Release Notes 2021

From now on, gradings (points, comments) can be entered and saved in the submission overview without having to be confirmed with an extra click on the checkmark. The entered points / comments are saved immediately as soon as the course instructor clicks in the next field, navigates using the tabulator or presses the "Enter" key. Shortly after saving, a small green checkmark next to the field indicates that the entry has been accepted (screenshot).

By eliminating the additional click on the checkmark, the manual entry of points and comments is now more fluid and quicker - a relief especially for assignments that are graded manually.

From now on, feedback files can be saved in the submission overview with just one click, without having to confirm the selection. Course instructors can either drag and drop a file into the area or click on the area to select a file and save it at the same time (screenshot). 

Previously, a grade for an assignment with the "comment only" mode could only be published if the comment field was filled out. If only a feedback file was uploaded, the grading could not be published. Now, the comment field is no longer a mandatory field. If the comment field is empty and a feedback file is uploaded, the message "Feedback file" automatically appears in the comment field (screenshot).

From now on, students can insert numbered lists and bullet points in assignments with a text input box (screenshot).

Structuring of text by means of numbering and bullet points helps students to present and structure their answers, but also makes it easier for lecturers to read through and correct longer answers.

You can now make the desired assignments of reviewers to reviewees in a self-designed CSV file and import it into the Peer Review. (Screenshot).

Using the new import function, you can prepare the assignments at your leisure and then upload them all at once. This makes it easier for you to keep track of everything, which is especially advantageous when there are many participants in the peer review.

Use the new Peer Rating tool to obtain an assessment of the collaboration of each member of a group. Assign the peer rating to selected groups. Each member of the group is given their own peer rating task and can assign a rating, according to the task you have provided, to any other member of the group. The suggested assessments can be viewed by you.

You can now either submit for revision or reset student submissions in Learning Activities (screenshot). Lecturers and students can view the lecturer's comment and all revisions for the learning activity "Assignment". When submitting back, all student entries are retained and can be revised again. When resetting, all entries are removed and the assignment can be restarted.

Previously, assignments in learning activities could only be reset. From now on, you can decide how you want to proceed. Do you want to return assignments with comments or reset them completely? The entire administrative process (information and documentation) is now equally transparent for lecturers and students.

When sending e-mails from a course, the subject line now also contains the semester and the course number in addition to the title of the course.

By specifying the semester and the course number, it is easier to assign student responses to the e-mail, especially if there are courses, e.g. PIs, with the same name.

If a comment was entered under "manage submissions", while the grade of the corresponding learning activity was not yet published, the comment was already displayed in the gradebook. Students could thus see the comment in their gradebook, if the gradebook entry had already been published, without the lecturer having actively released the grade within the "manage submissions" dialoge window. 

This bug is fixed. Comments will only be displayed in the gradebook if the grade of the submission has also been explicitly published under "manage submissions".

If a grade and its accompanying comment had been released, the comment couldn't be deleted (neither via "manage submissions", nor in the gradebook directly).

This bug is fixed. Comments that are deleted in "manage submissions" will no longer be displayed in the gradebook.

Members of a group can now also create, start and join Zoom meetings in the group workstation. The Zoom web conference tool is integrated in the lower area of ​​the group workstation using an iframe (Screenshot).

The integration of Zoom in the group workstation supports students in communicating with other group members and enables group-internal meetings to be planned and started directly via MyLEARN. In this way, group meetings and discussions can be efficiently planned, held and documented.

A new management function gives administrators an overview of all subgroups assigned to a community (Screenshot). And subgroups can now also be duplicated with content.

From now on course instructors can determine in the settings of the grade book whether the total score (points) or the total score (%) of the students should be rounded up. Two types of rounding are available: either you choose the arithmetic rounding (if the first decimal place > = 5, it is rounded up to the next whole number: e.g. from 89.50 to 90.00) or you set a user-defined threshold (screenshot) . Rounded values are shown in the students' grade books in the "Total (rounded)" line (screenshot) and displayed in bold in the student performance overview (screenshot). The setting of a rounding refers to all students, an individual rounding up is currently not possible.

The option of rounding up total points or total percentages enables teachers to improve the overall performance of the students minimally. In the case of overall results that are close to a grade limit defined in the grade key, this can also lead to a better grade for students.

From now on, course instructors have to select actively, if the learning activity should be an exercise (submissions are not visible for the teacher) or an assignment (submissions are visible for the teacher). If the selection is not done, a pop-up window reminds to select the submission type (screenshot).

Mitglieder einer Gruppe können im Gruppenarbeitsplatz nun auch Zoom-Meetings anlegen, starten und beitreten. Das Zoom Webkonferenz-Tool ist mittels iframe im unteren Bereich des Gruppenarbeitsplatzes eingebunden (Screenshot).
 

