Academic Technology Updates for September 2024

IT News |

We have new updates for MyCourses! See below for details, and please contact helpdesk@ggc.edu if you encounter any problems or have questions.

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MyCourses

Assignments – Update to assignment annotations PSPDFKit

With this release, the software that powers annotations (PSPDFKit) in the Assignments tool is updated from version 20.24.03 to 20.24.04. As part of this update, the unsupported PSPDFKit Bookmarks tool is disabled and the Bookmarks option in annotations is removed to avoid confusion. This update also fixes defects and prevents further defects related to PSPDFKit being out of date.

Previously, instructors could click Bookmarks and add bookmarks to the document. However, added bookmarks were not saved after refreshing the page.

An image of annotations with the Bookmarks option before the PSPDFKit update.
Figure: Before this update, instructors could click Bookmarks to add bookmarks to pages of a PDF. However, these bookmarks were not saved.
An image of annotations with the Bookmark option removed after the PSPDFKit update.
Figure: After this update, Bookmarks is removed.
Quick Eval – Improved tool performance with enrollment limits

To avoid performance issues such as timeouts, users are limited to 1000 explicit enrollments in Quick Eval. If a user is explicitly enrolled in more courses than the limit, activities and submissions are not shown to that user. When the user passes the limit, an alert is displayed warning the user that they exceeded the explicit enrollment limit.

Previously, pages loaded slowly or timed out if users attempted more than 1000 explicit enrollments in Quick Eval.

Figure: A warning message appears when users reach their enrollment limit of 1000.
Quizzes – Attach rubrics to written response questions

For MyCourses implementations that use the new quiz evaluation experience, it is now possible for instructors to attach a rubric to written response (long answer) questions on a quiz.

For written response questions, instructors can now click Add Rubric to attach a new or existing rubric.
Figure: When creating new or editing existing written response questions, instructors can now click Add Rubric to attach a new or existing rubric.

Subsequently, within the quiz, instructors can use the rubric to grade the written response quiz questions. The rubric appears below the student’s answer or the instructor can click Pop Out to open the student response in a separate dialog, enabling the instructor to view the rubric and the written response in separate windows.

The rubric Pop Out option opens the response in a separate window.
Figure: The instructor can click Pop Out to view the response submission in a separate window, or open the rubric below the submission in the same window.
The rubric appears in the quiz evaluation view under the user response.
Figure: The rubric appears in the quiz window for the written response question.

Students can now see the rubric for written response quiz questions while they are taking the quiz. After the quiz is complete and graded, the student can review the rubric in the graded quiz for any feedback the instructor provides during the evaluation.

Quizzes – Optimize productivity with an improved quiz evaluation experience

Grading workflows are now optimized in the quiz evaluation experience to improve instructor productivity. The new quiz evaluation experience can now be turned on in the quiz page you are grading.

The dialog used to turn on or turn off the new quiz assessment experience is collapsed by default, on the top right of the Quiz Attempt page
Figure: Instructors can click the down arrow on the top right of the page to expand the dialog used to turn on or turn off the new quiz evaluation experience.
Click the appropriate button to turn on or turn off the new quiz evaluation experience.
Figure: The dialog indicates if the experience is on or off and provides buttons to turn it on or off.

After instructors have opted into the new experience, they can scroll between users and select the quiz attempt they want to evaluate for the user.

In the new quizzing experience, you can use the right and left arrows to select the quiz submitter, and then select quiz attempt you want to evaluate from the drop-down list.
Figure: In the new quiz evaluation experience, instructors can use the right and left arrows to select the student and then select the quiz attempt they want to evaluate from the drop-down list.

In the main assessment area there are now two panels, which is consistent with other updated experiences in MyCourses. The following question types are supported in the new quiz evaluation experience:

  • Multiple choice
  • Written response
  • True or false
  • Short answer
  • Fill in the blank
  • Multi-select
  • Question pools

All other types of questions (matching, arithmetic, significant figures, and multi-short answer) are not currently supported.

If users attempt to use an unsupported question type, an alert message appears:

The message for an unsupported file type says Displaying [file type] question type is not yet supported by this evaluation mode and provides a link to switch to the classic quiz evaluation experience.
Figure: The message indicates that the question type is not supported and provides a link to switch to the Classic quiz evaluation experience.

On the left panel, evaluators can filter by Pending evaluation or Retaken questions only, and can view attempt details, quiz questions, and answers. From this area, evaluators can leave feedback for specific quiz sections.

The Filter drop down menu enables you to view quiz attempts that are pending evaluation or only questions that the submitter has retaken.
Figure: The Filters drop-down enables evaluators to see questions that are Pending evaluation, or Retaken questions only.

On the right panel, evaluators can enter or review the grade and feedback for the quiz attempt, or use other quiz management options, such as Edit Quiz, Preview Quiz, Reset Evaluation, and Quizzes Event Log, in the Evaluation Options menu.

Provide feedback, update the grade for the quiz attempt, or use the More Actions menu to edit or preview the quiz, reset the evaluation, or view the event log.
Figure: Instructors can update the Attempt Grade, add Attempt Feedback, or use the Evaluation Options menu to Edit Quiz, Preview Quiz, Reset Evaluation, or view the Quizzes Event Log.

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