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

Release date	Environment
1st of September 2023	Stage (stage.ans.app)
17th of September 2023	Production (ans.app) Education (edu.ans.app)

Important changes

17th of September 2023 -Release schedule will change
Starting from the 17th of September 2023, we will be shifting to a 4-week release cycle. This reduces administrator workload with fewer yearly releases and adds an extra week between a production release and the next pre-release. This means every two weeks there is either a pre-release or a production release.

Additionally, we are introducing weekly patch releases, which reduces the waiting time for issues to be fixed. A release mail for the patch releases will not be sent. The release notes of these patch releases will be added to the releases section of our help center.

310823 - Release schedule change.png

The release calendar for the next months will be as follows:

17th of September 2023: Release
29th of September 2023: Pre-release
15th of October 2023: Release
27th of October 2023: Pre-release
12th of November 2023: Release
24th of November 2023: Pre-release
10th of December 2023: Release
22nd of December 2023: Pre-release
7th of January 2024: Release
19th of January 2024: Pre-release
4th of February 2024: Release

The overview of all important changes that may require an action from administrators can be found here.

Changes to the platform

Added support for expectedLength (word limit) in the QTI import for open questions

We now support the 'expected length' attribute for open questions in the QTI Import. This attribute allows for setting a word limit for answers in Ans.

Added a list of instructors on the assignment taking page

Screenshot 2023-09-01 at 09.42.28.png

In addition to listing invigilators, we now also show instructors with access to the assignment on the taking page of the assignment to provide a complete overview of users with assigned access to the page.

Improved the method of clearing answer options in digital tests for multiple-choice, match and statement questions

Previously, the method for students to undo their selected answer option for multiple-choice questions could only be done by selecting another answer option or by using the strikethrough function. For the match and statement questions, it was not possible at all to completely clear the answer selection.

Now, participants can easily undo their choices for these question types by clicking again on the original selection.

Guess correction applicable to more question types

Previously, the guess correction was applicable for multiple-choice questions with only one correct answer. Ans will now enforce that it is calculated for all question types where guessing is possible. The list of question types in which the guess correction will now be applied includes:

Fill in (if the ‘show answer’ option is enabled)
Multiple choice (both one correct answer and multiple answers)
Match
Order

This new way of guess correction is a more consequent way of correcting all question types where students can guess the answer. Please note that if your institution joined Ans after the 1st of September 2022, the guess correction was already automatically applied for all question types mentioned above.

Added setting to guess correction to apply guess correction to answered questions only

Clipboard 2023-01-09 at 9.21.52 AM.png

With this option, guess correction will only be applied to answered questions, rather than being applied to all questions, including those that remain unanswered. For this release, the setting will only be added to the assignment settings in the Mark calculation tab. The checkbox will remain unchecked to keep the same behaviour as before.

In the next release, which is scheduled on the 15th of October, the setting will also be added to the school settings. This means that administrators can decide to enable the setting by default for newly created assignments. This has been announced in the in the important changes article.

The password length requirement has been increased to 12 characters

Following the best practices from the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC), we have increased the minimum password length requirement to 12 characters. Please note that this update only affects newly created passwords. If your current password does not meet the new criteria, you will not be obligated to modify it. However, if you decide to make changes, the new requirements will apply. If you are using Single Sign-On for logging in, this adjustment will not have any impact.

Restricted the permitted characters in user names

To prevent the usage of HTML or emojis in a user's name, the first, middle and last names are now restricted to numbers, letters, spaces, apostrophes, hyphens and diacritics. Restricted characters in existing names are unaffected but will need to be removed if the name is changed.

Restricted the permitted characters in the names of schools, courses, assignments, question banks and question bank assignments

The names of schools, courses, assignments, question banks and question bank assignments are now restricted to numbers, letters, spaces, apostrophes, hyphens, slashes, braces and diacritics. Restricted characters in existing names are unaffected but will need to be removed if the name is changed. This change has been made to prevent the usage of special characters like emojis or html tags as there was no restriction on any characters before.

Open beta changes

The "Result domains" feature is now available in open beta

resultdomains full eng.png

The result domains are now available in open beta. School administrators can enable this functionality in their school settings by navigating to 'Beta features' in the school settings.

The results domains feature provides teachers and students with insights into the student's performance per domain, per assignment. If the beta feature is enabled, the option to display this to students can be found in the publication settings.

More about this feature can be read in our Help Center.

API changes

Added the attribute apply_guess_correction_to_answered_questions_only to the grades_settings of the assignment endpoint in API v2

The setting to enable guess correction for only answered questions can now be accessed via the API.

Bug fixes

Fixed the 'Add enumeration' dropdown menu text field in the 'Edit layout' dialogue
Previously, when editing the layout of an assignment, the label of the enumeration menu would be incorrectly formatted when selecting 'No enumeration' from the dropdown. This has been fixed so that the label is positioned above the input text.

Fixed an issue where it was not possible to update the guess correction option in the assignment settings
Attempting to enable or disable would not result in the setting being updated. This would be noticeable when reloading the page.

Fixed an issue where headers in the import file were changed to lowercase while importing metadata
Previously, using the 'Importing metadata' beta feature for importing metadata from a .csv file, the objectives and tags header would be changed to lowercase. This has been fixed.

