The following Release Notes are for 2023. To view the most current release notes, select the article: Release Notes
August 3, 2023
- Improved student submission experience, so students can more easily understand and complete what is requested. As part of this, the follow tools are impacted:
- Teacher > Assignment activity editor > Settings > Gradebook and submission card
- Teacher > Grade editor
- Student > Assignment activity player
- Student > Grade details screen
- Added the subtitle Additional activity resources to the Attachments card in the activity player
- Updated the attachment icon for list entries in the Attachments card in the activity player to match the icon in the card title.
- Changed the icon for Companion material in the assessment player from the paperclip icon to the “multiple files” icon.
- Deprecated the domain setting “hideMediaUpload”, and we removed the “Hide audio and video uploading controls” checkbox from the Domain Settings screen. The controls to add audio or video appear in their appropriate places throughout Buzz, regardless of the deprecated setting’s value.
- Discontinued text notifications and added new event notifications.
- Resolved an issue with rendering LaTeX shorthand math in activity content.
- To test:
- Open/create an assessment.
- In a rich text editor in one of the question’s fields add:
- Some math \(\forall x \in X, \quad \exists y \leq \epsilon\) for testing.
- Preview the question.
- Before the fix, the preview would appear as:
- Some math \(\forall x \in X, \quad \exists y \leq \epsilon\) for testing.
- After the fix, it would appear as:
- To test:
- Fixed an issue where correct answers may not be flagged correctly in a newly imported Common Cartridge file.
- New User setting that's an accommodation to ignore activity passwords until a specified date.
- Fixed a styling issue in the Teacher app where the Due date was cut off in the Editor > Group settings tab.
- Fixed an issue in the Assessment question editor where, after inserting an image within a line of text and previewing the question, the image would jump to the end of the line of text.
- Fixed a styling issue where the Create account form on the sign in screen would not be displayed on operating systems using dark mode.
- The fields did not show up:
- Added Activity themes to the template settings that can be assigned in a course.
- Resolved an issue in the question editor where toggling on the code view would sometimes overlap the other cards in the question editor.
- Fixed an issue where an empty box appeared in the student-submission card’s Comments field instead of the Plus icon when the field was empty.
- Resolved a style issue with showing resource pages with long titles in the Resource library tabs.
- Long titles just were not shown.
- Fixed a style issue where the Type header in the Editor > Activity list tab was not horizontally aligned.
- Fixed an issue where clearing formatting on paragraph styles was not working in the rich text editor.
- Fixed a style issue where the Discussion activity icon was getting cut off in the Student > Grade details screen.
- Resolved an issue where multiple rich text editor toolbars would appear after using the select all keyboard shortcut in the question editor.
- To recreate:
- Open an assessment and select the Questions tab.
- Click a question listed on the left panel.
- Click on the question’s content field.
- Note the RTE toolbar appears.
- Use the select all keyboard shortcut (Ctrl + A or Command + A).
- Click on the first answer choice with the “1” text.
- Note a new, duplicate RTE toolbar appears.
- To recreate:
- Added the ability to filter the Editor > Activity list to show only Gradable activities.
- Added the ability to Bulk edit activity Weights in the Editor > Activity list.
- Added a new Passage option in the Passage editor > Interaction card: Include all passage questions when linking a passage. Checking this ensures that when this passage is pulled from a question pool all questions attached to it are also used.
- Fixed an issue where past due dates were not shown correctly if the activity was more than a year past due.
- Added new ruler and protractor tools for students to use in assessments!
- Added new options to Domain setting > Student options that allow the admin to choose to:
- Allow student to show or hide excused activities (default; current behavior)
- Always show excused activities
- Always hide excused activities.
- Improved objective editor to trim leading and trailing spaces from objective ids to prevent issues with references to objectives.
- Improved the rendering speed for large numbers of questions in the Questions tab of the assessment editor.
- Enhanced the rubric grade editor to support the criteria levels to be ordered highest-to-lowest or lowest-to-highest.
- Fixed an issue in the Submission card where image-editor popups were sometimes not visible when editing an image.
- Fixed an issue where a saved letter grade may sometimes not display correctly.
- Added the ability to add and create new Observers to a student from the Users > User details > Observers screen.
- Fixed an issue where attempting to search the Digital library in a domain that had no configured Library extension > Providers resulted in an unending Please wait dialog.
- Improved batch import to enforce required user- and course-metadata fields when importing users and courses, respectively.
- You will now see an error message when trying to batch import data without including a metadata item that is set to required; previously, you could import without issue.
