SIMnet will be unavailableSunday, December 21st, 2014 from 3:45AM – 5:15AM Eastern. We are making a hardware configuration change to improve airflow and control temperature within the rack. Thismaintenanceis part of our continuous effort to improve performance, reliability, and security.

SIMnet will be unavailable Tuesday, December 30th, 2014 from 5:00AM – 6:00AM Eastern. We are releasing code changes to improve continuous integration and rollback capability in the data tier.

Sincerely,

SIMnet Product Team

Over the past week and a half, we have received limited reports of users seeing a black screen when loading the Access 2013 simulation. We have found that zooming the browser to a value other than 100% was causing a problem in rendering the simulation that caused the Access 2013 module to load incorrectly. The problem seems to be related to improper font measurements within the Flash Player plugin. As of 3:00p EST, we have deployed a workaround that returns the Access view to normal.

If you experience this issue please clear your browser cache and try again.

December 5th, 2014 – Release Notes

New/Improved Grading Features

Excel

• New grading of font colors and fill colors to check hue, saturation, and luminosity.

Bug Fixes

• In Practice Excel 2013 – Guided Project 2-2 – Additional allowable accounting formats.

• In Practice Word 2013 – Independent Project 8-4 – Replaced Metropolitan theme with Facet theme.

• In Practice PowerPoint 2013 – Independent Project 3-4 – Revised grading annotations to ignore the width of the annotation mark.

• Skills Excel 2013 – Skill Review 5.1 – Replaced chart style.

• Skills Excel 2013 – Fix It 5.6 – Corrected instruction and revised formula grading.

• Capstone Excel 2013 – Level 2 and Capstone Excel 2013 Level 3 – Added additional allowable number formats.

• Skills Word 2013 – Fix It 3.6 – Revised instruction for adding footer and replaced the View theme with Slice theme.

The SIMnet Free Trial is changing to SIMnet Courtesy Access. SIMnet Courtesy Access accounts will now allow for 14 days of use. The switch to SIMnet Courtesy Access will make SIMnet consistent with other McGraw-Hill offerings. This change will take effect in mid-December, between typical semesters, to have the smallest impact on students possible.

Current SIMnet Free Trial users will be able to finish their current free trial without any changes.

New Features, Updates & Fixes on December 30th, 2014

New Features

Course Manager

Assignment Scheduling – Gradebook Column Preferences

The assignment preference scheduling views for all assignment types now contain the gradebook column preferences including: column visibility, late submission deduction, points, display type and calculation type.

When updating multiple existing assignments you can now independently update the schedule, gradebook options and restrictions.

Gradebook – Late Submission Flag

The main gradebook view now displays an icon indicating if an assignment was submitted after the due date. Additionally, the grade history indicates that the assignment was submitted late.

Reports – Lesson & SIMbook Completion Date Tracking

Previously it wasn’t possible to determine if a Lesson or SIMbook assignment was completed in-full prior to the due-date or if the student was just practicing after the due-date. There is now a “Completed Date” included in the Lesson and SIMbook details and reports. Moving forward, this column will be set with the date and time when the assignment was completed at 100%.

Student Portal

SIMbooks – Glossary term pop-ups

Glossary terms in the SIMbook pages now contain a pop-up definition of the term.

SIMbooks – Glossary Navigation

Changes & Updates

• To better align with other McGraw-Hill offerings “Free Trial” accounts have been renamed “Courtesy Access” and now have a maximum length of 14-days.

• The “I need to buy a license” links are automatically removed when there are no ecommerce products selected in the Administrative Settings.

• Project assignments with delayed grades now prevent access to the student’s submitted file in the Student Portal.

• Personal assignments that are set to be transferred to a class will only be visible to the student if there are available attempts remaining in the related class assignment. Previously, grades that were transferred to a class would still allow access to the assignment via the personal assignment.

• The Show My Classes vs. Show All Classes filter in the Course Manager Classes section is now only available for Administrators. Other Instructor types can only view the “My Classes” option.

• Improved Course Manager and Student Portal Instant Help topics.

• Refactored resource viewing in the Student Portal to avoid pop-ups. This removed the requirement to allow pop-ups in the Student Portal.

• Added ability for instructors using SIMstudent to delete resource attempts.

• Improved SIMbook reading view in Student Portal on smaller screen sizes.

Bug Fixes

• Removed unnecessary auto-generated columns from some report print views.

• Details on Native Access project submissions that had an integrity violation now functions properly.

• Fixed issue with setting the SIMpath exam preference “Advance on Incorrect.”

• SIMpath post-test results in the student portal wasn’t properly enforcing delayed grades and caused the results link to be invalid.

November 20th, 2014 – Release Notes

New SIMnet Content & Features

New Projects

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 8.1 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 8.3 (Upload .accdb)

Projects Updated for Mac Users

• Word 2013 Capstone – Level 2 Writing a Research Paper

• Word 2013 Capstone – Level 3 Writing a Research Paper

• Excel 2013 Capstone – Level 2 Working with Sales Data

• Excel 2013 Capstone – Level 3 Working with Sales Data

New/Improved Grading Features

Access

• Grade query type (select, make table, or append, delete, update, or crosstab)

• Grade fields to be updated and expressions for the update value in an update query

• Grade the subquery from which data is selected in an append query

• Crosstab query

  • Grade if a Crosstab query is based on a table or a query

  • Grade field(s) used as Row headings in Crosstab query

  • Grade field(s) used as Column headings in Crosstab query

  • Grade field and aggregate function used in Crosstab query

• Check for the existence of a macro

Bug Fixes

• O’Leary Access 2013 – Lab 1-1 Sage View School Parent Contact Database (Upload .xlsx) – Updated instructions

• PowerPoint 2013 GA State Standards – Work It Out 2B-E1 – Updated instructions clarifying which theme to use

• PowerPoint 2013 Project Learn – Work It Out 2B-E1 – Updated instructions clarifying which theme to use

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 3.3 (Upload .accdb) – Added a new function for grading whether a student adds a Text box or Combo box

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Fix It 3.6 (Upload .accdb) – Added a new function for grading whether a student adds a Text box or Combo box

SIMnet will be unavailable Friday, January 9th, 2015 from 3:00AM – 6:00AM Central. We typically try to do planned maintenance on Sunday mornings, but this is the only maintenance slot available with our hosting provider before the Spring semester kicks into high gear.

During the late December maintenance we became aware of an issue with the BIOS firmware running on the database hardware. In order to better control the internal temperature of the server the firmware needs an upgrade. Also, as a precautionary measure we’re replacing the CPU’s that have a history of temperature spikes. This maintenance is necessary to ensure reliability and scalability for the upcoming semester.

Sincerely, SIMnet Product Team

Let Me Try files in SIMbooks were unavailable briefly this morning when a file did not get cleared in the Content Development Network. This caused the expected API to be incorrect. The script that clears the Content Development Network was updated to clear the file in question. The problem existed from 3:00 AM to 12:00 Noon Eastern Time.

Any students who are still experiencing issues should clear their Web browser’s cache.

November 14th, 2014 – Release Notes

New SIMnet Content & Features

New Projects

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 7.1 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 7.3 (Upload .accdb)

New/Improved Grading Features

Access

• New grading for whether or not a report is based on a specific query

• New grading for conditional formatting in a report

• New grading for report control border styles

• New grading for hiding duplicates fields in a report

• New grading for whether or not a subreport is present in a specific report

• New grading if a subreport is linked to a specific report on the correct fields.

Word

• Added new functions to search for paragraphs by content of the paragraph rather than paragraph number. The new functions include checking the following paragraph characteristics: style, indentation, shading, bullet/numbered list style, bullet font size, and cross references.

Bug Fixes

• Word 2013 In Practice –Independent Project 2-6 – improved grading to be less dependent on paragraph number

November 7th, 2014 – Release Notes

New SIMnet Content & Features

New Projects

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Fix It 2.6 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 6.1 (Upload .accdb

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 6.3 (Upload .accdb)

New/Improved Grading Features

Word

Added functions to grade paragraph alignment, paragraph borders and tab leaders that search for the target elements based on content rather than paragraph number.

Bug Fixes

• Excel 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 3-4 (Mac Supported) – Improve chart grading to handle charts on multiple worksheets.

• Word 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 7-4 – Fixed a problem with table style margins.

Lately, we are seeing an increase in the frequency of reports regarding a crash or freeze of our simulated (SWF-based) Let Me Try content in SIMnet as well as our simulated exam questions. It is usually accompanied by a message in the browser that the plugin has crashed or a popup with the following message:

“A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete.”

After investigating the issue, we have come to the conclusion that this is actually an issue in the Flash Player plugin in Firefox. What this means is that we can’t fix the issue internally–we need to rely on either Mozilla or Adobe to fix this issue. We have filed bug reports with each company (links below) and hope they find a resolution quickly. If more people report occurrences, the priority will be elevated, so if you have time, please report that you are having trouble also. In the meantime, we suggest trying a different browser to see if you get better results. We have only been able to reproduce the issue in Windows 8.1 using Firefox 33, so we suggest switching to Chrome or IE until this issue is resolved.

Mozilla Bug Report (if you are using Firefox)

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1086656

Adobe Bug Report

https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3841845

We have kept the details to a minimum in this blog post, but if you would like more info or would like to keep up to date on the progress of the bug fixes, please visit the links above.

For this school year, SIMnet added a new feature to the gradebook, allowing instructors to see when and if their students had attempted an assignment. If a student has not attempted an activity, the gradebook will display a dash instead of a number grade.

This gives instructors another quick and simple way to assess their students. Is a student doing poorly because they are struggling with the material, or are they simply not doing their work? Now you can tell at a glance.

On Friday, the 17th, the gradebook will be updated to automatically display a zero once the assignment due date has expired. Any assignment that has not been attempted when the due date passes will now automatically become a 0.

One important note on this new functionality: once an assignment has past its due date and been changed to a zero, changing the due date to a future time will not change the zero back to a dash. The grade will automatically be updated when the student attempts the assignment or if you choose to manually change the grade.

October 17, 2014 Release Notes

New SIMnet Content & Features

Updated Student Report Display

A number of instructors have noted difficulty finding grades in their gradebook when a student had completed an assignment. This can happen when a student completes a personal lesson or completes a lesson as part of a different class section than expected. To make it easier for instructors to see what class section an assignment was taken for, a column has been added to the Student Report. The Class column displays which class an assignment corresponds to.

