May 22, 2014 – Release Notes

#instructors #release-notes

May 22, 2014 – Release Notes

On Thursday, May 22, 2014 a number of new features and user interface enhancements will be released. It may be necessary to clear your local browser cache to ensure no stale files exist. The new student features are: 1. Updated calendar to better support large numbers of assignments, 2. Refined student top navigation bar, 3. Scalable simulations for Office 2013 content, 4. Helpful notices for students, 5. Added back to Course Manager link.

Student Portal

Updated Student Calendar

The student calendar now displays when assignments start and due instead of displaying the full duration on the calendar. In instances where multiple assignments start or end on the same day, assignments are grouped together.

New calendar link is located in the top navigation bar:

The main calendar view groups assignments based on start or due dates:

When selecting a date, a dialog appears to display all assignments that either start or are due on that day.

Scalable Simulation

Our usage analytics showed that a good chunk of our users are using screens with a smaller vertical resolution, so we experimented and discovered a way to bring you scalable simulations for all Office 2013 content. This applies to all of your exam, lesson and SIMbook assignments as well as library content.

New Helpful Notices

We had a couple areas where students were confused by what they were seeing on screen, so we added a couple new messages to clear up the confusion:

• Project Results– We added a message to let students know that the solution image they are seeing is actually the perfectly correct solution, not a capture of their submitted document.

• Library– We added a message to inform students that accessing SIMbook content from the library would not count towards their assignment completion.

For Instructors: Back to Course Manager Link

If you are fond of the SIMstudent feature, but have trouble getting back to the Course Manager, you may be pleased to see a new button in the main site navigation that replaces theSign Outbutton with aBack to Crs Mgrbutton.

Stayed tuned for more features coming in the next few weeks. Among these will be an improved Project assignment workflow for novice users.