February 2024 – 3900.84 Release

• Forms
• Likert question type
• Rubrics performance level descriptions: Display choice persists
• Send reminders from gradebook: Improved student count for instructors
• Audio/Video Recording in feedback: Usability improvements
• Missed due dates included in the Course Activity Report
• Long Student names visibility in the Course Activity Report
• Feedback on override and automatic zero grades for Tests and Assignments
• Better control for “Students Alerts” notifications for instructors

Forms

Some instructors need to collect information to place students in clinical experiences. Others need to survey their class to gauge student interests or opinions. Now, instructors can create a Form for these use cases.

The following items are supported in a Form:

• essay question
• Likert question
• multiple choice question
• true/false question
• text
• local file
• file from cloud storage
• page break

By default, a Form is not graded. Questions in a form don’t have correct or incorrect answers.

Image 1. An example ungraded Form used for clinical teaching placement

Some instructors may choose to grade a Form to encourage participation. When this is the case, instructors must manually enter a grade for each submission. Instructors may download the Form results from the Gradebook and Submissions page as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file.

Image 2. Download Form results from Gradable Items view

Image 3. Download Form results for Submissions page

In the Gradebook grid view, student submissions for an ungraded Form appear as “Submitted.” Graded Forms display the manually entered grade or appropriate grading status.

Likert question type

Likert questions help provide a quantitative measure of opinions and attitudes. The responses often range from strongly disagree  to strongly agree. This question type is now available in the Form assessment type.

Image 1. Set up a Likert question

The scale range defaults to 3 options, with suggested labeling for options 1 and 3 as strongly disagree and strongly agree. Instructors may select a range of 3, 5, or 7 and label the poles as desired. Instructors may also choose to include a “not applicable” option.

Image 2. Example Likert question in an end of unit survey

Send reminders from the gradebook: Improved student count for instructors

Some instructors like to send reminders to students who haven’t yet made a submission for an assessment. The send reminder option in the gradebook saves instructors time in student support. We have refined the scenarios that determine the students who will receive the reminder. This will make the recipient list more accurate.

A student user will be counted and receive the reminder if they didn’t submit and:

• they are available in the course.
• they have not received an automatic zero.
• they don’t have a manual override score that was posted.

These changes help ensure that the number of students indicated in the send reminder confirmation is more accurate.

Image 1. Send Reminder confirmation

Audio/Video Recording in feedback: Usability improvements

Audio/video feedback is a more personalised and engaging means for providing feedback. It is beneficial for addressing complex concepts and sharing detailed explanations. To ensure easy and clear access to this tool, we have exposed the Audio/Video option on the feedback toolbar. When in use, the recording window appears on the right side of the screen so that the instructor can view the student submission. The instructor can scroll through a student’s response while recording their feedback. The instructor can maximise the recording window for better visibility.

Image 1. Audio/Video recording on the main tool bar

 

Image 2. Audio/Video recording window in default state

 

Image 3. Audio/Video recording window in maximised state

Missed due dates included in the Course Activity Report

Punctuality and time management are key for student success. Instructors need an easy method for identifying students who may be at risk. Now, instructors can view the number of missed due dates for students in the Course Activity Report.

Instructors can customise the missed due date alert in the Alert Settings.

Image 1. Customise missed due date alert

Students who trigger the missed due dates alert appear in the Course Activity report table and chart and in the downloaded report.

Image 2. Missed due dates in the Course Activity report view

Image 3. Students with missed due date alerts appear in the Course Activity chart view as a purple dot

Students will not receive notifications based on course missed due date alert setting. If a student opts in to missed due date alerts, alerts are sent for each content item.

As before, activity stream notifications for instructors include a summary of students with alerts per course. Now, the summary includes missed due dates alerts. These alerts are triggered every day in case there are new students with alerts in a course. New courses need at least 2 weeks of activity to start triggering these notifications.

Image 4. Missed due date alerts appear in the instructor’s activity stream

The missed due date alert applies when a student doesn’t submit before the due date in the following:

• Assessments, including group and formative
• Assessments with the “collect submissions offline” option selected – when an instructor creates an attempt and enters the submission date/time after the due date
• Assessments with the “hide student names” option selected – alerts only after all student submissions are graded and student names are exposed
• Discussions and journals marked for a grade
• SCORM packages when the “Grade individual SCOs” option is selected in SCORM settings
• Other 3rd party activities, such as LTI and Respondus

Special considerations:

• Students with a due date accommodation never have their work marked late. A student with due date accommodation won’t have any missed due date alerts.
• Students with a due date exception will have a missed due date alert if the excepted due date passes and there is no submission.
• Students with an exemption never have their work marked late. A student with an exemption won’t have any missed due date alerts.
• Hidden content with a due date or content with date/time and performance release conditions are included in missed due date alerts.
• Content with a due date and release conditions for individual course members or groups will alert only those students/groups included in the condition who miss the due date.
• New items added to the gradebook with a due date are not included in the missed due date alerts.

Image 5. Admin view of missed due date metric and alert setting

Long student names visibility in the Course Activity Report

Depending on the culture, personal name lengths vary. In demonstrating our commitment to diversity and inclusion, we have adjusted long names in the Course Activity Report. This change ensures that names are visible even on small devices. This helps instructors avoid confusion when viewing students with similar names.

Image 1. Students with long names in the Course Activity Report

Feedback on override and automatic zero grades for Tests and Assignments

Feedback is crucial for students as it supports and shapes their learning journey. Now, instructors can give feedback for overridden tests, assignment grades, and automatic zeros. This option appears in the Gradebook grid view, and the Submissions list after the override or automatic zero is entered.

Image 1. Feedback from the grid view

Image 2. Feedback from the submission list 

Image 3. Feedback panel

Additionally, instructors can now upload feedback for students as part of the offline grading process. In the past, only uploaded grades were visible to students.

Students can view override feedback after grades are posted.

We also improved students’ access to the feedback. Now, feedback for all attempts on a test or assignment is visible in a panel.

Image 4. Student view of feedback

Better control over “Student Alerts” notifications for instructors

Notifications of certain student-related alerts help instructors be more aware of students who may be at risk. To help, we’ve made it easy for instructors to control what student alerts they receive in their Activity Stream.

The “Student Alerts” options are:

• Low overall grade
• Missed due date alert
• and Last access alert

Image 1. “Student Alerts” section in the Activity Stream’s notifications settings

Image 2. A student alert notification with a low overall grade, last access, and missed due date alerts

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