This article contains this release's feature updates, user interface changes and bug fixes.

Release date	Environment
19th of May 2023	Stage (stage.ans.app)
4th of June 2023	Production (ans.app) Education (edu.ans.app)

Changes to the platform

Preliminary result released out of beta

The preliminary result feature has been moved out of beta. The feature can be enabled or disabled in the publication settings of an assignment.

Allow participants to view a preliminary result directly after submitting their assignment. The preliminary result shows the point-score of automatically graded questions and the mark and letter grade (when the mark calculation type is 'Table') of the assignment if the assignment is graded fully automatically.

The preliminary result can be enabled on the publication settings page, but it is shown independently of a publication. It is communicated as a 'preliminary result' to participants because in many cases, the assignment is not yet fully graded. The result may also still change because changes may be made to the contribution of questions by instructors after the preliminary result has been published. You can read more about this feature here.

This screenshot shows the participant's perspective of the preliminary result directly after they have submitted their assignment.

Digital test countdown released out of beta

A countdown timer is now shown to let participants know how long they need to wait until they can access their digital test. Once the timer runs out, the page will refresh automatically and the start button will appear.

The countdown timer will be visible one hour before the start of a participant's timeslot for all digital tests within your school. You can read more about this feature here. Screenshot_2023-05-19_at_14.13.09.png This screenshot shows the participant's perspective of the countdown timer when the participant needs to wait to start their test. In this example, the participant can already launch the Proctorio integration, but still needs to wait less than 2 minutes to begin the test in Ans.

Manual plagiarism checks with the Ouriginal integration released out of beta

Manual plagiarism checks have been moved out of beta. The plagiarism checks can be performed in the Ouriginal tab of a result.

It is not always desired to automatically check all submitted answers and documents for plagiarism. This feature lets you turn off the auto-submit feature and manually submit answers for analysis by Ouriginal. You can read more about this option here.

This screenshot shows how you can manually submit an answer of a participant to Ouriginal.

Added badges showing the number of participants linked to an assignment

Badges with the number of participants are now displayed in the assignment overview on the homepage and on the assignment overview in a course. This number is based on the number of participants linked to a timeslot.

This makes it easy to see whether the assignment has been scheduled and for how many participants.

The badge is displayed on the home screen for recently updated, live, scheduled and pinned assignments. This badge is also shown on the assignment overview of a course.

This screenshot shows how the badge is displayed showing the number of participants in the assignments overview.

Made it easier to add objectives to a question

Previously, when adding objectives to a question, you first had to select the domains before adding the objectives. Now we show all learning objectives together in one overview. To make sure users can quickly find the objective they want to add, the objectives are sorted by domain. We have also added a search on both domain and objective. The screenshot above shows how you can directly select the objectives without the need of selecting the domain first. The domain is listed above the objective.

This screenshot shows that you can use the search bar to search on both the domain and/or objective.

Made visual changes to the way we display the assignments on the home screen

We have changed the layout of the course and assignment names on the homepage to display the hierarchy more clearly. This should increase the readability and provide easier distinction for users working with multiple courses.

Links on the home screen are now also highlighted or underlined when hovering over them with your mouse.

This screenshot shows the new way assignments are displayed visually on the home screen.

We now open the 'Scan' tab by default when opening the 'Print & scan' page

This change will reduce clicks for many of our users as the scan page is visited more often and by more users than the print page, as printing can also be initiated from the assignment itself.

Added the possibility to export only the selected answers with the multiple choice export

With this change, it's possible to only export the participants' selected choice options. With the July 2022 release, we replaced this option by showing all the choice options in the order the participant received them during their test and highlighting the choices that were selected by the participants. Based on user feedback, we have restored the old export option, so it is now possible to choose whether you want to export only the selected choice options or all choice options in the order participants received them.

This change improves the overall clarity and processing of the participants submission, as it only shows the choices that were selected by the participants. This means that it requires less effort to process the selected choices when processing the exported CSV using automated systems.

export the selected answers with the multiple choice export.png

This screenshot shows the two available options after clicking the 'Export' button.

Improved generating question bank assignments when filtering with a minimum amount of tags

We have improved the generating of question bank assignments when using the fixed exercise selection. We now first try to add exercises with the filtered tags before adding exercises that do not match the tag filters.

This change only applies when generating a question bank assignment with a fixed amount of questions, not when generating an assignment randomised per participant.

Renaming of multiple elements in the platform

Based on your feedback, we are working on multiple interface inconsistencies and improvements. Below you can find the element(s) that have been renamed, including the place in the platform where it changed. The change is applied to all translations of the platform unless indicated otherwise.

Changed 'Sign out' to 'Log out' on the screen that is displayed when filling in your 2FA. This applies to the English version of the platform only.

Open beta feature changes

Beta features are features which can be enabled and disabled on school level. Our available open beta features can be found in the school settings of your school. By default, all open beta features are disabled upon release. Only administrators can view and activate open beta features. As beta features are eventually released as feature which is enabled by default for all users, we encourage administrators to enable and test open beta features on the stage environment. Your feedback can help shape the feature before it is moved out of beta.

Media play limit released to open beta

This feature allows authors of exercises to control the number of times a participant can play a media file. This includes both video and audio files added to an exercise as a description.