Fixed an issue where importing a file with empty values for metadata would fail to log an error
When importing metadata with a missing header or value the import will now be skipped and the error message will be logged, instead of completed without any error logs

Fixed an issue where an additional dialogue will appear when clicking on the next button of the exercise dialogue while adding exercises to a question bank assignment
Clicking the next button of the add exercise dialog while manually adding exercises to a question bank assignment, would result in an extra dialogue appearing. Opening several dialogues would cause the page to crash. Both issues have been fixed.

Fixed an issue where question banks would not be listed in the overview for administrators if the question bank belonged to another school
Previously, administrators could not see a question bank they were added to if it was a question bank from a different organisation. Now, if an administrator is added to a question bank from a different organisation, the question bank will be visible for them in their question bank overview.

Fixed Dutch translation in an input field when uploading images
When uploading images, the Dutch translation for the input field was named 'Title'. This was changed from 'Title' to 'Alternatieve tekst' to better reflect the purpose of the field.

Fixed an issue where the duration of a timeslot would reappear after disabling the checkbox
While editing a timeslot, deselecting the duration checkbox will empty the duration field. An issue occurred where, if previously set, the duration would reappear when the input field was hovered over. This has been fixed by keeping the input field empty after it has been cleared by deselecting the checkbox.

Fixed an issue where administrator roles could see all classes of a school listed under the "my classes" section when creating a timeslot
From now on, when creating a timeslot and selecting the participants list, the "my classes" section will only display classes that an administrator is explicitly added to instead of all of the classes of a school.

Fixed issue where clicking on PDF attachments caused tab exiting incidents to be created during digital tests
Previously, clicking on PDF attachments in a digital test could cause tab exiting incidents to be created. This is no longer the case.
Please note, this fix does not apply when viewing attachments in Ans with DocReader. In those cases, the incidents will still be created. This is a known issue.

Fixed an issue where extending the end time of an active assignment would not update the end time for participants unless they reloaded the page
The timer during a digital test would not be extended when extending the deadline time of a timeslot. This resulted in the student getting kicked out of the test, while there would still be time remaining. It's still possible for the student to re-enter the test after they have been kicked out if there is still time remaining on the timeslot, but this would cause confusion. With this change the remaining time will be updated, so the student does not pre-emptively get kicked out anymore.

Fixed an issue where students were not able to submit a comment after the assignment was automatically submitted
If "Allow comments after the test" was enabled and students had written a comment but not submitted it before the deadline of the timeslot was reached, then the comment would not be stored.

Fixed an issue where losing mobile connection to ProctorExam would require the participants to restart ProctorExam
Previously, losing mobile connection to ProctorExam would require participants to restart their session if they were taking the test with the “use mobile camera” enabled. Now, if their mobile device loses connection, the participant will be redirected back to the test after reconnecting as intended.

Improved the grading for fill-in questions with unused gaps
Previously, if a fill-in question contained an unused gap, the question would remain ungraded, and only removing the unused gap would grade the question. To simplify the grading procedure, only gaps that have been used are now taken into consideration when grading this question type.
Fixed an issue in the peer review options tab where the timeslots blankslate was visible until the page was refreshed
After creating a timeslot in the peer review options tab in the assignment settings, the message 'There are no timeslots yet' would display until the page was refreshed. The timeslot now automatically displays without the need to refresh the page.
Removed unused gaps from the questions insights overview for fill-in questions
Previously, unused gaps were displayed in the questions insights breakdown for fill-in questions, however these gaps did not provide meaningful information. To improve clarity, they have been removed.

Fixed an issue where students would not be shown all questions within the publication of an appraisal form
If a student would check the publication of an appraisal form and select the "View answers" option, only the grading of the first exercise would be shown as opposed to all exercises.

Fixed an issue where icons for "Right to extra time" and "Right to skip exercises" were not correctly aligned
Previously, the icons for "Right to extra time" and "Right to skip exercises" would become misaligned when navigating to the student overview of a course or a school. With this fix, the icons now align correctly with their label. The respective labels were also added to the "Learners" overview table of a course.

Improved the naming of the login history pages to be named accordingly
The pages where the login history of a user can be found are now called "Login history" instead of "Access logs".

Fixed an issue where the merging of forms would hang when generating forms for a class and the class name contained a backslash
When the class name included a backslash, it caused a problem where forms were stored in the wrong folder. This mix-up led to a failure in checking the correct number of forms in the zip file. We have addressed this by properly escaping all characters in the class name.

Don't allow entering duplicate page code for unidentified pages if the result linked to that code has been manually graded
When a scan is uploaded for which Ans could not recognise the code in the top right corner of the page, the user must manually input the code of the page. In the event that the user accidentally inputs an already existing code from another result, then Ans would remove and replace that result with the new page.

Fixed an issue with linking school periods to courses through API requests
When creating a course using an API request, it was possible to reference school periods from other schools by including their unique ID numbers. This fix prevents users from performing this action and returns a not found error status when referencing a period that does not belong to the users school.

Fixed an issue where the "What's new?" button linked to an old release article
Previously, clicking the "What's new?" button in the help menu of the navigation bar would lead to an old release article instead of the overview of recent releases.
Renamed the Dutch button in notifications from "Markeer als gedaan" to "Markeer als Klaar"

Version	Date	Information
v1.1	13-09-2023	Updated description of 'Added setting to guess correction to apply guess correction to answered questions only'.
v1.0	01-09-2023	Initial version