LinkGuard AI scans every hyperlink in your D2L Brightspace courses, identifies what's broken, and lets AI find the fix — before your students do.
Peer-reviewed research and large-scale data studies confirm what faculty already feel: web links in course content decay at a predictable, steady rate. The question isn't whether your links are breaking — it's how many already have.
A peer-reviewed study monitoring 515 URLs across three university graduate courses found that over 20% of links became nonviable within 24 months — at a steady, month-to-month rate of decay. Markwell & Brooks, J. Science Ed. Tech., 2002 ↗
Pew Research Center's 2024 analysis of nearly 1 million web pages found 25% of all pages from 2013–2023 are now inaccessible — rising to 38% for pages created in 2013. Course content linked a decade ago is statistically likely to be broken. Pew Research Center, May 2024 ↗
Pew Research found 54% of all Wikipedia pages have at least one reference link pointing to a page that no longer exists — and 23% of news pages contain broken links. Academic LMS content, updated less frequently, faces the same decay. Pew Research Center, May 2024 ↗
"Three years ago, I was a big proponent of putting hyperlinks into the class notes that I put online for students, but I've stopped using them as much. I tend now to only pick the ones that look to me like they will be most stable."— Dr. John Markwell, University of Nebraska, quoted in Education Week following peer-reviewed research on LMS link rot (2002)
Research consistently shows online faculty carry heavier administrative loads than their face-to-face counterparts. Manually hunting for broken links is invisible, unrewarded work — and it compounds every semester a course goes unchecked.
A peer-reviewed study of faculty time logs found instructors spend a mean of 12.69 hours per week per online course — with 10% of that time on content development and maintenance tasks like checking and updating links.
Mandernach & Holbeck, Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 2016 ↗Research estimates novice faculty may spend up to 150 hours preparing a new online course — making every subsequent semester of broken links a costly erosion of that original investment. Ongoing maintenance is rarely budgeted for.
Davidson-Barry, National Forum of Teacher Education Journal, 2011; ERIC EJ1124530 ↗A large-scale time-use study of faculty found 11% of the academic workweek is spent on course administration tasks — including updating course web pages and content. Automated link scanning reclaims a measurable portion of that time.
Ziker, Time-use study of academic workday, Boise State Univ., Inside Higher Ed, 2014 ↗Sources: Markwell & Brooks (2002). Broken Links: The Ephemeral Nature of Educational WWW Hyperlinks. Journal of Science Education and Technology, 11, 105–108. doi:10.1023/A:1014627511641 · Markwell & Brooks (2003). "Link rot" limits the usefulness of web-based educational materials. Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Education, 31(1), 69–72. · Chapekis, A. et al. (2024). When Online Content Disappears. Pew Research Center. · Stox, P. (2024). At Least 66.5% of Links to Sites in the Last 9 Years Are Dead. Ahrefs. · Harvard Perma.cc (2019). How Bad a Problem is Link Rot? Hiberlink / Harvard Law.
LinkGuard AI combines intelligent scanning, AI-powered remediation, and native D2L Brightspace integration into one seamless workflow.
Upload or paste your course HTML and LinkGuard AI extracts every embedded hyperlink — across modules, readings, videos, and assignments. Each link is checked live against the web and classified in seconds.
Core engineFor every broken link, Claude AI searches the live web for the most accurate replacement — context-aware matching based on anchor text and surrounding course content.
Powered by Claude AILaunches directly inside D2L Brightspace via LTI 1.3 — no separate login, no tab switching. Instructors access LinkGuard AI as a native tool within their course workflow.
D2L BrightspaceLinkGuard AI automatically re-scans all active courses on a monthly schedule and emails a health summary to every instructor — catching broken links before students do.
Proactive monitoringAdmins get a bird's-eye view of link health across every department. Health score trends, broken link counts, resolution rates, and full scan history — all in one place.
Admin analyticsAdmins manage institution-wide scanning, invite instructors, and assign roles. Instructors see only their courses. Bulk actions and data export are gated to admin accounts only.
Admin · InstructorNo complex setup. No manual checking. Just connect, scan, and fix — all from inside your D2L Brightspace environment.
Install LinkGuard AI as a native LTI 1.3 tool in your Brightspace instance. Your IT team configures it once — then every instructor in every department has instant access from inside their courses.
Select one course or scan your entire institution at once. LinkGuard AI extracts every hyperlink from every module and checks each one live against the web — returning a health score in seconds.
For every broken link, Claude AI searches the live web for the best replacement — matched by anchor text, content context, and link type. Accept the suggestion, enter your own URL, or mark it as ignored. Done.
Prefer to keep everything in-house? LinkGuard AI is available as a fully self-hosted deployment. We provide the application — your IT team installs and manages it on your own servers. No data ever leaves your environment, no third-party dependency, and no ongoing SaaS subscription required.
Every plan includes full AI-powered link scanning, built-in D2L Brightspace integration, and hands-on onboarding support. Priced by the size of your institution — not by the number of users.
Try everything free for 90 days with one department. No credit card, no contract — just results.
No credit card · Cancel anytime
One annual license covers every department, every course, and every instructor at your institution.
Priced by student enrollment · Billed yearly
We handle everything — installation, updates, and ongoing maintenance — so your IT team never has to touch it.
Includes one-time setup & training fee
We deliver the fully packaged application — your IT team installs and operates it on your own infrastructure via D2L LTI 1.3. Fast, straightforward, and cost-effective.
Flat licence · No per-seat fees
We'll scan a real course from your D2L environment, show you the AI suggestions in action, and walk through exactly what setup looks like for your institution.
Usually responds within one business day.
No credit card · No commitment · Replies within 1 business day
We'll reach out within one business day to confirm a time that works for you. Check your inbox — including spam.