If a limit is set, a participant may not rewind or scroll through the media file. It will also be possible to disable the pausing of media by participants.

This is an often-requested feature for language education, where it is important to practice and examine students' ability to understand what is being said in one go.

Limiting media plays will not be available for embedded media such as YouTube videos.

This screenshot above shows how the media play limit can be set for participants.

This screenshot shows the participant's perspective of the remaining number of media plays.

We now prevent changes to integrations when an assignment is archived

If an assignment has been archived, it will no longer be possible to make changes to the following integrations within the assignment settings:

Ouriginal
ProctorExam
Readspeaker
Safe Exam Browser
Schoolyear
STEP
Turnitin

Custom roles feature additions

No new custom role additions have been added this release.

API updates

We have added the following extensions to the API V2:

Added the Schoolyear integration to the assignment API
We have added the ability to enable or disable the Schoolyear integration on assignment level through the PATCH /api/v2/assignments/{id} endpoint.

Important changes

No new important changes have been added this release. The overview of all important changes that may require an action from administrators can be found here.

Bug fixes

Fixed an issue that prevented page interactions until the javascript was loaded
In some cases, such as a slow internet connection, it was possible to interact with elements on the page before the javascript was loaded. This caused some issue with checkboxes in tables, as the click on the checkbox did not enable the button at the top of the table to perform an action on that row.
Fixed an issue where a fully graded result did not have a mark
When taking a test with only closed questions and enabling the feedback option in the test, Ans would not always calculate the mark after submitting the result.
Please note: The impact was limited as Ans would not show a mark in the result overview or when exporting the results. Ans would calculate the mark for the results without a mark, when navigating to the review tab.
Fixed an issue where navigating to a requested page before logging via Google or Microsoft Single Sign-On would always redirect the user to the home page
This issue occurred when a user attempts to access a certain URL within Ans before the user was logged in. After logging in via Google or Microsoft SSO, then the user would be redirected to the home page instead of the requested URL.
Fixed an issue where objectives would reappear when removing them from a taken assignment
When attempting to remove an objective from a taken assignment, it would be removed from the list of objectives, but would reappear when the page was reloaded.
Fixed an issue where staff members could have access to the student overview of a class without being an instructor of the class
As a user with the staff role, it was possible to access the students overview of a class with a direct link to the page without being an instructor in the class. This is action has been restricted and is no longer possible.
Fixed an issue where the "new page" attribute from a question bank exercise is not copied over when copying a question bank assignment in a course
Question bank exercises that had the attribute "new page" enabled would not have this attribute enabled when the question bank assignment that contained these question bank exercises was copied to the course.
Fixed issue where question bank contributors could not add new contributors if the default role was disabled
Previously, users could not add new contributors to a question bank with a custom role if the default role was disabled. Users can now add new contributors to a question bank with an identical or 'lower' role.
Fixed an issue where the fill-in question was not shown when copied as HTML
When fill-in questions contained an HTML span tag that was added via manual addition or an import, then the input fields would display the name of the gap instead of the input field after copying these questions.
Please note: This affects only newly copied questions.
Fixed an issue where the options for order questions would not get imported via QTI
When attempting to import questions and choices that contained ResponseDeclaration tags, then the options for the order questions would not get imported and an error message would be shown in the background job log.
Fixed an issue where the wrapped text in CDATA tags would not get imported via QTI
When importing questions using QTI from the learning management system "ItsLearning" that contained enclosing CDATA tags, then the content of the question would get improperly imported and retain square brackets.
Please note: This fix applies only to newly imported questions.
Fixed an issue with less than (<) and greater than (>) symbols within the code blocks of a question
In some cases, the less than (<) and greater than (>) symbols would be recognised as HTML tags and would be removed when attempting to write or paste inside a code block of the question content. HTML symbols will now correctly be escaped inside the code blocks.
Show an error message when a user cannot be removed from the course
We now show an error message when trying to remove a user from a course, but the user cannot be removed because the user has a result in one of the course assignments.
Fixed an issue where the 15 minute warning dialogue would overlap with the formula editor
Participants receive a warning message if they have 15 minutes left in a digital test. If a participant was busy with the formula editor and this warning message appeared, the formula editor would disappear if they clicked the warning message away. This would cause their progress within the formula editor to be lost.
Fixed an error in the 'awaiting my review' filter in the results overview of an assignment
Due to the error, the 'awaiting my review' filter did not filter results at all.
Fixed an issue where the calculator and digital notes could not be used simultaneously in a digital test
This also fixed the issue where users could not edit their answer while using the notes and calculator.
Fixed text wrapping of theme names longer than one word
The theme names were previously wrapped to multiple lines prematurely.
We no longer copy the assignment label when copying an assignment
Previously, when you copied an assignment, an identical label would be added to the copied assignment. Now, when you copy an assignment, it will not include a label unless your school has set a default label. In that case, the copied assignment will get the default label.
Aligned responses to invalid searches to return no records in the platform and the API
Previously when you had an invalid search within our platform or via the API, we would return all records. Now we consistently return no records.
Fixed issue with countdown timer where it would count down for access to the lockdown solution instead of the test itself
Previously, the countdown timer counted down to the moment a participant could set up their lockdown solution (usually 15 minutes before a test). Now the countdown will count down to the actual start of the test, while allowing participants to still set up their lockdown solution beforehand.