Academic Technology Updates for March 2026

To provide greater flexibility when creating Awards, instructors can now enter more detailed information in award text fields. This update increases character limits and preserves formatting, ensuring that criteria, descriptions, and evidence display consistently across Award views.

The following fields now support increased character limits:

• Name (256 characters)
• Description (512 characters)
• Criteria (1000 characters)
• Evidence (on issued award) (1000 characters)

Previously, text fields had lower character limits, which restricted context and detailed instructions. In addition, line breaks entered in these fields were not consistently preserved when Awards were displayed.

Instructors can now export Classlist details to CSV. The Export button enables full or partial user exports, mirroring Classlist view content for offline or administrative use.

Printed Classlists now include pronouns (if visible) and course identifiers, providing more complete context for in-person workflows and record keeping.

To allow for more control over access, this update includes two new permissions that control visibility of the Print and Export buttons in the Classlist:

• Classlist > Can Print Classlist (enabled by default for users who have the Classlist > Has Access to the Classlist permission enabled)
• Classlist > Can Export Classlist (disabled by default)

Assignments now share anonymity status with integrated third-party tools to support anonymous marking workflows. This allows tools to hide personally identifiable student information, aligning with MyCourses anonymity settings.

Previously, anonymity was not detected, which could cause unintentional identity disclosures or prevent the use of anonymous evaluation workflows. This update builds on LTI Asset Processor functionality.

Note: Tool providers must support anonymous workflows. Contact your provider for details.

This release improves the reliability, timeliness, and consistency of engagement tracking from Pulse. This enhancement ensures that engagement data more accurately reflects how students are interacting with their courses across platforms.

Engagement-related events in Pulse are now logged immediately. For example, when a student taps on a course to open it, the Course Access details are sent to the database, the Last Accessed date in Classlist updates, and an Intelligent Agent that checks for course engagement knows not to notify the instructor. Downstream tools that report on student engagement now represent both Web and Pulse activity equally.

Previously, Pulse events were sent asynchronously in batches, resulting in missing or delayed engagement tracking data and discrepancies across tools.

Key improvements:

• System Access Start events are sent immediately when the app is launched.
• System Access Start events are decoupled from System Access End events.
• When the app is in the background or idle, System Access End events are sent after 30 minutes of inactivity.
• Course Access events are sent immediately when a user clicks into a course.

Notes:

Intelligent Agents

• Intelligent Agents are configured to use Login Activity criteria trigger based on authentication data.
• Intelligent Agents configured to use the Course Activity criteria trigger are based on combined course access data from MyCourses as well as Pulse.
• Missed or delayed triggers caused by late-arriving events are now resolved as Pulse activity is sent immediately.

Classlist “Last Accessed”

• Classlist > Last Accessed displays the most recent date/time a user accessed the course either via MyCourses or Pulse. Teachers can easily confirm whether a student accessed the class, regardless of device.

Class Progress Course Access

• Class Progress > Course Access does not currently incorporate Pulse course access data as expected. This is a known limitation.