July 2024 product updates

Additional feature control for system administrators

There are a couple of features that up until now could only be enabled or disabled by itslearning Support. With this release, it is also possible for system administrators to enable or disable these features under Admin>Edit global settings>Features and security. Please remember that less can be more and only enable features if you are sure they are needed.

For a better overview, there are a couple of new sections on this page where all settings related to a feature are grouped. Some existing settings have been moved into this section.

• Assessment record
  • Allow weighting for categories - If categories are used in the assessment record, this setting makes it possible to have a different weight per category. This will impact the overall average.
  • Enable assessment summary - Enables a new option in the assessment record that can be access via the 3 dot menu. Here, teachers can create one or more summaries that can include assessments from different categories and across terms.
  • Enable exempt - Allows teachers to exempt an assessment in the assessment record, which will exclude this assessment from the average.
• Assignment tool
  • Existing settings moved into this section:
    • Send a submission-receipt to students when answering a mandatory assignment
    • Enabled discussion in assignment
  • Enable teacher notes - Teacher notes cannot be seen by a student. It allows a teacher to take notes on an assignment answer, or if a course has multiple teachers the field can be used for discussion.
• Rich text editor
  • Existing setting moved into this section:
    • Enable accessibility plugin in rich text editor
  • Enable LaTeX plugin - Allows teachers that know LaTeX to insert formulas and equations in the rich text editor.

Lastly, in the "Available functions" section the setting "Let teachers grant temporary access to students who have been removed from a course" has been added. This setting is especially useful when course membership is managed via an integration, where for example a student that moved class needs to be able to finish as assignment.

Discontinuation of "Seen" button in aggregated LO report

This functionality was enabled for a small amount of sites. It allowed users to confirm they have seen the aggregated LO report that could be accessed via the person popup. Given its little use, this functionality has been discontinued.

Create plans in topics tabs of table view

There are two tabs in the table view: plans and topics. To better support long-term planning, teachers can now create plans in table view when choosing topic view.

New UX: site links and module applications always open in new windows

With new menus and also work to remove use of iframes, we need to force all links and apps from the new main menu to open in new windows. The option for admins to select existing/new window when setting up links or module applications will be removed.

New UX: Feedback for course copy / apply template

Since the new course menu does not support the spinner to indicate that a copy is in progress, we are adding feedback banners to inform users that there is an ongoing process, or that errors have occured.

New and smaller course cards

Course cards offer users an easy access to their courses. Teachers can see their follow-up tasks and students can see tasks that are due this week as well as new announcements. We have now updated the look and feel of the card and made them smaller, so that they don't take up so much space. Cards will adapt to the available width of the screen and the content inside. All cards on the same row will have the same size.

Filter by status and type in the global content search

Enhancements to the global content search now allow users to filter search results by active/archived status and content type, making it easier to find relevant resources and activities. Additionally, content found in archived courses is now clearly tagged, and the search results page has been fine-tuned for a clearer presentation of results and an improved user experience.

The global content search is currently available in the personal menu. After the release of the new main and course menus at the turn of July/August, we will move the search field to the main menu.

New UX: 'Empty header' updated to new design

The header used on anonymous pages like Forgotten password is updated to prepare for new design being released later in 2024. The change is mostly a change of colour from dark purple to white.

Discontinuation: Open site links in external window

As preparation for the ongoing work to remove iframes in itslearning (Admin pages will have these removed late July), we need to ensure that all site links (added by admin and displayed in the main menu) are opened in a new window (tab), as opening in the existing window (inside itslearning) relies on iframes. This means that the option to open a site link in an external window will be removed as this is now always applied.

Update of 'Status and follow-up'

'Status and follow-up' has been renamed to 'Reports' and we have reviewed the language for all the items on that page. In addition, some items have moved to a new and better location:

• 360° reports have moved from the course menu into the reports page
• Assessment and working portfolios have moved from the course menu to the reports page for students, making it more consistent with the teacher view so it is easier to guide students
• The learning objective assessment report has moved from the 'Follow-up' section to the 'Reports' section of the page

These changes will only appear after the new UX is available end of July.

Final removal of Personal reports

To simpify itslearning and remove duplicate functionality, we have now proceeded to the final removal of the Personal reports. The 360° progress report provides the same course progress information for students, teachers and parents.

If not in use already, we have switched on the 360° progress report automatically in courses where personal reports were in use. If the report is not visible, teachers can add it manually in course settings. Similarly, if personal reports were enabled in the default course settings, we have enabled the 360° progress report instead.

Parent access: Parents and guardians had access to their child's personal report from the Course report icon in the parent portal. This link now takes them to the 360° progress report. The course report is always available to parents and guardians, this has not changed.

LTI 1.3 - Support multiple redirect URLs on "Manage apps" page

A "Redirect URL" is one of the standard setup fields of an LTI 1.3 app. In itslearning multiple redirect URLs for the same app was already supported if these URLs were the same for all customers. However, if a redirect URL is customer specific, the administrator needs to fill it in on the "Manage apps" page after they added the app from the App library. On this "Manage apps" page, we did not yet support more than one redirect URL, but after this release we do.