Instructors can manually override a grade in the gradebook if they have found that an individual grade has been recorded inappropriately. In the future new functionality will be added to make this process easier.

If an instructor notes a whole class or a large number of student grades are incorrect, please submit a ticket to McGraw-Hill technical support with the pertinent information and the grades will be moved for them.

Access Projects

• Access 2013 In Practice – Improve It Project 1-7 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 2-5 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 5.1 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 5.4 (Upload .accdb)

PowerPoint

• PowerPoint 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 6.1

• PowerPoint 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 6.3

• PowerPoint 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 7.1

• PowerPoint 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 7.3

Projects Updated for Mac Users

• PowerPoint 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 2-5 (Mac Supported)

• PowerPoint 2013 In Practice – Guided Project 3-1 Part A (Mac Supported)

• PowerPoint 2013 In Practice – Guided Project 3-1 Part B (Mac Supported)

New/Improved Grading Features

Access

• Determine if a table calculated field has the correct expression.

• Determine if a table has a record validation rule.

• Determine if a table has record validation text.

• Determine if a table is linked to another database.

PowerPoint

• Pictures

  • Determine if a picture on a slide has the specific colors applied.

  • Determine if a picture on a slide has been cropped from its original size.

  • Determine if a picture on a slide has the correct picture rotation property.

• Determine if a shape on a slide has the correct reflection style.

• Media files

  • Determine if a media file has been trimmed from its original duration.

  • Determine if a media file has a Fade In and/or Fade Out duration.

  • Determine if a media file has specific rotation properties.

• Determine if a group within a slide consists a specific number of objects.

Mac Specific

• Provide the ability to grade different PowerPoint slide animation and transition effects for Mac files vs. Windows files.

Bug Fixes

Excel

• Excel 2013 In Practice – Guided Project 3-3 – Revised grading of the chart title and chart data cell reference. Updated feedback.

Word

• Word 2013 In Practice – Guided Project 3-1 – Revised grading of footnotes.

The SIMnet system is fully available again.

The system outage was caused by a distributed denial of service attack — a malicious and deliberate attempt to disrupt the system. During the attack, the system was unavailable, but no user information or data were compromised.

Again, we thank you for your continued patience and support.

Do you use ProjectLearn? Do you have students who use Mac 2011 or Office 2010?

As newer versions of Office are created, the applications are changed by modifying the existing or adding new features. For example, color palettes, themes, and styles have been modified in the different versions of Office (2010, Mac 2011, or 2013). However, it’s not always easy to pinpoint where students may encounter difficulties.

In situations where students need to use versions other than Microsoft Office 2013, we have compiled some useful information to help you and your students through the process. We worked through the projects from the Mac Microsoft Office 2011 and PC Microsoft Office 2010 perspective.

While there are some projects that work as written, here is some more information for students who use a different version to submit assignments.

• ProjectLearn Mac Word

• ProjectLearn Mac Excel

• ProjectLearn Mac PowerPoint

At 1:15PM Eastern on Friday, September 12, our cloud file storage provider experienced an outage that caused errors and slow load times for SIMnet Projects & Resources. Our vendor partially resolved the issue on Friday night, but errors sill occasionally occurred on until Sunday morning. This issue is was fully resolved as of 3:25PM Eastern on Sunday September 14. You and your students may have experienced slow response times or errors with the following:

• Downloading resource start files

• Uploading resource submissions

• Uploading project submissions

• Grading project submissions

For more details on this issue please visit the following webpagehttps://status.rackspace.com/index/viewincidents?start=1410494400 for details. Should you or your students experience any other issues, please contact our Customer Experience Group.

Customer Experience Group (CXG) Hours of Operation: Sun 6pm – 11pm Mon – Thurs 8am – 11pm Fri 8am – 6pm Sat 10am – 4pm

(All times Central)

By Phone: You can reach us toll-free at 800-331-5094 (US Only).

Thank you,

SIMnet Product Team

October 3rd, 2014 – Release Notes

New SIMnet Content & Features

New In Practice Questions and Mappings

Office Level Word

• Word Chapter 1 (3 assessment/3 practice)

• Word Chapter 3 (4 assessment/4 practice)

Complete Level Word 2013

• Chapter 1 (3 assessment/3 practice)

• Chapter 3 (4 assessment/4 practice)

• Chapter 5 (1 assessment/1 practice)

• Chapter 10 (4 assessment/4 practice)

• Chapter 11 (4 assessment/4 practice)

• Chapter 12 (5 assessment/5 practice)

Access Projects

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 1.4 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 2.1 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 3.1 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 4.3 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 1-4 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 In Practice – Guided Project 2-2 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 In Practice – Guided Project 3-1 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 In Practice – Guided Project 4-3 (Upload .accdb)

PowerPoint Projects

• PowerPoint 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 5.1

• PowerPoint 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 5.4

• PowerPoint 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 6-4

• PowerPoint 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 6-6

Capstone Projects

• Excel 2013 Capstone – Level 1 Working with Sales Data

• Excel 2013 Capstone – Level 2 Working with Sales Data

• PowerPoint 2013 Capstone – Level 1 Creating a Sales Presentation

• PowerPoint 2013 Capstone – Level 2 Creating a Sales Presentation

• Word 2013 Capstone – Level 1 Writing a Research Paper

• Word 2013 Capstone – Level 2 Writing a Research Paper

Projects Updated for Macintosh Users

Word

• Word 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 3.4

• Word 2013 Skills Approach – Fix It 4.6

• Word 2013 Skills Approach – Fix it 5.6

• Word 2013 In Practice – Improve It Project 3-7

• Word 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 4-5

Excel

• Excel 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 4.3

• Excel 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 5.1

• Excel 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 4-5

PowerPoint

• PowerPoint 2013 Skills Approach – Challenge Yourself 1.4

• PowerPoint 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 1-6

New/Improved Grading Features

Access

Tables

• Determine if a field with a Date/Time data type has the correct date

• Added grading capability for field validation rule and validation text

• Improved grading functionality for records in a table

Reports

• Determine if a control is in a specific location within a report

• Determine whether a control within a report has correct conditional formatting applied

Minor Misspellings

• Allow minor misspellings of table names, field names, form names, report names, and query names. For example, if the table name should be “Members” and the student enters “Member”, the student table name “Member” will be used for subsequent grading

• Allow minor misspellings when grading whether data has been entered correctly. This allowance is not applied when it is critical that the data is entered correctly such as primary key values

Excel

• Cell Number Format Style – improved grading currency number format using no decimal places and improved feedback messages

• Sparklines – Improved grading to check the Sparkline range is in the correct format

• For projects with only one worksheet, grade all project instructions regardless of worksheet name with the exception of worksheet name grading

PowerPoint

• Transitions – Added grading capability for using a transition

• Pictures – Improved functionality for grading picture borders

• Slide Background – Added grading capability for slide background properties

• Hyperlinks

  • Added grading capability determining font properties of a hyperlink

  • Added grading capability for embedded objects linking to a Custom Show

  • Determine whether a hyperlink on a slide is linked to a specific location, custom show, file, document or email

• Shapes

  • Determines what Shape Style option has been applied

  • Determines if text within a shape has a specific text alignment

• Action buttons

  • Determine whether or not a specific action button on a slide has link to a specific destination

  • Determine whether or not a slide has the selected type of Action Button

• Custom Show

• Determine whether or not a Custom Show is present

• Determine if Custom Show contains the correct number of slides in the correct order

• Determine if a shape on a slide has a hyperlink to a Custom Show

Mac Specific

PowerPoint

• Provide the ability to grade different fill colors and different themes for Mac files vs. Windows files

Word

• Provide the ability to grade different themes, styles, table styles, and header/footer themes for Mac files vs. Windows files

Excel

• Provide the ability to grade different workbook themes, chart styles, tab colors and tab colors for Mac files vs. Windows files

• Provide alternate grading in place of Pivot Charts for Mac files

Bug Fixes

Excel

• Excel 2013 Skills Approach – Fix It 1.6 – Added alternate date format strings to grading

• Excel 2013 GA State Standards – Work It Out 1B-E1 – Corrected the project instructions, solution images and pdfs

• Excel 2013 GA State Standards – Work It Out 3B-E1 – Updated grading for headers and footers

• Excel 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 2-4 – Updated instructions for students to change the font to Calibri from Gills Sans MT. Updated grading on borders

• Excel 2013 Project Learn – Work It Out 1B-E1 – Corrected the project instructions, solution images and pdfs

PowerPoint

• PowerPoint 2013 Capstone – Level 3 Creating a Sales Presentation – Changed instruction text to step 20.a

Word

• Word 2013 Skills Approach – Fix It 1.6 – Corrected text error in project document

• Word 2013 Skills Approach – Skill Review 4.1 – Added a note to project about unzipping resources folder

• Word 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 1-4 – Added note and corrected visual feedback

• Word 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 1-6 – Updated project excluding line breaks

• Word 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 3-4 – Updated grading for footnote

• Word 2013 In Practice – Guided Project 4-2 – Improved grading for caption of pictures

• Word 2013 In Practice – Independent Project 8-4 – Revised grading for Index and Subentry

As of the latest update today at 1:17 pm CDT from ourfile storage provider, they are continuing to troubleshoot the problems with their cloud system. A detailed technical explanation of the issues can be found here: https://status.rackspace.com/

The impact on SIMnet is limited to the Projects and Resources areas. Students may continue to experience intermittent slowness or errors when downloading source files or uploading files for grading.

We will continue to post updates when we have meaningful updates from our vendor.

As of approximately 5:00 pm EDT today, the SIMnet system became completely unavailable. We are working with our hosting provider to determine the root cause of the issue, which appears to be network related and a wider problem than just SIMnet.

We will post an update as soon as we have more information.

We appreciate your patience as we work to resolve the issue.

August 15th, 2014 Release Notes

New Content

A Skills Approach Access Complete – Chapter 6: Exploring Advanced Forms

SIMbook chapter including Show Me, Guide Me, and Let Me Try and associated simulated questions

SIMnet Access Advanced: Lesson 6: Exploring Advanced Form

• 16 tasks available for custom lessons

• 62 simulated questions (31 assessment/31 practice)

• Mappings for the “by textbook” custom lesson and exam filters will be released Tuesday, August 19.

