It would be great to hear more about your experience with the selection process and your thoughts on the three main players in the market today. Could you share your views on their strengths and weaknesses, and how you perceive the competitive environment among these major players?

To begin with, I can speak about Desire2Learn and Canvas, as I currently use them in some of my roles. I am also a professor and involved in academic technology selections. In my experience, Canvas, which is my preferred platform, stands out from D2L, although Blackboard is also a good platform. Canvas and D2L can be a bit expensive. Canvas started out being very reasonable, but as they gained more market share, they began to take on more of Blackboard's clients and customers. A complete integration for them can be quite costly, although it's relatively easy to implement if you're a small institution like Blackboard.

Are you saying that D2L is expensive or Canvas is expensive?

D2L has been gaining significant market share recently. I believe one of the reasons is their superior analytics. I use D2L in the classroom and find their analytics very useful. Blackboard recently introduced Ultra, and Canvas has added new analytics. However, D2L has been making significant progress in analytics, especially from the instructor's perspective.

Are you saying that D2L is expensive or Canvas is expensive?

Canvas, on the other hand, is easier to add things to unless you lock them down. Institutions that allow more academic freedom, like public universities adding more hybrid or online courses, tend to prefer Canvas. They don't want a structure where everything is the same. Blackboard is a bit more clunky. It's not as easy to use as an instructor, but it does have some advantages. The new add-ons with their analytics have improved significantly.