested significant time and resources into D2L, our feedback often reflects real operational and support realities that are difficult to capture through a Product Exchange submission alone.
As we work through implementing the New Content Experience, it’s clear that earlier and broader consultation with institutions would lead to a stronger end product. While the Product Exchange is a useful tool, it can feel limiting when feedback is reduced to individual feature requests rather than collaborative discussion. More direct engagement with universities during the design and planning stages would help ensure new experiences better align with instructional workflows, support capacity, and institutional change management needs.
I believe that if D2L incorporated more active listening and collaborative dialogue with a wider group of institutions, the New Content Experience—and future enhancements—would be an even better option for everyone.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

They are making changes to the new content experience so that it is easier to move from the old content experience. I think with a few more changes that the new experience will be a wonderful tool.

What do you like best about the product?

I like how D2L Brightspace is well-organized and easy to navigate, making it simple to access course materials, assignments, and grades in one place. The clear layout helps me stay on track with deadlines, and the ability to submit assignments and receive feedback directly on the platform is very convenient. I also appreciate the announcements and calendar features, which keep me updated and help me manage my time effectively.

What do you dislike about the product?

One downside of D2L Brightspace is that it can sometimes be difficult to navigate, especially when course layouts vary between instructors. This inconsistency can make it harder to quickly find assignments or important information. Additionally, the platform can occasionally be slow or glitchy, which can be frustrating when trying to access materials or submit work on time.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

D2L Brightspace helps solve the problem of managing coursework, communication, and deadlines in one centralized platform. It allows me to easily access all my course materials, submit assignments, track grades, and stay updated through announcements. This benefits me by saving time, keeping everything organized, and helping me stay on top of my responsibilities, which improves my overall productivity and learning experience.

What do you like best about the product?

One of the strongest upsides to D2L Brightspace is the intuitive student experience. From the student perspective, they have a very intuative interface that takes them right into the learning with minimal fuss preventing them from getting right to the learning. The implementation team was very helpful, but it was also challenging for us as we were implementing right as they crossed over to a new data platform. From the customer support standpoint D2L walked with us hand-in-hand across implementation and into the frontier of CBE. For the most part, D2L's heavy use of LTI functionality allowed us to integrate many of the tools we were already using in other systems. The system is used on a daily basis by students and weekly by faculty.

What do you dislike about the product?

The administration of the D2L platform is kind of a chore. There are so many differentiated parts and the integration and implementation of new tools can be very burdonsome.

What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you?

Brightspace D2L helped us deliver quality Comptency Based education courses to our students with ease. This helped us set up and launch our CBE program in a very limited amount of time. They make it really easy to design, develop, and launch courses with ease.