September 11, 2023
Release 85
Overview
In Release 85, we have introduced a number of new features and improvements to the existing ones:
- Grouping courses and programs into collections
- Notification management for instructors
- Creating and using terms
- Default settings in proctoring mode
What's new
Grouping courses and programs into collections
Instructors need a capability to group courses and programs into collections. Such collections serve various purposes: for example, to promote in the Catalog some courses and programs or to recommend ones that relate to courses and programs for which a learner is enrolled. Thus, learners will be able to browse the Catalog and find courses and programs of their choice.
To satisfy this requirement, we introduced the Collection Manager for Learning Administrators. With this feature, they can create new collections and populate them with objectives from the Objectives list.
A new special field allows instructors to attach an objective to a collection. Also, collection names are added as tags in the Catalog and My Courses sections for a convenient filtering. After a learner clicks on a collection, the courses and programs belonging to the selected collection are filtered.
Notification management for instructors
LMS can be configured to automatically send various notifications to instructors. To help instructors avoid cluttering their inboxes with emails, we introduced an option for them to select what notifications they would like to receive for each course or program.
A special section, Notifications, was added to every objective. Instructors, Group and Unit managers can select in this section notifications to receive.
We have also added an option for Global Instructors to manage notifications sent to other users. Global Instructors have a link in each objective that leads to a list of other instructors who have access to the objective management. In this list, Global Instructors can select what notification these instructors will receive.
Creating and using terms
In educational institutions, it's common practice to monitor learner enrollments in relation to academic periods like semesters, quarters, or other defined terms. With this update, we are introducing a feature that allows learning content authors to create and manage these terms, each identified by a name, start date, and end date. Instructors and administrators can now conveniently use these preconfigured terms when enrolling learners in specific courses or programs, streamlining the process.
Default settings in proctoring mode
For many instructors, it's important to limit what learners can see after completing exams, including their answers, grades, and scores. Previously, these settings needed to be configured manually. With this release, we're simplifying things for teaching staff by automatically disabling the review of proctored exams for learners after they submit their answers.
Improvements and fixes
- The following issues were fixed:
- Some videos were not displayed in Vimeo folders.
- Error 401 occurred when adding a new SCORM.
- Error 400 occurred when passing classes.
- Wrong paddings were present in long-reads if files were attached in the last unit.
- Error 500 encountered when accessing reports.
- Courses were not visible to learners when assigned to old groups or units.
- Issues were identified when creating new personal enrollments.
- Spinner was displayed instead of "Review " and "Start again" when the previous session was in the In review state.
- Incorrect values were displayed in the Completed and Passed columns if retaking an activity was possible and a user had started their second attempt.
- Learners were unable to rejoin classroom sessions.
- For failed proctoring results the state was displayed as unknown.
- Uploaded new SCORM images were not updated at a course level.
- The following improvements were introduced.
- The Supports review after completion option was set to false by default for proctored activities.
- A PDF viewer is available for previewing quizzes.
- The My courses and Catalog menus now adapt to large screens.
- Learners now are allowed to take new attempts to complete a proctored activity.