Capstone Projects

Excel 2013 Capstone – Level 3 Working with Sales Data

Advanced PowerPoint Projects

• PowerPoint 2013 In Practice – Ch 5 Independent Project 5-5

• PowerPoint 2013 In Practice – Ch 5 Independent Project 5-6

Updated Assistance

• New Best Practices document reflects changes made to the Projects Assignment Page

• Instant Help topics now reflect the latest updates to SIMnet

New/Improved Grading Features

PowerPoint

• Animation – Added grading capability for additional animation types and animation effects.

• Videos – Determine if a video has a specific style. Determine if a video has specific height and width dimensions.

• Slide Master – Determine if an action button exist on a Slide Master and if action buttons have the correct size and style.

• Media – Determine whether a type of media on a slide has the correct number of bookmarks. Determine if media is set to start based on a trigger. Determine if media has playback options applied.

• Hyperlinks – Check if a hyperlink exists on a slide and if the destination is correct.

Excel

• Charts – Update grading to support multiple charts of different types on a slide.

Access

• Revised the method of identifying form and report controls to use the control source property rather than the name property.

Bug Fixes

• Excel 2013 Skills Approach – Ch 3 Fix It 3.6 – Updated Instructions

• Excel 2013 Skills Approach – Ch 7 Challenge Yourself 7.4 – Updated Instructions

August 22nd, 2014 – Release Notes

SIMnet Community,

This will be our last Release Note for a few weeks. As instructors lock down their courses and students familiarize themselves with SIMnet we go all hands on deck to ensure that your needs and your student’s needs are met. We pride ourselves on a quick, effective, and friendly Help Desk experience. On to the notes!

New SIMnet Content & Features

A Skills Approach Access Complete – Chapter 7: Exploring Advanced Reports

SIMbook chapter including Show Me, Guide Me, and Let Me Try and associated simulated questions

SIMnet Access Advanced: Chapter 7: Exploring Advanced Reports

• 11 tasks available for custom lessons

• 38 simulated questions (19 assessment/19 practice)

A Skills Approach Access Complete – Chapter 9: Finalizing the Database

SIMbook chapter including Show Me, Guide Me, and Let Me Try and associated simulated questions

SIMnet Access Advanced: Chapter 9: Finalizing the Database

• 11 tasks available for custom lessons

• 44 simulated questions (22 assessment/22 practice)

Updated In Practice Access Mappings

Office Level

• In Practice Access Chapter 4 – Creating and Using Forms and Reports

Complete Level

• In Practice Access Chapter 4 – Creating and Using Forms and Reports

• In Practice Access Chapter 5 – Templates, Advanced Relationships, and Macros

• In Practice Access Chapter 6 – Creating Advanced Queries and Reports Using SQL

• In Practice Access Chapter 7 – Creating Advanced Forms

• In Practice Access Chapter 8 – Integrating Applications

• In Practice Access Chapter 9 – Designing and Managing Databases

• In Practice Access Chapter 10 – Customizing Access Using SkyDrive and Office

Capstone Projects

PowerPoint 2013 Capstone – Level 3 Creating a Sales Presentation

Projects Updated for Mac Users

• Excel 2013 In Practice – Ch. 3 Independent Project 3-4

• Excel 2013 A Skills Approach – Ch. 3 Fix It 3-6

New Announcements Feature

Instructors can now send Announcements in addition to Messages. Announcements function like a class bulletin board on student’s SIMnet home page. Read more about how you can use announcements effectively!

New Test Banks

• A Skills Approach Word 2013 Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9

• A Skills Approach Excel 2013 Chapters 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10

• A Skills Approach PowerPoint 2013 Chapters 5, 6, 7, and 8

• In Practice Outlook 2013 Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10

Bug Fixes

Projects

• Excel 2013 Skills Approach – Ch. 3 Challenge Yourself 3.3 – Allow cell formulas with or without absolute references.

GradeBook

• Fix gradebook rounding error

• Fix gradebook total points override calculation issue

New/Improved Grading Features

PowerPoint

• SmartArt Text – Allow minor spelling mistakes when checking text within SmartArt

• Styles – Added additional SmartArt styles and table styles

• Picture Effects – Added support for additional picture effects

• Line Spacing – Determine if line spacing is correct for a selection of text

Excel

• Cell Formulas – Added an option to ignore absolute reference symbols when checking cell formulas

• Cell Data Validation with Word Variance – Added an option to allow for minor misspellings when checking text data within a cell

SIMnet is currently receiving error message or slow response related to projects and resources. The root cause of this issue is related to an outage at SIMnet’s file storage provider. This issue began at 1:15PM Eastern on Friday, September 12, and is ongoing. You and your students may have experienced slow response times or errors with the following:

• Downloading resource start files

• Uploading resource submissions

• Downloading project start files

• Uploading project submissions

• Grading project submissions

We appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience. For immediate update you can followhttps://status.rackspace.com/index/viewincidents?start=1410494400 for details.

Thank you,

SIMnet Product Team

New Content

A Skills Approach – Access Chapter 5 is now available, as are all the questions related to it. This means that In Practice Access will also have additional questions available for chapters 1, 2, 5, 8, and 9.

Access Projects using new Grading Technology

• Access 2013 In Practice – Ch 1 Guided Project 1-2 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 In Practice – Ch 2 Improve It Project 2-7 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 In Practice – Ch 3 Independent Project 3-6 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 In Practice – Ch 4 Independent Project 4-4 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Ch 1 Skill Review 1.1 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Ch 2 Challenge Yourself 2.3 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Ch 3 Challenge Yourself 3.3 (Upload .accdb)

• Access 2013 Skills Approach – Ch 4 Skill Review 4.1 (Upload .accdb)

Capstone Projects

• Word 2013 Capstone – Level 3 Writing a Research Paper

Advanced PowerPoint Projects

• PowerPoint 2013 In Practice – Ch 4 Guided Project 4-2

• PowerPoint 2013 In Practice – Ch 4 Independent Project 4-5

New/Improved Project Grading Features

Access

• Determine if table fields have the correct data types, field size, and whether the field is required.

• Determine if relationships have been created between tables, whether the relationships are one-to-one or one-to-many, and whether enforce referential integrity, cascade on update, and cascade on delete have been checked.

• Determine if a query contains specific fields including calculated fields.

• Determine if a query has correct criteria including parameterized criteria.

• Determine if a query searches for records with duplicate values in a table.

• Check the control types on a form or report.

• Check properties of controls on forms or reports such as format, height, width, and control source.

• Determine if form and report headers and footers contain specific controls.

• Check the type of form such as split form or data sheet.

• Check if a form contains a sub form.

• Determine if reports group records by specific fields.

• Check report page setup properties.

PowerPoint

Slide Master and Slide Layout Grading

• Determine if placeholders exist, have the correct size, fill color, outline, fonts, and other properties.

• Determine if shapes exist, have the correct shape type, size, fill color, outline, and other properties.

Pictures

• Determine if a picture background has been removed.

• Determine if a picture has been cropped to a shape.

• Determine if a picture has specific effects such as shadows and artistic effects such as gray scale.

• Determine if a screen clipping has been inserted.

The projects at the end of each SIMbook chapter are crafted carefully. They present a series of increasing challenges, that, together, help students move from acquiring new skills to perfecting them. Both A Skills Approach and the In Practice series have three levels of projects in SIMnet. Each of these types of projects have their own name to make it easier for instructors to select the project that fits the needs of their course.

In Practice

• Guided Projects provide step-by-step instructions to apply features, skills, and concepts. Screenshots guide students through the more challenging tasks.

• Independent Projects provide students with further opportunities to practice and apply skills, instructing them what to do, but not how to do it.

• Improve It projects are open-ended and allow students to use critical thinking and creativity to produce attractive professional documents.

A Skills Approach

• Skills Reviews assist students in applying the skills that they have learned by providing click-by-click instructions to complete the new skills from that chapter.

• Challenge Yourself projects work with few prompts. Students use skills that are broken into digestible instructions but not the correct button to push or where information is located.

• Fix It projects represent the use of finely honed skills. These can be treated like a practical exam for the skills in each chapter. Students are given broader instructions rather than prompts on how to complete the task in question.

Instructors may select projects based on how projects fit into their overall class structure. Some instructors use Projects as an exam during class time. They typically would use an Improve It or Fix It project for that purpose. Other instructors use Projects as homework assignments for skill building. They may prefer Guided Projects or Skill Reviews. And, as usual, instructors find brilliant ways to get more out of all of our SIMnet content than we imagine. Make Projects your own!

SIMnet will be unavailableSunday, August 10th, 2014 from 6:00AM – 7:00AM Eastern. We are making a configuration change. Thismaintenanceis part of our continuous effort to improve performance, reliability, and security.

Sincerely,

SIMnet Product Team

A capstone is the last stone laid. It is the symbolic end to construction. SIMnet Capstone Projects serve as a finishing touch to learning a new Microsoft Office application. Each application will have its own Capstone Project. Each project will have 3 levels of complexity. Instructors can select the Capstone Project that best matches the constraints of their course:

• Level 3 Projects are designed to be a comprehensive review of all of the content from the Office level books.

• Level 2 Projects are a slightly smaller list covering about the first three chapters of content.

• Level 1 Projects cover only the first few chapters in the Office books and are designed to test basic skills.

The Level 3 Capstone Projects will be released over the coming weeks:

• Word Capstone Level 3 – August 1st

• Excel Capstone Level 3 – August 15th

• PowerPoint Capstone Level 3 – August 22nd

The other two levels of Capstone Projects will be available this fall, as well as the Access Level Capstone Projects. The Access Capstone Projects will all run in our newly released Direct Access Grading!

In the coming weeks instructors will be able to review in an in depth review of how each text book aligns with each individual Capstone Project so they can make an informed decision about which level is right for their course.

Coming this week, SIMnet is giving you new flexibility in communicating with your students. The new Announcements feature allows you to schedule and send announcements that students will see when they login to SIMnet.