Die Einbindung von Zoom im Gruppenarbeitsplatz unterstützt Studierende bei der Kommunikation mit anderen Gruppenmitgliedern und ermöglicht es gruppeninterne Meetings direkt über MyLEARN zu planen und zu starten. So können Gruppentreffen und -besprechungen effizient geplant, abgehalten und dokumentiert werden.

Über eine neue Verwaltungsfunktion erhalten Administrator*innen einen Gesamtüberblick über alle der Community zugeordneten Untergruppen (Screenshot) und können Untergruppen nun auch mit Inhalten duplizieren. 

From now on course instructors can determine in the settings of the grade book whether the total score (points) or the total score (%) of the students should be rounded up. Two types of rounding are available: either you choose the arithmetic rounding (if the first decimal place > = 5, it is rounded up to the next whole number: e.g. from 89.50 to 90.00) or you set a user-defined threshold (screenshot) . Rounded values are shown in the students' grade books in the "Total (rounded)" line (screenshot) and displayed in bold in the student performance overview (screenshot). The setting of a rounding refers to all students, an individual rounding up is currently not possible.

The option of rounding up total points or total percentages enables teachers to improve the overall performance of the students minimally. In the case of total results that are close to a grade limit defined in the grade key, this can also lead to a better grade for students.

From now on, course instructors have to select actively, if the learning activity should be an exercise (submissions are not visible for the teacher) or an assignment (submissions are visible for the teacher). If the selection is not done, a pop-up window reminds to select the submission type (screenshot).

Work logs that are created within a process step in a Problem Based Learning group were previously only visible to the creators themselves. The entries in the work log can now be viewed by all group members and the coaches (Screenshot). However, the entries themselves can only be deleted or edited by the creator himself/herself.

Work logs help students to document their workload as part of the project work. The work logs also provide a better insight into the individual performance of the group members for the coaches. Since the work reports can now be viewed by all those involved, they are transparent and usable for the entire group. 

If there are several versions of a submission file or a submission text for an assignment (e.g. due to a return or reset), all previous versions of the submission are displayed for the admin in the submission and assessment dialog in addition to the current submission (screenshot). The student can also see the list of all his/her submission versions (screenshot).

The history of all versions of a submission enables course instructors to compare the current version with earlier versions in order to track changes and progress.  It also helps course instructors to create a basis for assessment and grading.

Course admins can find and display assignments faster, e.g. by displaying assignments with deadlines that are about to expire in the first line. 

In E-mails that are sent by MyLEARN as a result of a notification function, the respective person who took the action (e.g. author of a forum entry or an announcement, course instuctor, etc.) appears as the sender. However, if you then click on "Reply", learn@wu.ac.at is listed as the addressee.

This bug has been solved. By clicking on "Reply" in a notification e-mail from MyLEARN, the addressee does not change and you can send the reply directly to the original sender.

If groups were imported into another course via csv export, the defined join policy (open/closed) and the number of maximum group members were not taken over so far, but had to be set again after the import. From now on, these settings will be included in the import.

Groups can thus be created with all relevant settings (e.g. in a course repository) and transferred to another course without having to edit the settings afterwards.

If a comment is added to a lecturecast, the timestamp at which the video is currently located cannot be inserted.

This bug has been solved. Clicking 0:00:00 will apply the timestamp of the video.

If an activity with a text input or file upload is created as an "exercise" that can only be completed one time by students, this exercise will receive the yellow icon intended for assignments, and not the blue one that indicates an exercise.

Students cannot send an e-mail to other group members within a process step, although the option is displayed.

This bug has been solved. Within a process step, students can now send e-mails to all group members. To do so, they click on the item "Send e-mail to participants", which opens their private e-mail program and all group members appear as recipients of the e-mail.

From now on, the application "Gradebook" can also be activated in the community type "Subgroup" ("Administrate" / "Applications"). Subgroups can be created in courses to divide up the group of participants or to implement specific usage scenarios, especially in the context of online exams.

Subgroups are used more and more to organize exams for a subject: an online exam environment is created per subject and the various exams (A,B,C groups, major, minor and substitute dates) are distributed to students via specially created subgroups. The use of the gradebook in subgroups now makes it possible to grade digital exams (online exams) and to communicate the grades of distance exams (organized via learning activities) to students.

The number of entries displayed per category can now be changed and adjusted directly in the ToDo list (screenshot). The entered number must be confirmed with "Enter".

From now on you can download a CSV file with the assigned reviewers. More information can be found in the MyLEARN guide in: How do I assign reviewers to submissions?

Image: Example of a CSV file

The ToDo list on the MyLEARN home page previously reflected the student view for instructors as well. This was unfavorable as the ToDos for students (submission of the assignment, deadlines for submission, etc.) are not equal to the ones of teachers. From now on, the ToDo list for course leaders or persons with admin rights of a course only shows those assignments, in which there is at least 1 new submission – and this across all courses of the current semester (Screenshot). If there are no open submissions for an assignment because all have already been assessed, the task disappears from the to-do list. Personal to-dos can still be created as a teacher and marked as completed with the check-off mechanism (green checkmark).

