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Blackboard Collaborate
4.2
Overall rating
Reviews
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About Blackboard Collaborate
Blackboard Collaborate is an online collaborative learning solution designed primarily for elementary and high schools, higher education and government facilities.
Blackboard Collaborate offers a browser-based web conferencing tool to facilitate interaction between instructors and students. It has a classroom chatter feature that offers a chatting platform for students to share text, audio and video content.
The interactive whiteboard feature displays PowerPoint slides for engaging multiple participants with a single presentation. Whiteboard content can be added or edited directly from Blackboard Collaborate without opening PowerPoint.
Users can personalize their profiles with pictures, videos and other content to facilitate communication. Blackboard Collaborate allows users to share PowerPoint and PDF files with classes without any additional software required.
The solution can be integrated with Blackboard Learn to provide a complete learning management system (LMS).
Blackboard Collaborate pricing
Blackboard Collaborate has a free version and offers a free trial. Blackboard Collaborate paid version starts at US$2,000.00/year.
Starting Price:
US$2,000.00/year
Free Version:
Yes
Free trial:
Yes
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Blackboard Collaborate Reviews for UK Users
Feature rating
5 reviews of 443
View all reviews
Diego Martin
- Industry: Education Management
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
5
5
Reviewed on 15/05/2022
Very simple and intuitive.
Blackboard Collaborate is an excellent tool which is very effectively in educational environments however for SMEs there are better alternatives with similar features at lower prices.
Pros
Blackboard Collaborate is a simple and powerful tool. Features like creating groups and file sharing allow users to improve their user experience while using the software. I appreciate that the video quality would be stable despite of the difficulties in connectivity we could experience. What I like the most is the fact that you do not need to download any additional app to use this software on your phone.
Cons
I have not had any problems while using the app however I think that some additional functions can be implemented such as a button to control the level of audio, annotations and a video speed controller.
Wassim
- Industry: Computer Networking
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Value for Money
4
Features
4
Ease of Use
3
Customer Support
4
4
Reviewed on 17/07/2023
Blackboard Collaborate: Video Conferencing Embedded into the Blackboard LMS Platform
Very great experience. Has been using it with Blackboard for conducting video lectures and office hours in my online and face-to-face university courses.
Pros
The integration of Blackboard Collaborate with the Blackboard LMS makes it very easy to conduct video chat sessions with course participants for the sake of online lecturing, tutorial sessions, or office hours. Collaborate has more or less all the features available in dedicated video conferencing tools such as Zoom or MS Teams with the ease and flexibility of using it from within the Blackboard LMS.
Cons
Some performance lagging in voice has been experienced on slow network connections. The number of participants is not the cause of this but probably the media tuning algorithms to smooth the lags cause by intermittent Internet connections.
Regina
- Industry: Higher Education
- Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
-
Review Source
Value for Money
0
Features
4
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
0
3
Reviewed on 13/10/2020
Good for the basics of remote classroom learning
Overall, I think Blackboard is an adequate software for classes to use as far as the basics go (e.g. putting syllabi and class readings online, administering quizzes and tests, grading). The look and feel of the software can be improved upon and it can be made more user-friendly, but overall, it does an okay job.
Pros
I like that it has the basic features needed for this type of software, such as the ability to administer and grade quizzes online. It is pretty intuitive to use, but it could be better.
Cons
The whole program looks and feels very dated. Because it looks so dated, it feels like it has not been upgraded in a while and could be difficult to use. It surprisingly is pretty intuitive to use however, but there are still ways that it could be improved upon. For example, grading assignments can be made an easier task that does not need to be featured on a separate page.
TeHilla
- Industry: Health, Wellness & Fitness
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Value for Money
5
Features
5
Ease of Use
5
Customer Support
0
4
Reviewed on 27/06/2022
A Necessary Platform in the Face of the Decline of Face to Face Classes
I love blackboard collaborate. It saved my education during the pandemic. The most useful feature for me is the ease of access to recordings. Unlike other platforms, the recordings are stored directly on the platform and do not require the host or lecturer to directly send the recording to participants. The platform is so easy to use and mimics the structure of a real classroom.
Pros
Ease of Navigation
User friendly
Multiple avenues of communication (video, audio and live chat)
Break out rooms options for group collaboration during classes
Ability to schedule and create multiple classes that can be conducted simultaneously without disrupting each other
Hands up feature
Polls
Recordings available
Cons
Initial learning curve as the platform is not similar to others that’s i’ve used before.
Diego
- Industry: Media Production
- Company size: 11–50 Employees
- Used Weekly for 6-12 months
-
Review Source
Value for Money
0
Features
3
Ease of Use
4
Customer Support
0
4
Reviewed on 10/10/2020
Workable, but lacking in reliability
Pros
Great for large groups, has enough features to keep up with the competition including: breakout rooms which work great, screen sharing, whiteboard for demonstrations, moderating for a smooth meeting flow. It's somewhat easy to use, so that's always a plus.
Cons
My biggest problem is reliability and stability. The software has crashed on me quite often, even with a robust and very capable laptop. For a software that's supposed to make collaboration easy, these issues are big drawbacks for me, and it's why we switched back to our original software.