The beginning of the semester is typically full of added and dropped students. Sending a Message via email on Wednesday may miss a number of students who sign up on Thursday and Friday. As an instructor you may need to rely on sending your message out as late as possible or sending out new M**essages to an ever expanding list of students as they enter.

It should be simpler! And now it is. In addition to the current Messages options, the new Announcements feature will allow you to reach all of your students as they login and schedule announcements that are timely and relevant well in advance.

The Messages option in SIMnet has been renamed Communicate. Once you’ve clicked on that link you can choose to send the old Messages which go directly to a student’s email inbox or you can choose the new Announcement radio button.

Sending an announcement goes to the first page a student sees after logging in to SIMnet or while they are actively logged into the student portal. These announcements remain available, like a bulletin board in a classroom until a student clicks the Dismiss link.

You can also schedule your announcements in advance so that they are available when you’d like them to be, even if you’re not available to edit them! Like other assignments, these will also display in your student’s calendar.

When students click on the link in their calendar, the notification will appear with a link to the announcement in their SIMnet inbox.

Thankyou for adopting SIMnet by McGraw-Hill Education and Triad Interactive Inc. We welcome YOU to our family who is using the SIMnet advantage! Throughout the months of August and September, we will share weekly course tips on best practices from our peer-to-peer Digital Faculty Consultants, provide updates and product enhancements on our SIMnet blog , and offer ongoing training options! Our goal is maximize your success this fall!

This week’s tips:

• GOT A QUESTION? Use the built-in Instant Help button, located in the upper right hand corner, to view contextual help on the topic you have currently selected. You can view step-by-step instructors with an accompanying screen shot or watch a video. Additional PDF resources are posted on the site too.

• WONDERING WHAT’S NEW? Use the Blog button, also located in the upper right hand corner, to stay abreast of hot topics trending on the SIMnet Community website. Find current, industry-related articles, updates and product enhancements, and additional help topics. Subscribe here!

• NEED HELP SETTING UP YOUR COURSE?Contact your McGraw-Hill Learning Technology Rep orrequest a 1 on 1 discussion with our Digital Success Team.

August 1st, 2014 – Release Notes

The SIMnet summer release party continues! In addition to debuting tons of new content, we’re making sure we get all of our improvements to the user experience up before you start planning your courses and your students start taking them. Without further ado:

Updates to the Course Manager

• In the My Account section you can now export or print idle, active, and inactive students grids.

• In the Classes section, you can now elect to auto-archive students when you archive a class.

• We’ve made Mac Supported Projects easier to assign.

• All Mac certified projects have had (Mac Supported) added to the end of the project name. Now you can easily determine which projects fully support Mac Office 2011.

• Projects that are Mac supported also have an entry in the Actions Menu for you to download the custom mac instruction pdf.

• Changes have made adding your own Resources easier and more dynamic.

  • In the past, when, making a change to an existing resource file was a pain. You’d need to delete it and re-add the file. Now you can simply edit the file. Navigate to the resource and click the “Edit” button in the upper right corner of the screen. Upload your new file. All of the class assignments remain in tact!

• You can set the number of attempts you’d like your students to have on each resource.

• Resources now support supplements. Supplemental resources are links or files that are in addition to the primary resources. If you’re currently compressing multiple files into a .zip package you can now split them up and have the students download each individual file.

• The SIMnet gradebook and MH Campus gradebook now sync better.

  • Newly created columns will now send the assignment start date and due date to the Learning Management System.

  • Grades will now only be sent to the LMS after the student starts the assignment. For example, when an exam is started the grades will begin to flow to the LMS for that student and exam. This will prevent the LMS from notifying the student of a failing grade before they start the assignment.

• The Gradebook is now more flexible and user friendly.

  • All grades will show up as a dash “-” for assignments that haven’t been started by the student.

  • If you are designing a course that you’d like to be weighted by total points, or if you’d like every assignment to contribute to a final grade equally, you can now reset the total points for an assignment. Edit the column in the gradebook and click the “Max Points” check box and enter a new total points value. The grades and calculated columns based on the grade will update automatically when you refresh data.

• The new Rolling Grade option allows instructors to quickly visualize how well a student is doing based on what they’ve turned in so far. Calculated columns now have a “Use Rolling Grade” preference. That gives instructors the ability to intervene earlier in the semester if a student is falling behind. A blue line at the bottom of each calculated column also displays what percentage of assignments for each calculation have values.

Updates to the Student Portal

• When a class is closed students are no longer allowed to disenroll from the class.

• We’ve added newdownload & submit file wizardsto smooth the Project submission process.

• We’ve made the Exam Environment more secure and transparent.

  • The student name is now on-screen during an exam. This helps the instructor ensure that the student who is taking the exam matches the student account receiving the grade.

• Students will now get a warning when the exam is nearly over. When 10% of the total time is remaining the student will see a message, “Attention: exam ending soon.” and their timer will turn red.

Projects Updated for Macintosh Users

• Skills Approach Word 2013 –Ch 2 Fix It 2.6

• Skills Approach – Excel 2013 –Ch 2 Challenge Yourself 2.3

Bug Fixes

• In Practice Excel 2013–Ch 1 Independent Project 1-6Allow greater variance for misnamed worksheets.

• O’Leary Word 2013 –Ch 2 Lab 2-2Fixed a problem with double wave shapes.

The hits keep coming for new SIMnet content this summer! We are following up the early July release of Outlook 2013 and Internet Browsers with an upcoming release of Computer Concepts, Windows 8, and File Management.

Each of these new modules is accessible through Exams, Lessons, or SimPaths in the Course Manager. Simply create a new SIMnet exam, custom lesson, or SimPath, filter by textbook and select SIMnet – Computer Concepts, SIMnet – Windows 8, or SIMnet – File Management. Add only the content you want!

The new content will show up automatically if you filter by module. You may prefer to see the new content organized by textbook. If you are not seeing any of the new content when you are filtering by textbook, you may need to add the SIMnet textbook. After your administrator adds the SIMnet textbook the content will display under textbooks as well!

Computer Concepts is a novel approach to an introductory computer course based on talking with you, the instructors. You’ve noted that the shift in introductory computing courses from computer majors to general students has left some computing texts too deep in complex areas and too shallow in basic information. We’ve created a text that is designed to deal with the everyday student’s interaction with computers. How can they get a new computer without wasting money on unneeded features? How can they use the Internet to research a paper without resorting to plagiarizing or Wikipedia? How will they use computers to get a job and what will they do with them once they’ve got one?

Windows 8 represents a large shift from previous Windows operating systems. The OS is meant to coordinate Windows offerings for desktops and laptops with touch-heavy displays like tablets and phones. Even Windows veterans can get confused by the new layouts and tools available in Win8. Our offering will demystify your student’s transition.

File Management is an essential computing skill. It doesn’t matter how well you can manage a database or spreadsheet if you can’t find it. Enforcing a sensible, understandable, and repeatable filing system will help users manage their computers as efficiently and effectively as possible. When your students save the boss by quickly locating and producing the file she lost, they’ll be on their way to being the boss themselves.

Projects Updated for Mac Users

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 1 Skill Review 1.1

• Skills Approach Excel – Ch 1 Fix It 1.6

Bug Fixes

• Skills Approach Excel – Ch 3 Challenge Yourself 3.3 Added alternate formulas to accommodate when the worksheet name is included with the cell reference.

• In Practice Excel – Ch 3 Independent Project 3.6Added clarifying instructions for creating a chart on a new chart sheet since grading subsequent steps depends on finding the chart on the chart sheet.

We’ve noted that a number of our users have some trouble with smoothly downloading all the files associate with their project and then successfully uploading and submitting their project for grading. We’ve been brainstorming this issue and have created some new wizards that will seamlessly make each student’s project more successful. We will debut these windows in the coming weeks.

When your student opens a new Project to start work, they are greeted with the familiar start page. Now, once they click Download Files they will start to get new prompts to ensure they download everything they need. First they will view a window that will notify them that their start file is on the way. That screen prompts each student to download the correct instruction file. This will help ensure that they use the latest instructions, calibrated carefully for their success. At times these differ from print book instructions for the student’s benefit. We want to make sure that they get that benefit!

The next screens are situation specific. If your project does not include resource files or you elect not to include a solution file from the start page, those options won’t be shown to the student. If your students already have those files or are not interested in the optional files, they may elect to skip them.

Now your students are directed that they have all the files that they need and that they get a message that will help them begin confidently without fearing that they’ve missed important information.

We’ve made other changes to the upload and grade process as well. Some of our students have been unclear as to the difference between Upload & Save and Grade My Project. We love the Upload & Save feature and, when students understand it, they do too. This handy spot allows students to store their work between sessions in the computer lab and at home or any other combination of work stations without fear of losing their assignment.

However, a lot of students assume that the Upload & Save step is the same as the Grade My Project step. So we’ve added another short wizard to ask students if they’re ready to upload their project and allow them to do so with the click of a button.

We’ve been cooking up something big here at SIMnet this summer. On Friday we’re releasing new Access projects that grade directly as a database!

Access is a bit different from the other SIMnet Microsoft Office applications. In the background, most Office applications keep their files in a format called xml. Our SIMnet Projects grading has been based on these xml files. But Access doesn’t use that standard. Our original solution to this peculiarity was to have students convert their project file to an Excel spreadsheet before grading. While this solution provided a valuable teaching asset to effectively learning Access, we’ve been pushing ourselves to provide an even better user experience.

So we went back to the drawing board. And we’re delighted with the results! We can now grade your student’s database more accurately than ever before. We can assess relationships, forms, reports, queries, and tables in ways that were previously unaccessible. Everyone wins in the deal. Instructors know that they are more accurately assessing their student’s capabilities and students no longer have to rely on correctly exporting their data to get project steps correct.