The ToDo list is now of better use for teachers, as they can get an overview of new submissions across all courses directly on the MyLEARN homepage. If a task appears in the ToDo list, this is a "sign" for teachers that they can become active if they want to. Teachers can also retrieve the newly received submissions during an ongoing assignment and correct and assess them if necessary. By listing only those assignments in which there are new submissions that have not yet been assessed, it is not necessary to click on each course separately to check whether there are already submissions from students.

If you have already entered points for the Assignment, your "teacher evaluation" will now also be displayed directly in the grading dialog of the Peer Review Exercise (screenshot).

You now have the option for grading the performance of students in the Peer Review Exercise according to your own prior evaluation. This is done by using your own grade as a “golden standard” for assessing students' peer review performance.

In lists that allow bulk actions, no button is shown below the list any more, but the action can be chosen via the drop-down menu "Selected items". Examples are: Membership management: add/remove members; File storage: move /copy/delete files (Screenshot).

After submitting an answer in an unformatted text field, students can click into the text field and edit and change the submitted text, even if these subsequent changes are no longer saved.

When allocating a sample exam or an assignment to selected members, the "group-based selection" is now also possible. In this way, the activity is assigned to all members of an already existing group as an individual task and processed and submitted individually by students (screenshot).

The group-based selection supports the allocation of tasks. Instead of selecting individual students, course admins can now distribute individual tasks to specific groups. This is suitable e.g. for:

• the allocation of distance exams to BeAble students with a time extension.
• the allocation of A, B, C assignments or exams to different groups of students in a course.
• the allocation of assignments or exams to selected students as part of late or replacement dates.
• the allocation of recurrent assignments to the same set of students.

You can find more information on allocating tasks in the MyLEARN Guide.

In Learning Activities you'll find the new activity "Peer Review". Here, the activities "Assignment", "Peer Review Assignment" and "Peer Review Feedback" can be created. Unlike other Learning Activities, the activities and all submissions in the activities are linked here. Students submit a file or a text field entry in the Assignment. Lecturers distribute these submissions manually or randomly among all participants in the peer review according to the selected settings. With the Peer Review Assignment, students can see the assigned submissions and provide their review (screenshot). The submission can also be allocated to groups as well as with the setting "anonymous". In the Peer Review Feedback, reviewers and reviewees are brought together again to communicate via a chat dialogue. In this way, questions can be clarified even in an anonymous setting, and reviewers can comment on or rate the quality of the peer review. As a lecturer, you can see all submissions and grade all three activities (screenshot).
 
In the MyLEARN-Guide you will find all the information and instructions for the Peer Review. Please also take a look at our course offer: "Peer Review in MyLEARN anlegen und durchführen".

For assignments without a time limit (timer), the submission time is now also displayed in the "Submission" column for each student (screenshot).

The submission time provides lectureres with information on how long a student has worked on an assignment and whether it was submitted quickly or late. 

On the profile page under "My Settings", MyLEARN users will now find a link that enables them to log out of MyLEARN on other devices and browsers. After clicking the link "Log out from all sessions" you will be logged out of MyLEARN on all other devices and browsers (screenshot). The current session is not affected. 

Forms that used to have a gray bar for the label on the left and the input field on the right have been converted to a new CSS design. This affects forms in numerous applications (e.g. forums, announcements, FAQs, wiki, etc.) (screenshot).

When downloading text box submissions with the option of formatting, TeX formulas are not displayed correctly in the .html file.

In the case of a manually created grade book entry, no value between 0 and 1 can be saved for the maximum achievable points (e.g. 0.5). 

The Reading List Management Software read!t can be activated via the syllabus (menu item Actions). After activation, read!t is embedded as an iFrame in the field Readings. Course teachers and course administrators can now create or edit a reading list directly in the syllabus. After publishing the list in read!t, the list will also be visible to students in the syllabus.

If the text box submissions of an assignment are downloaded, a separate file is saved for each student. For text box submissions without formatting options, i.e. with pure text, a .txt file is created as before. For text box submissions with formatting options, an .html file is now created (screenshot). In this file the answers are identical to the answers in the submissions, i.e. with all the formatting that was made by students. The .html files can be opened with any browser. In the raw data CSV export, formatted submitted text is displayed as plain text without formatting information. However, bold or italics are replaced by * ... * or _..._, which can be interpreted by most applications (screenshot).

For course instructors it is important to see the text as the student submitted it so that the text box submissions can be viewed, marked and evaluated properly. The display of the formatted text also facilitates legibility and further processing. If necessary, the text can be copied and inserted in another program, e.g. B. Word.

The calendar widget when creating a Checkbox survey is faulty, so that a survey cannot be activated via a specified date.