March 2024 – 3900.86 Release

• No Due Date assessment setting
• Gradebook item statistics
• Text grade schema converts to points
• Send messages to students from the Student Activity report for assessments on small and medium devices and the mobile app
• Announcement indicators and mark as read/unread

No Due Date assessment option

Due dates are an important aspect of the teaching and learning process. In some scenarios, such as self-paced learning, an instructor may not want to apply a due date. To make the option for not having a due date more evident, we’ve added a “No due date” option for Tests and Assignments.

Image 1. Test Settings panel showing the new “No due date” option

We also updated the default due date and time to tomorrow’s date at 11:59 pm.

Image 2. Test Settings panel displaying the new default due date and time 

There may be cases when the “No due date” selection conflicts with the Assessment Results settings. When this occurs, the instructor is prompted to review the settings.

Image 3. A warning banner appears when the “No due date” selection conflicts with Assessment Results settings

Instructors can navigate to the Assessment Results section in the Settings via the link in the banner.

Image 4. Assessment results timing options when there is no due date

Gradebook item statistics

Item statistics give insight to course members’ overall performance on a graded content. Now, instructors can select a column in the gradebook to access summary statistics for any graded item. The statistics page displays key metrics such as:

• Minimum and maximum value
• Range
• Average
• Median
• Standard deviation
• Variance

The number of submissions requiring grading and the distribution of grades also displays.

Image 1. Access to item statistics from the grid view

Image 2. Access to item statistics from the Gradable Items view

Image 3. Item statistics page

Text grade schema converts to points

In the Original course view, instructors can create text schemas that are unsupported in the Ultra course view. When converting courses, text schemas convert to a points schema. After conversion to Ultra, instructors can create and apply an alternate schema if desired.

Send messages to students from the Student Activity report for assessments on small and medium devices and the mobile app

Instructors lead busy, on-the-go lives and access Learn from a variety of devices. Some instructors use small or medium devices or the mobile app. Now these instructors can send messages to students from the Student Activity report for assessments. The message option is in the ellipsis menu for each student.

Image 1. Send message option in the Student Activity report for an assessment on a small screen

Announcement indicators and mark announcements as read/unread

Announcements are an important communications channel within a course. Over the past 12 months, course announcements usage has more than tripled! With such an increase in usage, it is important to help create awareness of new announcements and read/unread controls.

Now, there is a number indicator next to the announcement tab in the course. The indicator signals the number of unread announcements available.

Additionally, users can now mark announcements as read or unread. On the New Course Announcement pop-up, users have the option to mark the read state. Users can also mark announcements as read or unread from the Announcement page.

Image 1. Number of unread Announcements next to the Announcement tab

Image 2. Announcements pop-up with the option to mark as read/unread

Image 3. Announcements page with the option to mark as read/unread

Image 4. Matching announcement and messages indicators for consistency

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