Release Notes

December 5, 2022

• We added an edit image button to the question editor to allow teachers and other content authors to edit images for graphic questions. This change impacts Matching graphic drag-and-drop questions and Multiple Choice graphic hot spot questions.
• We added a quick-edit grading feature to the Student Grades
• We updated the assessment player to immediately show the please wait dialog when a student submits their assessment. Previously this message appeared half a second after the student clicked submit. We also updated the wait message to indicate that Pearson Connexus is saving answers.
• We improved the Insert Placeholder UI prompts for inline questions, including Matching, Multiple answer, Multiple choice, and Fill in the Blank. Where appropriate, an "Insert placeholder" button is now shown. If there are more placeholders than choices, then a button is shown to “Remove extra placeholders”, with a hint indicating the user has too many placeholders.
• We improved the layout of the Editor > Group settings table and added horizontal scrolling to account for courses with lots of student groups.
• We fixed an issue in the What If page where clearing a teacher-assigned score would not impact the re-calculated projected score.
• We updated Assessment editor > Question pool settings to be cleared when the number of questions to show is empty or zero, which means show all questions.
• We fixed a configuration issue in the Matching question editor that sometimes caused the static match values to disappear in the editor when they would still be rendered in the question. Before this fix, this would happen if a user would check the Inline box and then the Categorization box in the Interaction card; the Inline box would disappear but would remain enabled.
• We enhanced SAML authentication into Buzz to support email address login when the Pearson Connexus username is only the local-part (everything before the @) of the email address.
• We updated the reordering function in the Assessment question editor to use drag-and-drop. Previously, there was a Reorder button in the toolbar.

• We added an option to the Course Settings > Enrollment completion card to allow Zero unscored activities when an enrollment automatically completes when Automatic when all activities in these categories are complete is selected.
• We added Batch-update grading functionality to the student grades screen, allowing teachers to batch-update the allow retry or excused status for multiple activities for a single student in a traditional-scoring or multi-outcome scoring course.
• We added a Preview button for each question in an assessment, so authors can check one question without having to preview all questions. Clicking this button opens a question preview dialog, making it easy to preview the question without having to preview all questions, and potentially losing context of the current question you are editing.
• We added character-class descriptions to the password-change warning message and to the Domain settings > Authentication-password-policy
• We added the ability to add distractors in Matching Categorization
• We updated the Domain tool > More menu > Domain assessment password tool to work for all password-protected activities, renaming it Domain activity password.

• We added the option in any activity editor > Settings >Visibility and access for teachers and other content authors to require that activity passwords be entered every time a student accesses the activity rather than just the first time (which is the default).

• We updated the User menu > Choose theme window to hide the Color scheme picker when a user selects the High contrast Theme to best support accessibility.
• We resolved a question editor issue with showing the left side of a match for a Matching inline question.
• We fixed an issue where deactivated courses appeared in the list of available courses to copy in the Create course
• We fixed an issue in the Create course screen where courses that should have been excluded from course-copy operations were appearing in the list of courses available for copy.
• We fixed an issue where observers sometimes could not see the profile picture for someone whose enrollment they were observing.
• We added missing scrollbars to the Import Scores
• We updated the Assessment > Student note icon to match the chosen theme color in Dark color scheme.
• We simplified the process of creating Matching inline, drag-and-drop questions.
• We fixed an issue in the Calendar tool where the course agenda and blackout date text would appear as light text with light background when highlighted in dark color scheme.
• We resolved an issue with maintaining the order activities were added to the Clipboard when assigning multiple activities at once. Activities now maintain the order chosen by the author.
• We fixed an issue with the Gradebook > Quick edit tool when using Dark color scheme. Before this fix, both the cell's background color and the text would appear light when editing a cell, making it difficult to read the text.
• We fixed an issue where the header grid lines in the Teacher > Gradebook were not appearing light enough in Dark color scheme.

October 19, 2022 (9/8-9/15)

• We added a Feedback Templates button to the Needs Grading screen’s toolbar, so that teachers can create feedback templates in advance. Previously, they could only be created in the Grade Editor, which required students, activities, and submissions to access.
• An option was added to allow retries in the autofill-scores tab of the Batch Update Scores dialog to save teacher's time.
• We added a domain feature switch to disable/enable student access to past courses.Previously, this was enabled for all domains; the switch’s current default is enabled.