On this Friday we will release the first 4 projects to grade student’s database directly:

• In Practice Access 2013 Ch 1 – Guided Project 1-2 (Upload .accdb)

• In Practice Access 2013 Ch 2 – Improve It Project 2-7 (Upload .accdb)

• In Practice Access 2013 Ch 3 – Independent Project 3-6 (Upload .accdb)

• In Practice Access 2013 Ch 4 – Independent Project 4-4 (Upload .accdb)

In early August we will release a project for each of the first four chapters of the A Skills Approach Access textbook:

• Skills Approach Access 2013 Ch 1 – Skill Review 1.1 (Upload .accdb)

• Skills Approach Access 2013 Ch 2 – Challenge Yourself 2.3 (Upload .accdb)

• Skills Approach Access 2013 Ch 3 – Challenge Yourself 3.3 (Upload .accdb)

• Skills Approach Access 2013 Ch 4 – Skill Review 4.1 (Upload .accdb)

We’ve made a change in the way that projects display in order to make it clear if you’ve assigned a project that is graded directly in Access or requires an import to Excel. We annotated 2013 Access projects with (Upload .xlsx) or (Upload .accdb) in the project title.

We’ve been so busy pushing out new Office 2013 content that we’re a bit behind on actually telling you what we’ve been doing. Please check out this mega release note to see the 44 newest Projects, and all the Grading Improvements and Bug Fixes. We’ll be back to bite-sized portions next release!

New Projects

• Skills Approach Excel – Ch 8 Skill Review 8.1

• Skills Approach Excel – Ch 8 Challenge Yourself 8.4

• Skills Approach Excel – Ch 10 Skill Review 10.2

• Skills Approach Excel – Ch 10 Challenge Yourself 10.3

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 7 Skill Review 7.2

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 7 Challenge Yourself 7.3

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 8 Skill Review 8.1

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 8 Challenge Yourself 8.4

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 9 Skill Review 9.1

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 9 Challenge Yourself 9.4

• In Practice Access – Ch 7 Independent Project 7-3a

• In Practice Access – Ch 7 Independent Project 7-3b

• In Practice Access – Ch 7 Independent Project 7-4

• In Practice Access – Ch 8 Independent Project 8-4a

• In Practice Access – Ch 8 Independent Project 8-4b

• In Practice Access – Ch 8 Independent Project 8-6

• In Practice Excel – Ch 9 Guided Project 9-3

• In Practice Excel – Ch 9 Independent Project 9-6

• In Practice Word – Ch 10 Independent Project 10-4

• In Practice Word – Ch 10 Independent Project 10-6

• ProjectLearn Access – Ch 1 Work It Out 1A-E3

• ProjectLearn Access – Ch 1 Work It Out 1B-E1

• ProjectLearn Access – Ch 2 Work It Out 2A-E2

• ProjectLearn Access – Ch 2 Work It Out 2B-E1

• ProjectLearn Access – Ch 3 Work It Out 3A-E1

• ProjectLearn Access – Ch 3 Work It Out 3A-E2

• ProjectLearn Excel – Ch 1 Work It Out 1A-E2

• ProjectLearn Excel – Ch 1 Work It Out 1B-E1

• ProjectLearn Excel – Ch 2 Work It Out 2A-E2

• ProjectLearn Excel – Ch 2 Work It Out 2B-E3

• ProjectLearn Excel – Ch 3 Work It Out 3A-E2

• ProjectLearn Excel – Ch 3 Work It Out 3B-E1

• ProjectLearn Excel – Ch 4 Work It Out 4A-E1

• ProjectLearn Excel – Ch 4 Work It Out 4B-E1

• ProjectLearn PowerPoint – Ch 1 Work It Out 1A-E2

• ProjectLearn PowerPoint – Ch 1 Work It Out 1B-E1

• ProjectLearn PowerPoint – Ch 2 Work It Out 2A-E1

• ProjectLearn PowerPoint – Ch 2 Work It Out 2B-E1

• ProjectLearn PowerPoint – Ch 3 Work It Out 3A-E1

• ProjectLearn PowerPoint – Ch 3 Work It Out 3B-E2

• ProjectLearn Word – Ch 3 Work It Out 3A-E3

• ProjectLearn Word – Ch 3 Work It Out 3B-E2

• ProjectLearn Word – Ch 4 Work It Out 4A-E3

• ProjectLearn Word – Ch 4 Work It Out 4B-E1

New/Improved Grading Features

Word

• Determine if pagination settings have been applied to a paragraph such as widow and orphan control and keeping paragraphs together.

• Check for the existence of cross-references.

• Determine if the table of contents uses a built-in formatting style.

• Check if the chart has specific chart elements such as a title, legend, or data labels.

• Check if a quick layout has been applied to a chart.

• Determine if picture has been adjusted with a color.

• Determine if pictures have been grouped.

• Check the alignment of pictures or picture groups.

• Check the angle of rotation for a group of elements.

• Determine the number of pictures and/or textboxes in a group.

• Determine if a picture has the correct horizontal and vertical position.

• Added checks for additional styles and color sets.

• Revised grading for shape formatting to work regardless of the shape type.

• Determine if the repeat header row feature has been applied to a table header.

• Revised grading for table features to work when there are multiple tables in a document.

• Check the background color of a table cell.

• Determine if table border style has been applied.

• Search for text within a comment.

• Determine if a document has been marked as final.

• Determine if Start Enforcement has been selected for editing restrictions.

• Revised conditional formatting grading to check both the formatting rules and the formatting styles.

• Determine if a fill-in field has the correct prompt and default response to the prompt.

Excel

• Revised grading to ignore unnecessary outside parenthesis surrounding formulas.

• Determine if subtotal rows have been added for groups of data rows.

• Check the conditional formatting criteria for formatting cells based on their values.

• Determine if a column has been sorted in ascending or descending order and by the correct type of value.

• Determine if data has been filtered by number, by text values, or by Icon.

• Check the list range, criteria range, and the range where filtered data should be copied when using advanced filters.

• Determine which fields are selected in a slicer.

• Revised feedback for calculated fields so that separate messages are displayed whether the calculated field was named incorrectly or whether the correct formula was used.

• Improved the method of checking whether the correct pivot table slicer filters were selected.

• Determine if a button form control has been added to a worksheet and compare the button text.

• Revised grading functions for checking if chart elements such as title, legend, and data labels are present.

• Improved checking data label font properties to makes sure all of the data labels have the correct font properties.

• Determine if slicer filter is selected for a table slicer.

• Determine if a worksheet has a background image.

• Improved chart title format grading to handle multiple font properties.

• Improved feedback message when grading table column sorting to use column name instead of column letter.

PowerPoint

• Updated feedback messages from the text search function to include the name of the placeholder area being searched.

• Revised grading of animations to grade duration of animations independently from the order of the animation.

• Added grading for animation delay and animation start settings.

• Count the number of shapes of a specific type on a slide.

• Determine if a shape has the correct height and width.

• Compare text within a shape.

• Determine if the correct quick style has been applied to a shape.

• Determine if a shape has the correct shadow effects such as color, transparency, size and blur.

• Determine if the correct style has been applied to a shape shadow such as offset styles, inside styles, and perspective styles.

• Improved grading shape properties to check properties such as fill color and outline style regardless of shape type.

• Added support for additional shape types: Right Arrow, Rounded Rectangle and Callout shapes.

• Determine if a picture has the correct border properties applied.

Bug Fixes

• Access Projects Added alternate headings to accommodate exporting from form or layout view.

• Word Projects Corrected a problem with grading document properties on the cover page to make sure that the document properties were found on the cover page rather than elsewhere in the document.

• In Practice Access – Ch 4 Independent Project 4-4 Correct project instructions concerning name of a button and an instruction numbering problem.

• In Practice – Excel Ch 3 Guided Project 3-3 Fixed a problem with detecting cell ranges for charts.

• In Practice – Excel Ch 3 Independent Project 3-6 Added feedback to explain that multiple trendlines exist for a data series.

• In Practice Excel – Ch 4 Independent Project 4-4 Pivot tables can now be graded using reference table name or pivot table reference data.

• In Practice Excel – Ch 6 Independent Project 6-5 Corrected project instructions and revised grading related to nesting Index and Match functions and corresponding values for instructions #6 – 8.

• In Practice Excel – Ch 7 Independent Project 7-5 Revised the method for grading whether data validation has been applied to cells. The method now checks that the data validation rule has been applied to each cell within a list of cells rather than checking that the validation was applied to a specific range of cells.

• In Practice Excel – Ch 7 Independent Project 7-5 Adjusted grading of data validation to check if the validation was applied to the required list of cells regardless whether the cells were selected in one range or multiple ranges. The grading now ignores if students have applied the data validation for extra cells not in the required list.

• In Practice Excel – Ch 8 Independent Project 8-5 Allow for blank spaces in Calculated Field Formulas.

• In Practice Excel – Ch 9 Independent Project 9-6Adjusted grading of data validation to check if the validation was applied to the required list of cells regardless whether the cells were selected in one range or multiple ranges. The grading now ignores if students have applied the data validation for extra cells not in the required list.

• In Practice PowerPoint – Ch 1 Guided Project 1-2 Added a note to the project instructions for students to click Ignore to skip spelling on slide 1 for the word Email.

• In Practice PowerPoint – Ch 1 Independent Project 1-5 Added characters to the list of hidden characters that should be removed before grading text fields.

• In Practice PowerPoint – Ch 1 Independent Project 1-5 Added alternate codes for Wingding bullet characters.

• In Practice PowerPoint – Ch 2 Guided Project 2-3 Corrected missing text in feedback message when grading WordArt text.

• In Practice – PowerPoint Ch 2 Guided Project 2-3 Improved grading of chart element font sizes to check if the font size was set for the entire chart in addition to checking the font size for the individual chart elements.

• In Practice PowerPoint – Ch 2 Independent Project 2-5 Improve text search to work regardless of whether text is entered on one line or two.

• In Practice PowerPoint – Ch 3 Guided Project 3-1 There is a problem formatting background pictures when using PowerPoint 2013 with Windows 8.1. We added a note to the project instructions notifying users of Windows 8.1 to skip the instruction and we removed grading for this step.

• In Practice – PowerPoint Ch 3 Independent Project 3-4 Improved instructions about adding a picture to the background and added a screen shot to the instructions.

• In Practice Word – Ch 2 Guided Project 2-2 Correct screenshot on visual display of feedback icons.

• In Practice – Word Ch 2 Independent Project 2-6 Updated grading of hyperlinks to provide better feedback for incorrect email address.

• In Practice – Word Ch 3 Guided Project 3-1 Added the cover page to the start file and updated project instructions and grading accordingly.

• In Practice – Word Ch 6 Independent Project 6-6 Adjusted grading of bullet styles for different list levels.