- Fixed a popup-toolbar issue when you would scroll the rich-text editor in the question-editor.
- The toolbar would disappear.
- Fixed an issue in the Activity editor > Advanced activity options card where the activity-completion option View this activity for a specified time was incorrectly showing for Assessment and Practice Question activity types.
- Fixed an issue where teachers were unable to quickly edit a score in the Gradebook > [student] Grades screen if the course didn’t have Grading periods.
- Fixed an issue in the Gradebook > [student] Grades screen where the Extra credit star icon would sometimes appear next to a folder in the Syllabus view.
- This is an edge case that we’re not sure how to replicate, as you cannot currently make a folder extra credit in the UI.
- Fixed an issue where pasting an image into a Student dropbox rich text editor that was about the same height as the editor made it nearly impossible to see the popup image editor toolbar for that image.
- To recreate this issue:
- In the teacher app, create an Assignment activity.
- In the student app, open that activity and add a large image.
- The image editor toolbar that should appear when you click the image will not appear.
- Image editor toolbar:
- To recreate this issue:
- Fixed an issue in the Assessment activity editor > Question editor where the rich text editor’s toolbar did not remain in place as the user scrolled through content in the field.
- Resolved an issue with navigating between tabs in the Teacher > Clipboard after selecting an activity from the Digital library.
- Repro steps (before the fix):
- In the Clipboard, add an activity from the Digital library.
- Navigate to another tab in the Clipboard (you should get an error message).
- Choose to leave (you will be navigated to the new tab, but the screen is blank).
May 5, 2023
- Added a Grading category option: All activities comprise a standardized test.
- Added the ability to select SVG and WebP image files wherever you can select course resources, including activity content, assessment questions, and flashcard images.
- Fixed a display issue in the User history screen where boolean metadata field values incorrectly showed False when the metadata field’s value contained a mixed-case value of True or TRUE.
- Fixed an issue in the Admin app where domain-defined boolean metadata checkboxes in the Users list, Courses List, User Detail, and Course Detail screens would not honor the selection if the underlying true/false value was not all lower-case letters.
- Resolved an issue in Activity theme settings where selecting a None value for Question number and Question divider settings wasn't always saved.
- Updated checkbox label in the rich-text editor’s Add link > Course activity link dialog box for clarification of functionality.
- It previously read Open in new window; now it reads Open with quick return (Back button returns you to the link).
- New text:
- Added 16 new cell-phone carriers to the user Settings > Notifications preferences card.
- Current list includes: AT&T, Bell Mobility, Boost Mobile, C Spire, Cellcom, Consumer Cellular, Cricket, Fido, H20 Wireless, Koodo, Metro PCS, Mint Mobile, Page Plus, Project Fi, Republic Wireless, Rogers, Simple Mobile, Sprint, Straight Talk, T-Mobile, Telus, Ting, Tracfone, Ultra Mobile, US Cellular, US Mobile, Verizon, Virgin Mobile, Xfinity Mobile
- Fixed an issue where SpeechStream would not read the content in an assessment template unless the user manually selected the content.
- To test, start SpeechStream in an assessment template without highlighting text; the text won’t be read. Then highlight the text and start it; the text will be read.
- Added an error message that appears if you try to upload a hero image greater than 450 KB in the Course Settings editor.
- Fixed a dark-color-scheme style issue in the rubric details screen.
- The header text was appearing white when it shouldn't have.
- Before:
- After:
- Added enrollment startdate, enddate, reference, and user reference fields to the report downloaded from the Download enrollment CSV button in the Domain details screen. We also updated the enrollment startdate and enddate fields values in the Student performance by domain report to be in the local time of the user who runs the report. Formerly, they were in UTC time.
- Fixed an issue in Final Grades and Standards Final Grades editor where clearing an assigned Final grade > Letter would not also clear the underlying pointachieved value, which when synced with an external SIS system could cause the SIS to not recognize the cleared final grade.
- Fixed a tooltip placement style issue on the People page.
- Before, only the circle would respond to hover, now the full cell does, and the tip appears below and to the right of the cell.
- Before:
- After:
- Fixed an issue in Course settings where the hero image preview showed an empty space instead of the browser’s standard broken-link image and alternate text for the missing image.
- Before: There should be a broken image icon
- After: See broken image icon
- Updated the rich-text editor to better compress inserted images, including those uploaded from a device, captured by web camera, or pasted into the editor. This compression improves browser performance, especially with student submissions and teacher provided feedback.
- Changed the Assessment highlighter color from blue to pink when using a Dark color scheme for better contrast.