• A new categorization option was added to the Assessment Matching question.
• We fixed an issue in Domain Settings where making a change in a subdomain would sometimes also save parent-inherited menuentry settings, even though the subdomain had not edited the menuentry.
• We updated the hide/show button’s hover tooltip in the Change Password dialog to correctly indicate what happens when you click the hide/show button.Previously, the tooltip always read Show Password.
• We improved the Badge Editor by disabling the Done button until the entry form is error-free.
• We resolved an issue with correctly scrolling the current activity into view in Editor > Group settings.

• An issue was resolved with viewing folder activities in Editor > Group Settings when filtered by a Grading Period that was not the current Grading Period. Previously, the filtered results would still show the current Grading Period instead of the selected filter.
• We fixed a typo in the minimum-allowed password strength validation error message.Previously indicated that the range was "0-200" when it should have read "1-200."
• We updated the Activities > Objectives descriptions to display full description of the objective on the card, instead of using truncated versions and hover tooltips.
• We fixed an issue where the Assessment > Matching Question editor would display an incorrect Missing Placeholder error message for distractors. Previously, the message would say the user needed to add a placeholder when they didn’t.
• An issue was fixed when creating a match pair in the Assessment > Matching Inline question editor; editable text representing the target would be created when no text is needed for the target.

• We enhanced Course Settings >Apply Template Course to apply the school year from a template course.
• We fixed an issue in the Grade Editor where editing the due date for a student whose enrollment started after the original due date would cause an error in the due-date editor.
• We fixed a display issue where an error message was getting clipped in the Admin > Student Reports screen.

September 21, 2022

• We made updates to the password reset process.
• We added domain password policy options to Domain Settings.
• We clarified wording of options for handling unscored activities in the Final grades screen by changing the option that read Excuse all unscored activities to read Ignore unscored activities.
• We updated the Admins > Users > [Selected user] Performance > Past courses screen to show Start and End dates for the past courses listed.
• An ability was added to enable Student blackout dates for individual users when that feature is disabled for a domain.
• The student enrollment status changes teacher notification was updated to include newly created and deleted enrollments.
• The App chooser in the toolbar was updated, so that it no longer appears if a user has access to only one app (role) in Pearson Connexus.
• We updated the way LTI 1.3 tools are handled, so that if the same Hostname is given for a tool at the course and domain level, the course tool is always given priority.
• We improved screen reader accessibility labeling of the Notes button in the student app's toolbar, now a status update message is given when the Notes button is pressed.
• An issue was resolved with incorrectly showing a filter-by-group button in the Activity editor for a Choice activity.
• We resolved an issue when applying a grading period to a course from Course Templates wouldn't automatically align the grading period with the school year in Course Settings.
• We resolved an issue where the Course Score could disappear after selecting to show it in the grouping screen's Display Options.
• We improved the Dark Color Scheme's text style in the Grade editor > Activity due date The AM and PM text is now appearing light enough for the Dark Color Scheme.
• We fixed an error where the batch update scores dialog in multi-outcome scoring and standards-based grading courses did not display points possible for each objective, nor did it assign the score the grader entered.
• We fixed an issue where the Ordering icon was being cut off in drag-and-drop assessment questions.
• We fixed an issue where entering an invalid time in the Due date > Time editor followed by a valid time would incorrectly report the valid time as invalid.
• We fixed a Firefox-specific error in the Editor > Syllabus where dropping a badge in a location that didn't allow the drop would navigate the browser to the login page.
• We fixed an issue on the Final Grades page where the Submit button was enabled when you had not selected a Grading scheme.
• We fixed a display issue in the Teacher > Gradebook > For Me tab where two vertical scrollbars would sometimes appear.
• An issue was fixed with the A student's grade drops below passing notification that prevented it from sending in some situations.
• We fixed an issue where administrators attempting to change their own password were not prompted for their existing password.
• We resolved a style issue with the Main menu > Course back arrow display when the course had a long name.
  • The back arrow could be pushed off the menu if the name were too long; edge case.
• We updated theme settings to always use a Light color scheme when a user chooses the High contrast
• We resolved a layout style issue when previewing Supplemental activities from the teacher Clipboard. The vertical scrollbar now appears, allowing teachers to preview the full activity.
• We resolved a dark color scheme issue with printing assessment Question analytics. The Question analytics bar graphs now appear as solid lines in the print preview.
• An issue wes resolved in the Admins > Users > [chosen student] > Performance > Past courses > Show printer friendly version function where admins couldn't print the performance data for Past courses if the student had no current enrollments.
• We improved chart display and print styles when using Dark color scheme by defining white backgrounds for charts.
• We resolved a validation issue with student blackout dates where students were not allowed to use the same date as their Start and End dates (to black out a single day).
• We improved activity icon styling on several screens to avoid clipping the icon.
  • Choice folder icon

• • Student > Grades table

• • Teacher > Needs grading

• • Students > Activities > To-do list.

