Assessment and Grading

Improved attempt switching when grading student submissions with multiple attempts

Multiple-attempt assessments can be more complicated for instructors because there are more submissions. To switch between attempts for a student in the past, an instructor would have to close an attempt then select a different attempt. This wasn’t intuitive and required extra clicks. Now instructors can navigate directly between a student’s attempts. If a student has multiple attempts for an assessment, an instructor will see an option to switch attempts. This is more efficient.

Image 1. Instructor view of the attempt drop-down menu on the grading page

When the instructor clicks a student name in the Submissions list, the most recent submitted attempt will be loaded.

The attempt selector displays information to help instructors select the desired attempt:

• Attempt number
• Submission time stamp
• File size
• Grade (if graded)
• Late indicator (if applicable)

Image 2. Navigating between student attempts using the attempt drop-down menu

Sorting Controls on the Anonymous Submissions Page

Record sorting provides a more efficient grade review experience. Instructors need to sort students by grade to identify submissions at a grade boundary. This helps instructors make any changes necessary before posting grades.

Any sorting applied yields a temporary change to the sort order of all columns on the Anonymous Submissions page.

Image 1. Instructor view – students sorted by highest to lowest grade

Sorting on Overall Grade column in the Gradebook Student List View

Instructors need sorting controls in the Gradebook. These sorting options are helpful for organizing the Gradebook data for various contexts:

• identifying students with grades at a grade boundary
• ordering students from highest to lowest grade, or vice versa

Now instructors can sort the Gradebook Students list view on the Overall Grade column. Any sorting applied yields a temporary change to the sort order of all columns.

Image 1. Instructor view – students sorted by highest to lowest Overall Grade

Data & Analytics

Course Activity Report Table Enhancements

The course activity page helps instructors understand students’ performance. With this information, instructors can:

• Identify struggling or high performing students based on their grade, hours in course, or days of inactivity.
• Message students who have a low grade and/or have not accessed the course recently.
• Receive alerts when a student has not accessed their course in a while or if a student’s grade has dropped.

With this update, we have made the following improvements:

• New Table – Updated to be more consistent with other features. Those who use progress tracking will find the feel of the new table should be familiar. The new table makes it easier to select and message students.
• New Days of Inactivity Column – the number of days since a student last accessed your course. Instructors can use this information to identify students that might be falling behind.
• Access Student Overview – click or tap a student’s name to see their grades, progress, and activity over the weeks. Instructors can use the Student Overview to get a full picture of a student’s performance and engagement in a course.
• More Student Information. Accommodations, name pronunciation, and pronouns are now visible. Instructors can use this information when drafting messages to students.

Image 1. Course Activity Report – new table capabilities and metrics

Mobile App

Improvements to the user profile

Users expect to have a congruent experience on the mobile app and desktop experience. In the January 2023 – 5900.56 release, we updated the mobile app design for the user profile page. Now the profile page experience on the mobile app corresponds with the desktop experience.

From the app, users can:

• enter/edit address information
• enter/edit phone and fax numbers
• edit prefix and name details
• record, edit, and/or delete their name pronunciation
• select preferred pronouns or create their own
• change their profile picture
• view profile card

Image 1. Users may update profile information from the mobile app

Image 2. Users may record the pronunciation of their name

Communication & Social Engagement

Discussions – Deactivate post activity*

Before this release, the only way to prevent posts in a discussion was by defining a due date. Instructors now have a checkbox option in the Discussion Settings panel. When checked, participants cannot edit or delete posts in a discussion.

Image 1. Instructor view – Deactivate Post Activity in the Discussion Settings panel

Image 2. Student view – Discussion view after the instructor has elected to prevent editing

Reschedule Announcements

Instructors have not had the ability to reschedule announcements. If the show on and hide after date fields were set for the future, a pop-up window would not generate. Instructors prefer a pop-up window because it helps students see the announcement. If there is no pop-up, a student may not know there is an announcement for them to view.

Some instructors were recreating announcements from scratch to generate these pop-ups. With this update, instructors can now reschedule announcements without having to recreate them. They can do this by changing the show on and hide after fields to a future date.

When users first enter a course, the rescheduled announcement will trigger a pop-up.