• In Practice – Word Ch 9 Guided Project 9-3 Fixed a problem with checking if a watermark has been removed.

• In Practice – Word Ch 9 Independent Project 9-4 Fixed a problem with Skip Record If merge rule.

• Skills Approach Excel – Ch 1 Skill Review 1.1 Added alternate acceptable formulas.

• Skills Approach Excel – Ch 2 Challenge Yourself 2.3 Fixed a bug when grading conditional formatting.

• Skills Approach Excel – Ch 5 Challenge Yourself 5.3 Removed grading for hiding a data value in a chart. Added grading for filtering using a table slicer.

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 2 Skill Review 2.1 Improved the visual image of the solution and placement of the feedback icons.

• Skills Approach Word –Challenge Yourself 2.3 Improved the visual image of the solution and placement of the feedback icons.

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 2 Fix It 2.6 Improved the visual image of the solution and placement of the feedback icons.

• Skills Approach – Word Ch 6 Challenge Yourself 6.3 Updated the project instructions to use Verdana for the Heading 2 Style instead of Myriad Pro. Updated the project grading accordingly.

• ProjectLearn Excel – Ch 4 Work It Out 4B-E1 Added alternate number formatting patterns.

• GA State Excel – Ch 4 Work It Out 4A-E1 Fixed a problem with grading freeze panes.

• GA-State Excel – Ch 4 Work It Out 4A-E1 Replaced grading of column filters to use a function specifically for checking column filters instead of grading by cell value.

SIMnet will be unavailable Saturday, July 5th, 2014 from 6:30AM – 7:00AM Eastern. We are restarting our storage devices to increase capacity. Thismaintenanceis part of our continuous effort to improve performance, reliability, and security.

Sincerely,

SIMnet Product Team

There was an unexpected configuration issue between 7:10PM – 7:27PM CST on 6/12/2014. You and your students may have experienced the following:

• Not being able to log into the system

• Message about your school’s domain not existing

• A blank login screen

These issues have been resolved as of 7:27PM CST on 6/12/2014. We appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience. Should you or your students experience any other issues, please contact our Customer Experience Group.

Customer Experience Group (CXG) Hours of Operation: Sun 6pm – 11pm Mon – Thurs 8am – 11pm Fri 8am – 6pm Sat 10am – 4pm

(All times Central)

By Phone: You can reach us toll-free at 800-331-5094 (US Only).

Thank you,

SIMnet Product Team

Please be advised that the recent issue with some SIMnet assignments not loadinghas beenresolved as of 1:00 am CDT June 17****. This issue affected a relatively small subset of SIMnet users with older computers or computers with limited system resources available to build the SIMnet simulation.

The root cause of the problem was an update to the Adobe Flash Player that limited the time available for the SIMnet simulation to build. Specifically, computers with Adobe Flash Player version 13.0.0.241 and aboverunning on systems with older processors or other limited system resourceswould time out before the SIMnet simulation had finished building (in other words, causing the simulation to appear to freeze). We have modified the SIMnet simulation builder to accommodate the changes in the Adobe Flash Player, and the problematic assignments should now load on all computer systems that meet the SIMnet system requirements.

We would like to apologize for this issue and for the unusual delay in providing a solution. This problem was particularly difficult for the development team to reproduce as it was limited in scope to certain hardware configurations in combination with the updated Flash Player. Many thanks to the instructors and students who helped us troubleshoot!

Two new modules are coming to SIMnet this week: Outlook 2013 and Internet Browsers. They are both available under the Exams, Lessons, and SimPath sections of the SIMnet Course Manager. Simply create a new SIMnet exam, lesson, or SimPath, navigate by module and select either Outlook 2013 or Internet Browsers. Add only the content you want!

Using a Web browser is a bit like driving a car – there are two distinct issues in getting up and running. First, you’ve got to learn how to drive a car. Then, every time you get a new car you’ve got to find where all the pedals and levers are. And what is that beeping!? SIMnet has content to familiarize your students with broad topics, like website navigation, search, and secure logins, and individualized browser topics like how to manage privacy settings in Chrome or browse privately in Firefox.

Outlook continues to have hundreds of millions of users throughout the world. This is especially true in business settings. Learning the intricacies of the tools that Outlook offers, and how they relate to the rest of the Microsoft suite is vital to workplace readiness. Managing incoming emails with effective rules, using meeting requests appropriately to plan the day efficiently, and adding contacts all pay quick dividends.

That’s just the start of the torrent of new content coming your way this month. Next, a newly streamlined and repositioned Computing Concepts SIMbook will hit the sweet spot for an introductory course that also needs to cover all four SIMnet Microsoft Applications. Then two new modules, Windows 8 and File Management, will familiarize users with the latest Windows OS and teach students how to efficiently and effectively manage their files. All by the end of July!

Updates to the Course Manager

The course manager now allows you to control when your students will be able to see visual feedback with their project solution files. Previously, when a student graded their assignment, he would receive visual feedback of the correct project. Now, when a project is assigned, in the Project Assignment Details window, simply change the Display Visual Feedback check mark or change the attempts number to the desired value.

Updates to the Student Portal

• The Help button in the Student Portal has been updated to provide contextual help topics. For example, if you are in the SimPath section, Help will provide information about How to Create a SimPath and more.

• In the past there have been some issues with students either unenrolling from closed courses. This is no longer possible.

Style Gallery Incorrect Size Problem Solved

Users with high density displays, like the Apple’s Retina Display or the full 1080p displays on on Dell’s Ultrabooks, were having some issues with small portions of the SIMnet simulation. Some of the wider drop-down menus, like the Style Gallery in Excel, were being inappropriately cut off. In a related but separate issue, when users zoomed out, black bars were displaying rather than the desired content. These issues kept users from being able to correctly answer some questions.

This issue was created when Adobe Flash Player reported incorrect window sizes to the SIMnet simulation code. As of the release on the evening of July 1, the SIMnet simulation code has been updated to correctly assess window size. Users with any display resolution will now be able to see the entire Style Gallery and other similar menus. Users may need to clear their browser cache but do not need to do anything further.

Thank you to all users who help us identify any difficulties they have or ways to make our product better. We appreciate your feedback and strive to make the best experience possible!

Macs may not runCERNbut they sure arepopular in the classroom. But Microsoft and Apple don’t always play nice together. Microsoft Office isn’t released as often for Mac and doesn’t have the same layout and functionality.

How do you deal with a class full of Mac users? In the past it’s been all about ensuring that your Mac users get as close to the Office 2013 version as possible. Now you can simply assign one of the Mac Certified projects, have your students use the Instructions for Mac link, and they’re good to go. Our software will automatically handle mixed classes while still allowing you the flexibility to create your own custom rubric.

Release Schedule

At SIMnet we’re working on 8 projects for Mac certified release. The first four will be released by Tuesday, July 8th.

• In Practice Excel 1-5

• In Practice Excel 2-4

• In Practice Word 1-6

• In Practice Word 2-6

The second batch is coming soon!

• Skills Excel 1-6

• Skills Excel 2-3

• Skills Word 1-1

• Skills Word 2-6

We’ll close with a small word of warning: Once a student has started a project with one operating system, they should stick to it. Switching between Windows and Mac will cause grading errors!

NOTICE

SIMnet will be offline and unavailable Sunday May 25th, 2014 from 6AM Eastern – 9AM Eastern. We are performing routine maintenance. This maintenance is part of our continuous effort to improve SIMnet performance, reliability, and security. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Sincerely, SIMnet Product Team

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.

SIMnet Mac users!

Some of you have experienced a message indicating that the unique signature is missing from your project file when trying to upload a project submission. There is a bug in Mac Office 2011 v14.0 that causes your unique signature to be removed from your document when saving. Updating Mac Office to v14.1+ will resolve this issue. We recommend you update to the latest version (v14.4.2).

Hopefully, you’ve already got it installed on your machine. It’s always best to update your software whenever possible for compatibility and security.

We thought we’d take a few moments to help you walk through this update and then help you set yourself up to never miss another update to Office again.

To update the Microsoft Office products on you Mac, open Word, Excel, or PowerPoint while you are connected to the Internet.

1. On the Menu Bar, click Help. Select Check for Updates. The Microsoft AutoUpdatewindow opens.

2. Click the Check for Updates button in the lower right corner of the window.

3. After the check is run, the Microsoft AutoUpdatewindow will display a list of available updates.

4. Ensure the available updates have a check mark in the Installand click Install to install the updates.

5. If you have not run the Microsoft AutoUpdatebefore, there may be multiple updates. You should run the Microsoft AutoUpdate again until you get the message: “There are no updates to your Microsoft software at this time. Please check again later.”

To keep Microsoft Office up to date on your machine:

1. Go back to the Microsoft AutoUpdate window again by clicking on the Help menu and selecting Check for Updates.

2. In the How would you like to check for software updates? section, check the Automatically radio button.

SIMnet will be unavailable Sunday, June 22nd, 2014 from 4:00AM – 2:00PM Eastern. We are performing database patching. This maintenance is part of our continuous effort to improve performance, reliability, and security.

Note: The maintenance “rain date” will be Sunday, June 29th if unforeseen issues arise.

Sincerely, SIMnet Product Team

There is currently an issue with using IE in Windows 7 where the confirmation dialog box after completing the step in the “Let Me Try” does not appear and you cannot get pass it to complete the task. This only impacts the “Let Me Try” for the Office 2013 content; the “Let Me Try” for the Office 2010 and computer concepts content work fine. There are no issues with the “Let Me Try” in IE with Windows 8. As a temporary workaround if your students are using Windows 7, please have them use Chrome or Firefox instead of IE. We are working on identifying the root cause and will provide an update as soon as possible.

Update: The issue with the “Let Me Try” using IE in Windows 7 is fixed as of 10:45PM EDT on 5/30/14

We would also like to inform you that a bug with the confirmation dialog box moving was fixed as of 5:43PM EDT on 5/28/14. That issue was reported earlier this week where the confirmation dialog box kept moving to the left every time you dismissed it, and eventually it disappeared from the screen. The students could have still continued with the task by clicking on the gray background. Students could have misreported this as the “Let Me Try” freezing or not being able to complete the task. This issue was seen in all the browsers and only impacted the “Let Me Try” for the Office 2013 content.