_____________

July 28, 2022

• We added a Student performance by domain report to the admin app.
• We moved the Past courses button to its own tab in the Student app Grades screen to improve its visibility.  

• We improved how default settings are queried in the Domain settings usage tool, allowing visibility not only into who disables the feature, but also who has left it enabled.
• We added validation to Student Reports to require users to add a Domain value.
• We fixed a bug that prevented users from selecting a subdomain in the Admin app menu.
• We enhanced the question editor for Fill-in-the-blank questions, changing the following:
  Removed the Blanks field at the top of the editor.
  Added an Add answer button for adding new answers.
  If you are missing a blank, you can insert blank instead of only append.
  There is a more menu for each answer to let you remove an answer or add an alternative answer.
• We added an error report if a student tries to submit files larger than 100MB while taking an assessment.
• We removed the paging restriction from the Course Gradebook and Student Gradebook Mastery screens, so all objective mastery information can be viewed and printed.
• We added a Maintain question order option to passage questions.
• We added text-length validations to the Name, External ID, and Owner fields in the Objective-set and Objective-map editors. The maximum number of characters you can enter is 128 for each of these fields.
• We added Assessment themes.
• We updated QuickNav, adding the ability for administrators to search descendant domains using the ~ character.
• We added an Always allow SpeechStream in assessments option to users' accommodations settings.
• We now support the use of Google Analytics 4. To enable the use of this version of Google Analytics, similar to previous versions, you must add a Google-assigned measurement ID (googleMeasurementId) to the deployment parameters. The value is the Google-assigned measurement ID, which you can obtain from Google Analytics screen: Admin..DataStreams..Web stream details..Measurement ID. Measurement IDs from Google follow the form G-XXXXXXXX, where 'X' is a letter or number. If you do not configure googleMeasurementId, the deploy process removes the GA4 tag from the installation.
• We reconfigured our Google Analytics integration to decrease the use of cookies.
• We added a disclaimer about cookies to the Domain settings > SpeechStream configuration card.
• We fixed a bug that caused activity frames to display at the wrong height when previewing an HTML content choice activity.
• We migrated from Google's deprecated Sign-In JavaScript Platform Library to their updated Google Identity Services Javascript SDK. End-users may notice differently styled screens presented by Google during the sign-in process, but the log-in and approval workflow to access Google Drive remains the same. District Partners who received a migration notice from Google should have nothing to do as part of this migration.
• We fixed a bug in Student Grade details that caused incorrect content to display when users navigated to Activities aligned to Objectives.
• We improved keyboard accessibility, enabling the use of the Enter key in the Gradebook header to open the Activity grader.
• We fixed a bug in assessment templates that prevented users from recording audios or videos in essay questions.
• We fixed a bug in the Activity Changes screen that prevented objectives property from deleting from the Multiple Choice questions when users resynced objectives.
• We updated Multiple choice questions with dropdown answer choices to display choice-specific feedback for incorrect answers.
• We fixed a bug in Domain settings that prevented users from saving O as the custom menu Order Value.

April 6, 2022

• New Dark Color Scheme
  
  We introduced a dark color scheme, defined dark color scheme styles for the color picker and icon picker, and allowed administrators to enable it for individual users. We also improved styling of the Admin App QuickNav for dark color scheme.

• We added a missing required-field asterisk to the Deep-linking redirect URL field in the LTI 1.3 tool editor.

• We improved User settings and User details labels for usability. 
• We added missing validation for the Start and End dates in the Editor >  Syllabus > Add a project form.

• We added the display of image thumbnails in the auto-complete list of existing images.
• We updated the Editor > Weights screen to show ellipsis for long objective titles and provided a tooltip to display complete titles.
• We added Cellcom to the list of available mobile-number Carriers in the user Settings screen.
• We fixed a bug that caused broken images in activities when users edited an activity in a past-enrollment course if the activity were later used in another course.
• We updated printing settings to use the light color scheme even if dark color scheme is chosen.
• We fixed a bug in the Login page that caused the wrong background color to display.
• We fixed a bug that prevented Domain settings > Theme > Menu from displaying properly in Firefox browsers.
• We fixed a bug in drag-and-drop questions that allowed users to drag items when reviewing answers. 

• We added a missing validation to the Feedback > Custom rule > Group name in the Assessment editor.

• We fixed broken activity links that occurred when users linked multiple activities into courses when those activities had links to each other within their content.

