Home » D2L »  Brightspace VS NEO, We Pit The Two LMS Against Each Other

 Brightspace VS NEO, We Pit The Two LMS Against Each Other

Brightspace and NEO are both learning management systems that are used by various educational and corporate organizations around the world. In case you have been having a hard time choosing between the two, this article would be of great help to you. In this article, we put both Brightspace and NEO head to head and see how they stack up against each other. Before we begin, let us take a look at each of these and see what they are.

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  • Brightspace

Brightspace is a learning management system made by D2L and it is used by K-12 and bigger educational institutions. Apart from this, the company also has another learning management system that was designed for business organizations. Brightspace helps teachers create learning content for students and employees. It has several great features that make it easy to assess and track the performance of the class.

  • NEO

NEO is an award-winning learning management system that was developed for universities and schools. The platform assists schools and universities in the management of their classroom activities like the creation and delivery of educational content for students. It also allows the assessment of students and the tracking of their performances. NEO promotes communication and collaboration in the classroom as well. 

So we now know what each of these two learning management systems is and what they are capable of. Let us now get down to the main business and start comparing them against each other. We will start with the user interface and see how they fare against each other.

  • User interface

NEO comes with a more modern and responsive design that can adjust itself depending on the kind of device that is being used. The platform comes with an attractive dashboard that is tile-based and this makes it easier for users to navigate it without any problems. The numerous features on the platform can also be disabled to suit the kind of students being taught at any moment. The platform also comes with a unique feature that is known as the ‘activity display’. This feature allows the teacher to know the level of activity within the classroom. The NEO display is also quite simple. It has several shortcuts that help to reduce the number of times users have to click to add or remove a class, a section, an assignment, a group, or any other thing they wish to do. The navigation bar can also be configured to suit what users want.

Brightspace on the other hand uses a graphical catalog for the classroom along with a responsive interface. However, it does not come with any graphical resource catalog or user interface. The main class catalog itself does not even have an option that allows you to add categories and subcategories. Instead, the dashboard of Brightspace comes with widgets that can collapse and these widgets show the class, announcements, and many other things on the platform. When you look at the course widget, you will see that it has a tab displaying all the classes along with another tab that allows the students to pin the classes they want to pin. Brightspace is also quite simple when it comes to navigating it.

  • Usage

NEO is easy to use and very intuitive. The platform also has a help center online where with videos where users can get the help they need. There is also a rapid response support forum where users can have their questions answered by members on the forum within a few minutes during business hours.  

Brightspace can be understood easily and users will not have much problem using it. It also has online help along with technical support through email as well as video tutorials.

  • Features

The features on Brightspace and NEO are quite similar for the basic learning management system functions. However, the options that can be found on NEO are more assertive with features such as Automation and Adaptive Learning and come with each premium plan you purchase. Both LMS platforms also come with a gamification feature which makes the learning processes more engaging for teachers and students. Users can easily create site-wide and class games on NEO.

  • Content creation

Teachers can create instructor-led self-paced and blended classes and micro classes on NEO. There are learning paths where class instructors can add various goals, certificates, and other items.

Brightspace also uses a similar instructor-led, self-paced blended classes approach. Teachers can assign a learning path in Brightspace as well to students. The learning path will enroll the students into all the classes within it automatically. 

  • Assessment of students

There are 15 types of assignments on NEO that teachers can choose from when trying to assess their students. These include debates, quizzes, team dropbox, discussions, google assignments, and many more.

Brightspace seems to use fewer assessment options when compared to that NEO. On Brightspace, teachers can use essays, teams, debates, attendance assignment, and discussions.

  • Communication and collaboration

Brightspace uses collaboration tools like discussions, messages, and many others. However, it does not have a collaborative feature for teams and wiki.

NEO has collaborative features such as messages, groups, networking, wikis, blogs, and many others.

  • Customization

Schools can personalize their NEO platforms easily to suit their identities. They can choose logos, colors, terminologies, fonts, and many others according to what suits them. They are also capable of creating a visitor portal with portal images, carousels, custom HTML, and panels.

Brightspace has customization options that users can choose from to suit their preferences. However, NEO seems to offer users a higher level of customization than Brightspace does. There are a lot of features on NEO that one cannot find on the Brightspace platform. 

  • Price

There is a free plan that comes with a comprehensive set of essential LMS features for schools and universities on NEO. The platform also has a premium plan for schools that are looking to get better features and functionality from the platform. NEO does not have any setup fees, cancelation fees, bandwidth fees, support fees, or storage fees. There are no hidden fees as well.

Brightspace however comes with an implementation fee that can reach as high as $10,000 depending on the size of your organization. Users will also have to pay more for the add-ons they choose apart from paying for other features suits.

  • Conclusion

So, ladies and gentlemen, we have put two of the best LMS platforms side by side and from this, we can deduce that NEO seems to offer a little bit more in almost every area when compared to Brightspace. However, when it comes to pricing, Brightspace seems to cost more than NEO does. It however depends on what an organization or school is looking for. Brightspace has a platform for business entities as well, meaning that it caters to a bigger audience than NEO which is focused on schools and colleges. 

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