The lab features, reading material capabilities and flashcards are great. This makes learning a new subject engaging and easy.

Labs have issues sometimes that have to be overridden by professors for grading.

I have used these on both ends of the spectrum, as a student and instructor. The software is easy to use, has a small learning curve and is compact with all needed information and data for instructor and student. As a student, I found using the different activities to increase my memory of the material covered.

Mindtap offers a variety of activities for a student to be able to study and review material for a course. Activities vary from tradition flashcards to more engaging and creative tasks in order to review material.

Customer service and support can be slow to respond.

There is literally nothing to like about this software.

The labs are constantly broken. The lab instructions are often incomplete, the virtual machines are very slow and need updates and are not maintained. This particular semester the labs are more broken than average. Average is pretty broken but usually the labs are able to be completed once you fight through the horrible lag and unmaintained virtual machines. This semester I am on module 4 and so far due to constant contact with tech support and many tickets getting escalated to the dev team, one single lab on the track has worked as intended. I have used many e learning systems and cengage is always the worst and most problem ridden. I start my work as early as possible because I know I will encounter either a broken lab or incomplete directions. They have a silly rule that they cannot simply provide you with the missing instructions. I start early so that maybe they can get it fixed before the due date comes around. My instructor has basically suspended due dates for this semester due to the labs being so horribly broken. The first lab that had a ticket due to missing instructions, they finally fixed it. Well the "new and improved" instructions still wont allow you to complete the lab. I am very careful about errors on my labs and copy and paste the required commands into the labs. DO NOT USE THIS PRODUCT IF AT ALL POSSIBLE. Unfortunately for me it is required for my course. I will intermediately drop any course that requires Cengage from here on out.

One of the great only tool I used for academic performance.

I have used mind tap for my entire four years of university and still using. This is very useful online tool that helps student in academic advance. This services has varity of tools in it, starting from E-Book to online modules, online exam and assignment and online stimulation this software service offers all.

Did not have a single issue so far and been using their service since 2013

Great product, excellent customer service/tech support.

Cengage is easy to setup and integrate with Blackboard Learn. The instructor can easily select the content they want for their course and make changes on the fly. Gradebook integration is (mostly) seamless. Perhaps the best feature of Cengage is their tech support/customer service. Our sales rep is very knowledgeable and is often our first point of contact when it comes to troubleshooting. Other Publisher Software companies will continuously "pass the buck" when it comes to tech support, but Cengage tech support takes ownership and works with you to find a solution.

MindTap can be a bit glitchy when using an older machine. Making sure your system is constantly up to date can help alleviate some of the issues.