Learning Gets Personal With Brightspace Autumn16

WATERLOO, ON--(Marketwired - October 25, 2016) - D2L, a global learning technology leader, announces the Autumn16 release of Brightspace, its award-winning learning management system (LMS). Now, instructors will have new ways to personalize the learning experience and deploy tools for learners to collaborate, demonstrate knowledge, and showcase their employability and soft skills.

"Soft skills, such as presentation style, body language, and verbal communication are important to college and career readiness, according to the U.S. Department of Education. However, they are difficult to assess with traditional learning tools," said Renny Monaghan, CMO of D2L. "Brightspace Autumn16 offers new tools for learners to demonstrate their knowledge, relationships, and workplace readiness. Brightspace is the only major LMS on the market that offers broad video capabilities, including a dedicated video assessment tool, that are seamlessly integrated into the learning experience."

Brightspace Autumn16 Makes Learning More Personal:

• With improved Intelligent Agents, instructors can automate the delivery of personalized, instant feedback to students at critical points in their learning. "Intelligent agents are a godsend. With over 1500 students in my subject, they have made such a difference to my ability to engage and communicate with each and every one of them. With so many students, it would be impossible to achieve the same level of interaction manually. Not only are students highly satisfied in my course (always above 90%) but they have helped increase our retention rate too," said Jaclyn Boadbent, Senior Lecturer, Deakin University.
• New features have been added to Virtual Classroom, which connects and engages more learners, regardless of physical location. Earlier in 2016, D2L announced broad video capabilities in Brightspace, including Brightspace Capture (for Lecture Capture), video response in Discussions, and the recently announced Virtual Classroom. With this release, learners benefit from new capabilities within Virtual Classroom such as polling, file sharing, status icons, and advanced moderator settings.
• New Video Assignment is seamlessly integrated into Brightspace to help learners demonstrate both their knowledge and their soft skills. Powered by YouSeeU, one of the leading virtual classroom tools, Video Assignment makes it easy to add integrated video-based assessments to any course in Brightspace. With it, teachers can create and receive video-based evaluations that are embedded into any course alongside other learning materials. D2L also announces premium versions of Virtual Classroom and Video Assignment tools available at a discount until December 31, 2016.
• D2L continues to lead the industry with open standards and learning analytics with expanded support for additional open standards, more open APIs, and improvements to our analytics Data Hub.
• The Brightspace Daylight Experience is a new user experience built with a responsive web design so Brightspace can be used on any device. Autumn16 provides a curated library of beautiful images to be used by instructors as well as numerous other visual design enhancements. Plus, it's faster for instructors to create a quiz and allow learners to choose when, where, and on what device they want to take it.

"Today's learners live in a world that is personalized: geared to their interests, delivered on their time, in formats they choose. Education must embrace personalization to help more learners engage, enjoy rich feedback, and reach their full potential in life," said John Baker, CEO of D2L. "Brightspace Autumn16 release was created to do exactly that and we look forward to helping our clients engage millions of learners with a better learning experience."

D2L's track record of innovation has been widely recognized. In March, Fast Company Ranked D2L #6 on the Most Innovative Companies of 2016 list in the Data Science Category, amongst Google, IBM, Spotify, Costco, and Blue Cross Blue Shield. eLearning Magazine recently rated D2L as #1 in Adaptive Learning, and Brightspace was recently named the #1 LMS in Higher Ed by Ovum Research.

To learn more about the features within Brightspace Autumn16 please visit: www.D2L.com/seasonalrelease. To learn more about Brightspace, visit: https://www.d2l.com/brightspace.

ABOUT BRIGHTSPACE

D2L's Brightspace is an LMS that helps schools and institutions deliver personalized learning experiences to people anywhere in the world. Created for the digital learner, Brightspace is cloud-based, runs on mobile devices, and offers rich multimedia to increase engagement, productivity and knowledge retention. The platform makes it easy to design courses, create content, and grade assignments, giving instructors more time to focus on what's most important - greater teaching and learning. At the same time, analytics reports track and deliver insights into the performance levels of departments, courses, or individuals.

ABOUT D2L

D2L is the software leader that makes learning experiences better. The company's cloud-based platform, Brightspace, is easy to use, flexible, and smart. With Brightspace, organizations can personalize the experience for every learner to deliver real results. The company is a world leader in learning analytics: its platform predicts learner performance so that organizations can take action in real-time to keep learners on track. Brightspace is used by learners in higher education, K-12, and the enterprise sector, including the Fortune 1000. D2L has operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Brazil, and Singapore. www.D2L.com

© 2016 D2L Corporation.

The D2L family of companies includes D2L Corporation, D2L Ltd, D2L Australia Pty Ltd, D2L Europe Ltd, D2L Asia Pte Ltd, and D2L Brasil Soluções de Tecnologia para Educação Ltda.

All D2L marks are trademarks of D2L Corporation. Please visit D2L.com/trademarks for a list of D2L marks.