We apologize for any inconvenience this caused you and your students. Should you or your students have any questions, please contact our Customer Experience Group at http://mpss.mhhe.com/contact.php.

The SIMnet Team

Dear Instructors and Students,

We are happy to inform you that our Customer Experience Group (CXG) has expanded its hours for technical support to include Saturdays and extended hours on Sundays. You can contact CXG at 800-331-5094 (US only).

CXG Hours of Operations • Sunday – 12:00pm to 11:00pm Central time • Monday-Thursday – 8:00am to 11:00pm Central time • Friday – 8:00am to 6:00pm Central time • Saturday – 10:00am to 4:00pm Central time

The SIMnet Team

On Thursday, April 17, we released a new feature for instructors to allow you to display the student learning objective (SLO) number when creating or editing a SIMnet exam. Currently, only SLOs for SIMnet or the A Skills Approachbooks are available. We will be adding SLOs for the In Practice and ProjectLearnbook series in the next few weeks.

To display SLOs in the exam question grid:

1. Create a new exam or edit an existing exam.

2. Click the Preferences tab.

3. Click the Edit button.

4. Expand the Objective Reference (SLO) drop-down list near the bottom of the page, and select the textbook series you are using.

5. Click Save.

6. Click the Make Default button to add this preference to all future exams.

When you return to the edit exam questions page, the new SLO column is visible in both theAvailable QuestionsandAssigned Questionsboxes.

Click the SLO heading to sort the question list so questions with the same SLO are grouped together. This is a great way to identify questions that cover the same SLO.

You can also type an SLO number in the filter box below the SLO heading to find questions related to a specific learning objective.

Dear Instructor,

We would like to inform you that the SIMnet team has corrected an unexpected issue with the SIMnet system that occurred earlier today.

The system experienced a performance degradation from 10:00AM until 12:20PM CDT on 4/19/2014 which caused you and your students to experience slow response times for SIMnet. Between 12:00PM-12:20PM CDT, SIMnet was mostly inaccessible.

As of 12:20PM CDT, the SIMnet system is functioning normally again, and our team will continue to closely monitor the system to ensure its performance.

Should you or your students experience any issues, please contact our Customer Experience Group at http://mpss.mhhe.com/contact.php.

We apologize for any inconvenience this caused you and your students today.

Thank you again for your patience and continued support,

The SIMnet Team

Dear SIMnet Instructors,

As you are probably already aware, a security vulnerability known as the Heartbleed bug was discovered on April 7th, 2014 (http://goo.gl/D5QBo9). Limelight Networks, our content delivery network vendor for SIMnet and handles the SSL encryption/decryption for us, quickly acted and patched this vulnerability as of April 8th, 2014 at 1pm MST (http://blog.limelight.com/2014/04/limelight-response-to-the-heartbleed-bug/).

This does NOT mean anyone had access to the SIMnet database as the database is behind a dedicated firewall that is not available from the public internet. The SIMnet ecommerce was also not impacted, because it uses a non-open source SSL.

In an abundance of caution, we recommend that you and your students change your SIMnet password. If the SIMnet admin disabled the ability for the students to change their passwords, the SIMnet admin can re-enable it through the Settings menu. • Password reset instructions for instructors: [click here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/znnupsn3y70x4lz/How to Change Your SIMnet Instructor Password.docx) • Password reset instructions for students: [click here](https://www.dropbox.com/s/wc3pzwupc8v3k8v/How to Change Your SIMnet Student Password.docx)

Thank you for you continued support. If you have any questions, please email us at he-fir-cit@mheducation.com.

Regards, The SIMnet Product Team

By default, the SIMnet exam feedback popup window covers the middle of the Ribbon and the top of the background document area. (1) There may be times when you want to move the feedback window so you can see the effect of the correct answer on the simulation background document, so we have added the ability to click-and-drag the feedback window around the screen. (2,3) During the assignment, the window will remain in the new position unless it is moved again. (4)

When the feedback window covers something that you want to see,

1

you can now drag the feedback window to a new location,

2

3

and the feedback stays in that position until you move it somewhere else.

4

New Features Released: Learning due dates, closed book exams and more!

March 14, 2014 – Release Notes

On Friday, March 14, 2014 a number of new features were released to all users. It may be necessary to clear your local browser cache to ensure no stale files exist. The new features are: 1. Exam assignments now include an “allow open book” preference, 2. Lesson, SIMbook and resource assignments now support due dates, 3. The Let Me Try feedback dialog is now movable, 4. SIMbook assignment details page in the Student Portal now includes an image of the book cover.

Allow Open Book Exam Preference

The allow open book exam preference allows instructors to prevent (or allow) access to all learning material while an exam is in progress. The default setting is off, so all exams are closed book. To allow an open book exam:

1. Edit the exam assignment you would like to allow open book:

2. Select the Class****Assignments or StudentAssignments.

3. Select your class and click Edit.

4. Select the allow open book preference

5. Click Save.

If a student attempts to open a lesson, SIMbook or the Library they will be blocked and have the option to either view the exam information or launch directly from the notification. The blocked screen looks like this:

Lessons, SIMBooks and Resources Support Due Dates

Lesson, SIMbook and Resource assignments now support due date. The default due date was set to equal the current end date. If you would like to modify the due date:

1. Edit the assignment you would like to edit the due date for:

2. Select the Class****Assignments or StudentAssignments.

3. Select your class and click Edit.

4. Set the due date.

5. Click Save.

Movable Let Me Try Dialog

The Let Me Try feedback dialog is now movable in 2013 Lessons and SIMbooks. This allows students to view all portions of the background document.

SIMbook Assignment – Includes Book Cover

SIMbook assignment details page in the Student Portal now includes an image of the book cover. This helps reinforce which textbook the assignment relates to.

New Content Released in March 2014

It has been a busy spring here at Triad! Here’s what we’ve added to SIMnet during the month of March:

New SIMbook chapters

• A Skills Approach, Access Complete

  • Chapter 8 – Exploring Advanced Queries and Macros (The Skills Access Complete chapters will be released out of order.)

• In Practice (Nordell), Access Complete

  • Chapter 7 – Creating Advanced Forms

  • Chapter 8 – Designing and Managing Databases

  • Chapter 9 – Integrating Applications

SIMnet Tasks and Questions

Updated SIMnet lesson, exam, and SIMpath content for the followingIn Practice(Nordell) Access chapters:

• Chapter 3 – Creating and Using Queries

  • Totals

• Chapter 5 – Templates, Advanced Relationships, and Macros

• Chapter 6 – Creating Advanced Queries and Reports and Using SQL

Projects

New Projects

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 7 Skill Review 7-2

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 7 Challenge Yourself 7-3

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 8 Skill Review 8.1

• Skills Approach Word – Ch 8 Challenge Yourself 8.4

• In Practice Access – Ch 7 Independent Project 7-4

• In Practice Access – Ch 7 Independent Project 7-3a and 7-3b

New/Improved Grading Features

Word

Pagination

• Determine if pagination settings have been applied to a paragraph such as widow and orphan control and keeping paragraphs together.

Cross-references

• Check for the existence of cross-references.

Table of Contents

• Determine if the table of contents uses a built-in formatting style.

Charts

• Check if the chart has specific chart elements such as a title, legend, or data labels.

• Check if a quick layout has been applied to a chart.

Pictures

• Determine if picture has been adjusted with a color.

• Determine if pictures have been grouped.

• Check the alignment of pictures or picture groups.

Smart Art

• Added checks for additional styles and color sets.

Shapes

• Revised grading for shape formatting to work regardless of the shape type.

Tables

• Determine if the repeat header row feature has been applied to a table header.

• Revised grading for several table features to work when there are multiple tables in a document.

Excel

Formulas

• Revised grading to ignore unnecessary outside parenthesis surrounding formulas.

Bug Fixes

• In Practice Excel Ch 3 Independent Project 3-6 – Added feedback to identify when multiple trendlines exist for a data series.

• In Practice Excel Ch 4 Independent Project 4-4 – PivotTables will not be graded correctly if the source data reference a table name or a cell range.

• In Practice Excel Ch 6 Independent Project 6-5 – Corrected project instructions and revised grading related to nesting Index and Match functions and corresponding values for instructions #6 – 8.

New SIMbook chapters

• A Skills Approach, Excel Complete :Chapter 10 – Working with Macros

• In Practice (Nordell), PowerPoint Complete : Chapter 06 – Integrating, Reviewing, and Collaborating

SIMnet Tasks and Questions

Updated SIMnet lesson and exam content for the following In Practice (Nordell) Excel Complete chapter:

• Chapter 09 – Recording and Editing Macros

If you’re looking for help with using SIMnet, check out theSIMnet Instant Help site for students.

Contact McGraw-Hill Technical Support if you require assistance with accessing your account.

New SIMbook chapters

• A Skills Approach, Excel Complete :Chapter 8 – Exploring Advanced Data Analysis

• A Skills Approach, PowerPoint Complete : Chapter 6 – Exploring Advanced Graphics, Tables, and Charts

SIMnet Tasks and Questions

Updated SIMnet lesson and exam content for the following In Practice (Nordell) Excel Complete chapters:

• Chapter 04 – Importing, Creating Tables, Sorting and Filtering, and Using Conditional Formatting

• Chapter 05 – Working with Multiple Worksheets and Workbooks

• Chapter 06 – Using Advanced Functions

• Chapter 08 – Using Decision-Making Tools and XML

SIMbook, new release:

• A Skills Approach, Excel Complete :Chapter 9 – Importing Data, Reviewing, and Finalizing the Workbook (Chapters 8 and 9 are being released out of order — A Skills Approach, Excel Complete : Chapter 8 – Exploring Advanced Data Analysis is scheduled for release next Friday, February 28.)

New simulated questions have been added for the following In Practice (Nordell), Excel chapters:

• Chapter 04 – Importing, Creating Tables, Sorting and Filtering, and Using Conditional Formatting

• Chapter 05 – Working with Multiple Worksheets and Workbooks

• Chapter 06 – Using Advanced Functions

• Chapter 07 – Setting Validation, Creating Forms, Sharing and Protecting Workbooks

An unexpected sporadic network issue between 9:20AM-12:15PM CST on 2/18/2014. During the time, users could have experienced some error messages. This issue was fully resolved as of 12:15PM CST on 2/18/2014.

