What's new in our July 2024 release?

As we have now moved to a frequent release process, notes will be published with every release. You can find the external release notes for July below. Release information is published on these pages on Monday/Tuesday before the release is deployed on Wednesday. 

Please note that in some instances, the release date may change due to holidays or other circumstances. If you want to see which version itslearning is currently running, you can find that information at the bottom of your login page. Want to keep up-to-date with product and release information?

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

• 2024.7.3 - Release Product Updates in itslearning
• 2024.7.2 - Release Product Updates in itslearning
• 2024.7.1 - Release Product Updates in itslearning

2024.7.3 - Release Product Updates in itslearning

“Seen” button in learning objectives report removed

We have removed the “Seen” button that could be found in the aggregated (cross-course) learning objective report. This functionality was only enabled on a few sites, and on these sites it was little used.

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 and smaller course cards

Course cards offer users 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.

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

• Enable 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 accessed 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 who 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 has moved class and needs to be able to finish an assignment.

Released fixes in itslearning-2024.7.3

2024.7.2 - Release Product Updates in itslearning

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 occurred.

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 at the end of July.

Final removal of Personal reports

To simplify 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.

Released fixes in itslearning-2024.7.2

2024.7.1 - Release Product Updates in itslearning

LTI 1.3 - Support multiple redirect URLs on “Manage apps” page

“Redirect URL” is one of the standard setup fields of an LTI 1.3 app. In itslearning, multiple redirect URLs for the same app were 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.

Released fixes in itslearning-2024.7.1