UNSW Selects D2L Brightspace As New Learning Management System For 80,000 Students

UNSW Sydney has chosen D2L Brightspace as its new learning management system, underpinning a multi-year program that will reshape the digital learning environment for more than 80,000 students across undergraduate, postgraduate and lifelong learning programs.

The platform is intended to create a more consistent and connected experience across the university, giving students a single environment in which to access course materials, engage with learning activities and track their own progress, while providing educators with new tools to support teaching and student outcomes.

Codesign with staff and students

The implementation will not follow a standard rollout model. UNSW has committed to codesigning the platform with faculties, academics, professional staff and students, with the process informing decisions around standards, navigation, course experience, workflows, content migration and support.

The goal is to ensure the system reflects the needs of different disciplines, teaching approaches and student cohorts across the university rather than applying a single template.

Provost and Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Vlado Perkovic, framed the decision as a response to structural shifts in higher education.

“Higher education is changing rapidly. We can see the impact of changing student expectations, new models of education and emerging technologies here in Australia, while globally we are seeing even greater change on the horizon,” Professor Perkovic commented.

“For UNSW, this meant we needed to take a long-term view of the learning environment we want to create for our future students and educators. We have chosen a partner in D2L whose focus is teaching and learning, and who can work with us to build a modern, flexible platform that can evolve with our community.”

AI, analytics and accessible content

Within Brightspace, UNSW will be able to deploy a suite of D2L tools covering interactive and accessible content creation, learning analytics to support student success and the responsible use of AI in education.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor Education and Student Experience, Professor Sarah Maddison, described the platform as an opportunity to design a learning environment that keeps pace with the demands placed on graduates.

“Our students are entering an increasingly complex world, shaped by rapid technological, professional and social change. Their learning environment needs to be ready for what comes next,” Professor Maddison explained.

“We are not simply implementing an off-the-shelf platform. We are designing our future learning environment together with our students and staff. D2L Brightspace gives us the opportunity to create a more consistent, accessible and intuitive digital learning experience for our students, while giving our educators the flexibility and creativity to design and deliver strong teaching, now and into the future.”

D2L’s role

President and CEO of D2L, John Baker, positioned the partnership around the university’s broader educational direction.

“UNSW has a clear vision for education, and we’re proud to support that journey,” Baker remarked. “Together, we will help create engaging and flexible learning experiences, equip educators with tools and explore how responsible AI can enhance teaching and learning.”

D2L Brightspace is a cloud-based learning management system used by educational institutions and organisations globally. Its toolset spans content authoring, assessment, analytics and integrations with third-party platforms.

Technology foundation

Chief Information Officer at UNSW Sydney, Dr Chrissy Burns, focused on the infrastructure dimension of the decision.

“Technology is changing at pace, and our learning environment needs to be able to keep up,” Dr Burns observed.

“D2L Brightspace gives UNSW a modern, scalable and secure technology foundation, with an architecture that is designed to connect with the broader digital ecosystem and evolve as new capabilities emerge. This is particularly important as we look towards advances in artificial intelligence, learning analytics and new approaches to digital education.”

The selection of Brightspace represents a platform-level shift for UNSW. Learning management systems sit at the centre of a university’s digital teaching infrastructure, and replacing one typically involves migrating years of course content, retraining academic staff and rebuilding workflows across every faculty.

UNSW’s decision to codesign the implementation rather than run a top-down migration suggests the university is treating the project as an opportunity to rethink how its digital learning environment is structured, not simply to swap one system for another.

The multi-year timeline reflects the scale of that undertaking across a student body of more than 80,000 and a teaching community spanning a wide range of disciplines.

Last Updated on September 8, 2026 by Nick Ross