On 2/19/2014, students using IE9 experienced an issue with being stuck on a loading screen after signing into SIMnet. This has been resolved as of 10:30PM CST on 2/19/2014, and students should not be able to log in without any issues.

We appreciate your patience and apologize for the inconvenience. Should you or your students experience any other issues, please contact our Customer Experience Group.

Customer Experience Group (CXG) Hours of Operation: Sun 6pm – 11pm Mon – Thurs 8am – 11pm Fri 8am – 6pm (All times Central)

By Phone: You can reach us toll-free at 800-331-5094 (US Only).

SIMsearch allows users to search the full content of all licensed SIMbooks in their library. SIMsearch has been on a temporary hiatus since the full release of SIMnet for Office 2013 release on July 21, 2013. To search a SIMbook:

1. Click the LIBRARY link in the top navigation bar and select a book from the bookshelf.

2. Click the Search tab.

3. Enter your search term. For example, search for PMT in the Office level book.

4. Click Go.

5. The search results will appear below. Results are ordered based on the number of matching terms found per page. The results include the 5 words before and after the search term as they appear on the SIMbook page.

6. Click the page title to launch the SIMbook chapter and view the selected page. All Show Me, Guide Me and Let Me Try activity is tracked in the Library of the selected chapter.

Update: The fixes below were released as of 9:30PM CST on 2/17/2014

There is a pending release scheduled for later this evening (2/17/2014) to fix the following known issues:

• The Tiles view in the student portal are out of order; they are not arranged by Due Dates. • Students cannot purchase access through the SIMnet e-commerce. • The password protection for the Project assignments is only being applied to step 3, the grading component.

Please note: If you experience any other issues, please clear your browser cache and try again. If that does not resolve it, please contact our Customer Experience Group at 800-331-5094 (US Only).

Customer Experience Group (CXG) Hours of Operation: Sun 6pm – 11pm Mon – Thurs 8am – 11pm Fri 8am – 6pm (All times Central)

SIMbook Chapters Released this week

A Skills Approach, Word Complete, Chapter 9 :Working with Macros and Finalizing the Document

In Practice, Access Complete, Chapter 6 :Creating Advanced Queries and Reports and Using SQL

In Practice, PowerPoint Complete, Chapter 5 :Working with Advanced Animation, Hyperlinks, and Rich Media

NOTE: This release has been rescheduled from Friday the 14th to Saturday the 15th due to technical issues with the deployment process of the latest Student Portal build. I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

On Saturday, February 15, 2014 a new version of the SIMnet Student Portal will be released to all users. It may be necessary to clear your local browser cache to ensure no stale files exist. The primary feature being released with this version is fully searchable SIMbook content. This release also includes numerous user interface and experience refinements.

SIMsearch – Searchable SIMbook Content

SIMsearch allows users to search the full content of all licensed SIMbooks in their library. SIMsearch has been on a temporary hiatus since the full release of SIMnet for Office 2013 release on July 21, 2013. Stay tuned for another post later this week with more details on SIMsearch.

Library Tutorial

The library tutorial is designed to walk the user through all relevant steps of the library interface, live in their account. There is no need to consult Instant Help when the tutorial has been integrated into the user experience. Look for more integrated tutorials on how to use the student portal in the future. To launch the library tutorial:

1. Click the LIBRARY link in the top navigation bar and select a book from the bookshelf.

2. Click the red Take the library tour button.

3. Click the next button to continue to the next step.

4. Click the X button or elsewhere on the interface to end the tutorial.

Refined User Interface & Experience

We have refined the user interface in many aspects of the Student Portal. The primary goal of this iteration was to enhance the experience of mobile users. Below you will find a number of before and after screenshots of the primary Student Portal screens. This list is not all inclusive, but outlines the type and location of the improvements.

Delete Results with SIMstudent

When taking an assignment with the SIMstudent feature there wasn’t a way to clear your results in order to retake an assignment. Users can now clear previous results on the assignment details screen. Note: this feature does not exist for regular student accounts. For example to delete a lesson result:

1. View the assignment details from either the ASSIGNMENTS or GRADES top navigation bar.

2. Click Rest Progress to clear your results for the assignment.

SIMbook Chapters

• A Skills Approach, Excel Complete Chapter 7 :Exploring Advanced Charts and Graphics

• In Practice, Access Complete Chapter 5 : Templates, Advanced Relationships, and Macros

SIMnet Content

• Additional simulated assessment/practice questions mapped to In Practice Office and Excel Complete Chapter 3 :Creating and Editing Charts There are now 19 SIMnet learning tasks and 36 assessment questions/36 practice questions

For release Monday, February 17, 2014:

New Project

A Skills Approach : Excel 2013 – Chapter 7 Skill Review 7.1

New/Improved Grading Features

Charts

• Improve chart functions to work when multiple charts are present on one worksheet.

• Determine if a chart has a secondary axis.

• Identify legend position.

• Compare fill color for a point in a series.

• Compare line format options for a series.

Sparklines

• Determine whether markers and other points such as high point and last point are show on trend lines.

• Compare colors of markers and other points.

Trendlines

• Identify the begin arrow and/or end arrow type.

• Count the number of trendlines in a chart.

WordArt

• Verify existence of word art on a worksheet.

• Compare text effects.

Pictures

• Compare picture style characteristics.

Bug Fixes

In Practice Word Independent Project 2-4: Fixed a grading error that was occurring with a paragraph spacing function.

In Practice Excel Independent Project 4-4: Fixed a grading error that was occurring in a conditional formatting function.

Fixed an error that was occurring when comparing font properties of cover page document properties.

General Projects Grading Improvements

1/10/2014

Word Header and Footer Styles – Revised the method of detecting header and footer styles to search for characteristics of the style. For example, the Facet (Even Page) header style has graphics and the page number in the upper left.

1/17/2014:

Excel Headers and Footers – Improved checks for header and footer elements within left, center and right areas.

Power Point Text – Improved two different methods of searching for text. One method is used to determine if a text string is found within a component. The other method is used for matching all of the text within a component.

1/24/2014:

Word Font Family – Added corrections for handling default Calibri font.

1/31/2014:

Excel Pivot Tables – Added an additional check for cell references when comparing data in pivot tables.

Word Header Footer Tab Stops – Added corrections for handling default center and right tab stops.

Bug Fixes

Fixed: 1/3/2014

In Practice – 2013 Excel Wood, Nordell

Independent Project 2-4 : Added grading for alternate methods of applying the $ sign number format.

Fixed: 1/10/2014

A Skills Approach – 2013 Word – Manning and Swinson

Skill Review 3.1 : Project grading was not working correctly for inserting document properties fields.

Challenge Yourself 3.4 : Project grading was not working correctly for the inserting of the Built-In Header/Footer.

Fixed: 1/17/2014

In Practice – 2013 Excel Wood, Nordell

Independent Project 2-5 : Project was not grading correctly for inserting of a Header/Footer.

Fixed: 1/24/2014

In Practice – 2013 Word – Nordell

Independent Project 1-4 : Project was sometimes not grading correctly for the Calibri font in the document.

A Skills Approach – 2013 Word – Manning and Swinson

Challenge Yourself 2.3 : Project was sometimes not grading correctly for the Calibri font in the document.

Fixed: 1/31/2014

In Practice – 2013 Excel Wood, Nordell

Guided Project 1-2 : Grading was adjusted to grade only for the presence of the border line and not the thickness of the border line because the line thickness may vary depending on the method used to add the border.

In Practice – 2013 Word – Nordell

Independent Project 3-4 : Project was not grading correctly for footnote text and footnote mark placement causing false feedback to show “Correct.”

With the new year underway, please remember to reset the products and ecommerce options available in your SIMnet account. Removing any unneeded products will help students choose the correct option when purchasing online.

To make the ecommerce list easier to manage, first remove any unnecessary products from the Products list (Settings > Products).

Next, add or remove specific ecommerce options (Settings > eCommerce). If you are assigning SIMbook content, be sure to assign the correct SIMbook option. If you are not using a SIMbook, assign the Standalone Suite option instead.

Products page” width=”553″ height=”392″ />

Next, add or remove specific ecommerce options. If you are assigning SIMbook content, be sure to assign the correct SIMbook option. If you are not using a SIMbook, assign the Office Suite option instead.

eCommerce page” width=”550″ height=”391″ />

SIMbook Chapters

• A Skills Approach, Word Complete Chapter 8 : Exploring Advanced Tables, Charts, and Graphics

New SIMnet lesson and exam content to go with In Practice, Word Complete Chapters 7 and 8 will be released next week.

We have released a new feature where you can generate a print version of both the pre-test and post-test for SIMpaths. Go to the main SIMpaths menu and expand theActionsmenu for the SIMpath for which you want a print version. You’ll see new menu entries forPrint Pre-TestandPrint Post-Test. The post-test printed version is the full version of the test (non-adaptive).

This feature may be useful when you need to generate a screen-reader accessible version of the simulated SIMpath exam questions for students with reading disabilities. From the print window, click the Print button. If you have Adobe Acrobat installed, you can expand the list of printers and change the print destination toSave as PDF. (The steps to save as a PDFs will vary depending on your browser and operating system, but the general idea is the same.) PDFs can be read by most screen readers. This feature was already available for regular SIMnet exams, and now it’s available for your SIMpath exams as well.

Updated SIMpath Actions Menu

Dear Instructor,

We would like to inform you that the SIMnet team has successfully corrected a regional issue with the SIMbook assignments. Between 1:30AM CST-11:00AM CST on 1/17/2014, your students may have had a blank blue screen on some of the SIMbook pages and/or the Let Me Try button may have been grayed out and unavailable. The issue reoccurred between 3:00AM CST on 1/19/2014 and 5:00AM CST on 1/20/2014.

As of 5:00AM CST on 1/20/2014, the full functionality of the SIMbook assignments have been restored. Your students may need to clear their browser cache before loading the SIMbook assignments again.

Our team will continue to closely monitor the system to ensure its performance. Should you or your students experience any issues, please contact our Customer Experience Group at http://mpss.mhhe.com/contact.php.

We apologize for any inconvenience this caused you and your students.

Thank you again for your patience and continued support,

The SIMnet Team