Press Release
LONDON – JULY, 2025 – D2L, a global learning technology company, shares that The Independent Institute of Education (IIE) chose D2L Brightspace as its learning platform, and is now adding advanced AI and interactive features to help maximise student engagement and educator efficiency.
The IIE is the largest private higher education institution in South Africa, offering over 130 programmes from Higher Certificate to Doctorate level. Following the selection of D2L as its learning platform provider, Brightspace was implemented at the start of the 2025 academic year for close to 65,000 students, across its tertiary brands and Evolve Online School.
“The IIE selected D2L Brightspace following an extensive evaluation process which prioritised feature richness, user experience, scalability and alignment with our commitment to delivering an enhanced academic product,” said Dr Mario Landman, Head of Education Technology and Innovation, The IIE.
D2L Brightspace emerged as the optimal choice. Its advanced tools, customisation capabilities and collaborative features perfectly align with our vision of fostering an enriched learning experience for our students and faculty.
Dr Mario Landman, Head of Education Technology and Innovation, The IIE
The IIE is passionate about its strategic teaching and learning imperatives, which include leveraging technology to help maximise the learner experience and educational productivity, meeting unique individual needs through more personalised student learning pathways and just-in-time feedback, supporting distance learning, and making better use of learning analytics to support optimal outcomes.
The IIE began with D2L Brightspace and Creator+, to help deliver personalised learning at scale through more powerful digital tools and customisable content. This was supported with insights from Performance+, an analytics tool that can uncover and interpret learning data, and improved the content in many of its modules with the help of D2L’s Learning & Creative Services.
Now, the IIE is going further, to help meet strategic institutional objectives and aligning with instructional methodologies such as adaptive learning, by adding more advanced features— D2L Lumi, an AI-powered feature, and H5P to help supplement authoring tool Creator+ to better enable The IIE to create highly interactive content for greater learner success. These features support The IIE’s educators in being able to create highly engaging courses powered by interactive content, video tools, dynamic analytics and generative AI, which can provide more individualised learning pathways rather than one-size-fits-all learning experiences.
Dr. Landman added: “D2L Brightspace has proven to be a transformational partner for the IIE, enabling us to modernise our digital learning environment and position our institution for continued success. Expanding our use of D2L Brightspace by integrating additional tools such as H5P and Lumi speaks to the platform’s ability to grow alongside our evolving needs.”
Stewart Watts, SVP EMEA and APAC at D2L, said: “It is rewarding to be a part of the learning transformation The IIE is delivering for its brands, staff and students. We work with a range of learning providers in South Africa, each of whom adopt digital technologies progressively to meet learning challenges. The IIE is a prime example of an institution working to optimise learning outcomes for students by embracing all that adaptive, customisable, digital learning can offer. We look forward to supporting its future plans and successes.”
Brightspace is used by more than 20 million learners worldwide across schools, higher education, enterprise and membership associations. This year, D2L Lumi received an AI excellence award from the Business Intelligence Group which recognises outstanding organisations, products and individuals driving innovation and redefining possibilities in AI.
To learn more about Brightspace, please visit d2l.com/en-eu/brightspace.
ABOUT THE IIE
The Independent Institute of Education (Pty) Ltd (“The IIE”), a division of JSE-listed ADvTECH, is the largest private higher education institution in South Africa. It operates across 24 sites and via distance, offering 135 registered and accredited higher education programmes from Higher Certificate to Doctorate level on its IIE Varsity College, IIE Vega, IIE MSA, IIE Rosebank College and IIE HSM campuses.
ABOUT D2L
D2L is transforming the way the world learns—helping learners of all ages achieve more than they dreamed possible. Working closely with clients all over the world, D2L is supporting millions of people learning online and in person. Our growing global workforce is dedicated to making the best learning products to leave the world better than they found it. Learn more about D2L for K-12, higher education and businesses at https://www.d2l.com/
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