What's new in our August 2023 Release?
This release shows improvements to the planner and the participants page, roll-out of the new survey tool and general quality of life improvements across the platform.
Table view in planner
The new planner offers a modern, more accessible view. We know some teachers still want to see an overview of plans as a table and we are re-introducing this. The view is accessed from the main planner page. In table view, plans are listed according to their topic order.
In table view, teachers can create a plan, add/remove a topic, add/remove dates, add/remove plan image, add/edit description, add/remove learning objectives and add/remove resources/activities. They can change the order of the resources by using drag & drop. Resources and activities can be removed from a plan, deleted from the course or made visible/not visible.
Please note that table view will be available to all customers some time after the release
New planner: sharing plans
The shareable planner is still not released to all customers! This version is only re-using existing functionality.
Teachers can share their plans with other sites. This feature is available from the "hamburger" menu in the planner. Teachers will still be able to select who the plans should be available to. If the plan has learning objectives connected, these will automatically be suggested as information about the plan. When clicking "Save", the plan will be added to the Library. Availability of content within a plan is limited to Page, File, Link, Google Drive resource, Assignment, Test and Survey tools. The shareable planner function is available when adding ready-made content to a course, and shared plans are available at course creation page.
New planner: plan title is mandatory
Adding a plan title is now mandatory, so that students don’t have to see plans named “No title”. Teachers will see a reminder if the title field is empty.
New survey tool enabled over the summer
The new survey tool was enabled for all customers (with a few exceptions, by agreement). The new survey tool is easier to use, fully accessible and shareable in the library. The summary report provides more details on the responses. The new survey tool is designed to be mobile friendly and as such surveys no longer support complex formatting in questions (such as videos or 3rd party content). Old surveys have been automatically migrated to the new tool. Old surveys with complex formatting are displayed after migration, but cannot be edited.
Quality of life improvements to the new participants page
Following feedback we have made multiple changes to the new participants page. We have added the column 'Groups' on the 'Course participants' tab to allow teachers to quickly see which organisation group or course groups a course participant is a member of.
There is a user search and a new filter for groups. Students only see the course groups they are a member of. We had feedback from some users that they missed the date of last login, this is now in the 360 degree report with other information on all students.
Ease of use and accessibility improvements to password input
We have made accessibility and usability improvements to the password input field. Users can now toggle between password visibility using the eye icon; any password requirements are clearly shown and we provide clearer feedback if the chosen password doesn't meet requirements.