Jisc Learning Analytics vs Synap

Jisc Learning Analytics is a paid web platform for universities using student data to support student success, wellbeing, and regulatory needs. It combines information from multiple sources into configurable dashboards, including module-level views. Staff can examine attendance, online activity, assessment submissions, and other engagement measures to spot changes in learning behaviour. Notifications and reports help identify students who may need support. Attendance monitoring covers on-site and remote participation, and a student web app lets learners view engagement data and check in to teaching or support sessions. Jisc says the upgraded platform integrates with major virtual learning environments, timetabling systems, and attendance solutions. Institutions can request discovery and consultancy to assess readiness, infrastructure, and data through a two-day virtual or on-site evaluation. Attendance geolocation is opt-in at institutional and individual levels, with obfuscated location data stored under more restricted access. Pricing is available on request; the listed plan is an optional extra for Jisc members.

Synap is an online exam platform for authoring, delivering, proctoring, marking and analysing exams. It serves awarding bodies, universities, companies and training providers. Reusable question banks support more than 15 interactive question types, with tags for topic, skill and difficulty. Security options include lockdown, record-and-review, and live invigilation, with incidents timestamped. Objective questions can be marked instantly; written work can be routed to examiners using rubrics and moderation. Analytics include pass rates, item discrimination and KR-20 reliability. Integrations include a REST API, Zapier, webhooks, LTI 1.3 and Blackboard App Center, with LTI connections for Moodle, Canvas and Blackboard. Synap lists iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, web and extension access. Mobile apps require enabled access on Business or Enterprise plans. It states ISO/IEC 27001:2022 certification, GDPR compliance, TLS 1.2+ in transit, AES-256 at rest and AWS hosting options in the EU and US. Plans start at £1,200 per year, with a 14-day trial after a demo.