- Fixed an issue where double-clicking some buttons in the Grade Editor would execute the action twice.
- This only impacted buttons that assign a state: Save draft, Submit score, Allow retry, Excuse, and Override complete.
- Fixed an issue where using special characters in any fields in the SIS Sync > Edit settings screen would cause the settings to not save.
- Fixed a style issue that occurred in input fields using chips where the chips would appear before the input field’s label.
- Impacted the following screens: SIS Sync > Edit settings, Send mail, Domain settings, and File upload Question editor.
- Added filters for Flashcards and Peer Assessment activities in the Editor > Activity list screen and organized activity types in alphabetical order for ease of use.
- Resolved an issue with inconsistent highlighting behavior when using the assessment Highlighter tool.
- The tool would sometimes highlight the selected text, and sometimes it would highlight the wrong text. This was caused by an external library issue.
- Expanded the Assessment themes feature for use with all activities and folders to help create a more engaging, seamless experience for learners. Assessment themes are now Activity themes.
- Improved print styles for multiple choice inline and multiple answer inline questions.
- Fixed an issue where the Teacher > Home > Dashboard and the Admin > Domain > Domain teacher summary were displaying different student enrollment numbers for the same teacher.
- The issue was caused by the use of a different number of days for the grace period where an enrollment was still counted after it had officially ended. Now a 14-day grace period is applied in both places.
- Fixed an issue in the Final grades page where Buzz did not report an error message if one of the final grades failed to save or submit.
- Resolved an issue with showing the correctly calculated past due time for an activity submission that was submitted over a month past the due date.
- Fixed an issue where Buzz would sometimes erroneously submit an assessment that was configured to not Allow save and continue if a student tried to close the browser (e.g., swiping left on a Mac, clicking the close button on the browser tab), but then chose to stay on the page when the browser prompt gave the option to stay.
- Resolved style issues when printing Score/Activity History and Class Statistics tabs in the Grade editor.
- Score/Activity History tab issue #1: The bottom scrollbar wasn’t working; the space between scrollbars has been removed.
- Score/Activity History tab issue #2: The scrollbar was appearing in the printout.
- Class statistics tab issue: The questions and answer options should be left-justified, like this:
- They were appearing center-justified in the print preview like this:
- Fixed an issue where a course Project with an End date that preceded its Start date would prevent the course Home page from displaying.
- Resolved an issue with duplicating a course Agenda.
- Fixed a Dark color scheme issue in the Editor > Scheduling tab.
- On the calendar, the days outside of the course's start and end dates are grayed out. The numbers (dates) text on those days was remaining light in Dark color scheme; now it changes to dark for better legibility.
- Before fix:
- After fix:
- Fixed a style issue in the Editor > Activity list tab for objective IDs that are long.
- Very long IDs were not being truncated to accommodate the screen; now they are.
- Before fix:
- After fix:
- Fixed a Dark color scheme issue on the Edit badge screen.
- The text on the placeholder image was light when it should be dark for legibility.
- Before fix:
- After fix:
- Fixed an issue where refreshing the browser after changing your profile picture would show your old picture in the top toolbar.
- Fixed a Dark color scheme issue on the user Settings screen.
- The placeholder text was light when it should be dark for legibility.
- Before fix:
- Updated the Activity editor status text for activities that have more than 100 linked activities to read 100+ activities that link to it rather than showing numbers greater than 100.
- This change was made to improve overall performance by limiting unnecessary calls.
- Updated the Admin > Course details screen to display the Go to base course button to users with either the UpdateCourse or ReadCourse permissions for that base course.
- Previously, only users with UpdateCourse permissions were shown the button.
- Fixed a text-wrapping issue with the Placeholder text created in Admin > Domain settings > Metadata for activities.
- A long entry would wrap beyond the bottom of the card when rendered in the Activity editor > Settings > Metadata card. Now, a long entry is truncated and the user can see the entire entry by hovering over it to activate a popup hint.
- Where Placeholder text is created in Domain settings:
- Rendered in Activity editor before fix:
- Rendered in Activity editor after fix:
- Added a validation to the Descriptions fields in the Add Objective and Edit Objective screens to disallow entries consisting of only spaces.
- Resolved an issue where the Student grades page wouldn't show student progress when an invalid Current grading period was defined in Domain settings.
- Rendered in Activity editor before fix:
- Rendered in Activity editor after fix:
- Added a validation to the Descriptions fields in the Add Objective and Edit Objective screens to disallow entries consisting of only spaces.
- Resolved an issue where the Student grades page wouldn't show student progress when an invalid Current grading period was defined in Domain settings.