• We fixed a bug in the Weights page that caused hidden-from-student activities to display in Find activity search results.
• We added a missing validation error message to the Number of required choice activities field in the Activity editor.
• We added missing validation to the Assessment Pool Settings/Pool by question groups card to enforce Question group ID and Minimum question count fields as required.

• We added a missing length validator to the ID field in the New objective screen and to the Name field in the Scoring Objective dialog box. 

• We fixed a bug in the Course Settings > Grading categories card that caused categories with long names to overlap with the up and down arrows in the Order tool.
• We fixed a bug in Find Activity field of the Editor > Syllabus screen that prevented teachers from finding activities that were marked as hidden from students.
• We fixed a bug in the Course-resource picker that caused all available course resources to display in the auto-complete field list rather than the resource typed in the field.
• We fixed a bug in the Group Settings editor that caused activity settings for a group to display within other groups when users changed an activity's visibility settings and and the activity's ID contained a period (.).
  API:
  We changed the term "Master course" to "Base course."
We fixed a bug in Create Domains that allowed users to create domains under deleted domains.

March 10, 2022

• We updated the Admin app's Import screens to identify to which entity (e.g., User, Course, Domain) data is being imported.
• We improved the storage of images when users quick-add rich-text activities. Now, when users return to edit the rich-text HTML code, images are a file reference instead of an embedded, encoded image.
• We changed the default font from Verdana to Roboto for displaying HTML content to match the rest of the platform. HTML displays for activity content, assessment question text, and other places where course authors edit content.
• We removed the disabled Course links entry from the Editor > Tools menu.
• We enabled students to record audio or video in essay questions and question workspaces in assessment activities.
• We improved the accessibility for screen-readers on the QuickNav popup; now the popup title is automatically read by screen readers.
• We removed references to the System Administrator from the Activity stream.
• We clarified the language used in the Password confirmation dialog box, changing "A reset message has been sent to t******t@hotmail.com.  If you do not recognize this email address, you may have entered an incorrect username and should reach out to your system administrator." to "A password reset message will be sent to the email address associated with this account.
  Username: test
  Email: t******t@hotmail.com
  Login URL: dev.agilixbuzz.com"
• We fixed a bug in the Drag and Drop box Matching questions option that prevented the Show as dropdown menu box from displaying again if users checked the Drag and drop box and the Graphic box, then unchecked Drag and drop box on the Interactions card.
• We fixed a bug that caused Matching drag and drop questions to display an empty drag and drop choice in the question preview if no answer had been defined for the choice.
• We fixed a bug in the in the Course settings > Grade scale > Grade-scale details popup window that caused the card size to change as users entered content.
• We fixed a bug in the Manage courses > Order courses screen that caused titles to extend beyond the card's edges.
• We fixed a bug in the Student grades for objective-scoring courses that caused titles to extend beyond the card's edges.
• We fixed a bug in the student badge award-notification snackbar popup message that pushed the Dismiss button out of place if the badge title were too long.
• We fixed a bug in the QuickNav that caused the Editor > Scheduling choice to display after the domain administrator had disabled the Scheduling feature.
• We added the following error message to teacher Preview modes when teachers attempted to record or upload audio/video content: "Unable to process media."
• We fixed a bug in the Activity editor that prevented the Assignment/Dropbox activity from displaying the dropbox in the Activity player when users converted existing SCOs to rich text. This fix applies to activities edited after the release and does not fix activities that already exhibit the incorrect behavior.
• We fixed a bug in the rich-text editor that caused an empty error message to display when users disallowed access to their cameras.
• We fixed a bug that prevented the You changed users in another tab message from displaying when users had the platform open in multiple tabs and changed users in one of them.
• We fixed a bug that caused teachers to lose their saved nicknames if their network glitched while they were attempting to retrieve existing nicknames.
• We fixed a bug in Domain Settings that caused the Save button to be disabled when users switched the Authentication type from Buzz to Domain, and then back to Buzz.
• We removed the deprecated Calendar choice from QuickNav's choices for a course.
• We fixed a bug in QuickNav that caused announcements for all courses to display instead of just announcements for the selected course. 
• We fixed a bug that prevented the SpeechStream toolbar button from displaying when users previewed activities from the Editor.
• We fixed a bug in the Add resource dialog box in the Syllabus editor that caused an extra scrollbar to display.

• Enrollment metrics: We fixed a bug that caused the `failing` attribute to return `false` when there are no graded activities but there are activities with a `ZeroUnscored` grade flag.
• `GetGradeHistory`: We fixed a bug that caused a user ID of `0` to be recorded as the grader of an item.

January 14, 2022

Release Notes 2021

Release Notes 2020

Release Notes 2019

Release Notes 2018