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

Release date	Environment
10th of February 2023	Stage (stage.ans.app)
19th of February 2023	Production (ans.app) Education (edu.ans.app)

Changes to the platform

The Alumni feature has been released out of beta

Admins can now mark students as alumni, which will hide them from the student overview. Once a student is marked as an alumni, they will no longer appear in the list of active students. This feature provides a way for admins to manage the student list and keep track of current and past students. When a student is marked as alumni, they will not be shown in the general users overview, but hidden behind a filter.

Marking students as alumni can be helpful if you have alumni that you are required to keep data of for a period of time, but you would like to hide their accounts in the user overview. By making use of the student filter in the user overview, you can filter on students or on alumni.

Alumni are still included in any counters related to users in the platform.

Screenshot_2023-02-10_at_16.51.52.png

Added the option to create evaluation forms to add to hand-in assignments and appraisal forms in a question bank

When creating a question bank assignment, you will now see the option to select the assignment type ‘Hand-in assignment’ and ‘Appraisal form’. In addition, the new question type ‘Evaluation form’ has been added when creating an exercise in a question bank.

Option to select a hand-in assignment or an appraisal form when creating a question bank assignment

Option to select the evaluation form question when creating an exercise in the question bank

Added support for matrix interactions in the equation editor

We have updated the equation editor to the latest version which brings several fixes and improvements. For example, we have added a new tab for matrix interactions, but keyboard shortcuts are also supported.

Shortcut	Command
ctrl/cmd + Return/Enter	addRowAfter
ctrl/cmd + shift + Return/Enter	addRowBefore
ctrl/cmd + ;	addRowAfter
ctrl/cmd + shift + ;	addRowAfter
ctrl/cmd + shift + ;	addColumnAfter
ctrl/cmd + shift + ,	addColumnBefore

In addition, the layout of the virtual symbol keyboard has changed. See attached images for old and new layout.

Previous keyboard layout

New keyboard layout

For a list of all changes see: https://github.com/arnog/mathlive/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md. We have updated the editor to version 0.87.1.

All trashed items will be permanently deleted after 180 days

All user-deleted data, such as removed results, assignments, courses, users and question banks, can only be recovered for up to 180 days. After that, it will be permanently deleted. This follows best practices for handling user-generated data on other software as a service platforms.

It was previously announced that all trashed users would be permanently deleted after 180 days. Please note, that users that are currently trashed will not be permanently deleted with retroactive effect. This means that only if a users is trashed after the release of February 19th, the 180 day counter will start. For now, these currently trashed users will remain trashed but will not be permanently deleted, including their results. For the next release, we will align closer with our users to investigate the boundaries and impact of the feature. We do aim to go through with this change in the long run, however we want to better understand the implications first.

If a student is trashed, all results will be also be trashed

The results of a student are also placed in the trash when a student is deleted. This makes the consequences of deleting students more visible.

As mentioned in the above feature, students that are currently trashed will not be permanently deleted with retroactive effect. This means that only if students are thrashed after the release of February 19th, the 180 day counter will start. For now, these currently trashed students will remain trashed but will not be permanently deleted, including their results.

Added multiple choice breakdown to question bank assignment insights

The discrimination values for answer alternatives were added to the question bank assignment insights. This will provide publishers with insights that could help to improve questions and answer alternatives.

Added support for spellchecking with the fill-in question

Previously, enabling spell check was only applicable for the open question. It will now also apply to fill-in questions.

Assignment labels and question bank labels are now ordered on name alphabetically

Assignment labels and question bank labels are now sorted alphabetically based on the label names. This will improve readability of the labels list and usability of the platform.

Added support for the LTI 1.3 Deeplink service

We would first like to mention, that this feature was not included in the original pre release article that was published on the 10th of February 2023. It was added to the pre release article on the 16th of February 2023.

With the Deeplink service, it is now possible to link an activity in a Learning Management System (LMS) with an assignment in Ans. This change only adds support to LtiResourceLinks. The flow for users is nearly identical as with the basic launch.
For Brightspace users, it is recommended to use Deeplinking to link activities to Ans assignments, as this is the only way to send grades. This change is mostly relevant to Brightspace users, as other LMS support sending grades with the basic launch.

Renaming of multiple elements in the platform

Based on your feedback, we are working on multiple interface inconstancies 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.

Renamed the tab 'Assignments' to 'Assignment protection rules' in the school settings. This applies to the English version of the platform only.
Renamed the tab 'Toets' to 'Toets beschermingsregels' in the school settings. This applies to the Dutch version of the platform only.
Renamed the question type 'Review question' to 'Evaluation question' in an appraisal form and hand-in assignment. This applies to the English version of the platform only.
Renamed the question type 'Beoordelingsvraag' to 'Beoordelingsformulier' in an appraisal form and hand-in assignment. This applies to the Dutch version of the platform only.
Renamed 'Remove assignment' to 'Remove' in the danger zone section of an assignment. This applies to the English version of the platform only.
Renamed 'Verwijder toets' to 'Verwijder' in the danger zone section of an assignment. This applies to the Dutch version of the platform only.
We updated the confirmation description when storing an exercise in the description. The description of the confirmation dialog was changed to improve clarity on the outcome of the storing action. Also, consistency of the used terminology was improved by renaming the 'library' to 'question bank'.

Open beta changes

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 moved to global release, 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.

Beta features are functional features and fit for use in large organisations. Based on feedback of our users, we might change or iterate on several aspects of these features. Usually, this means we will add new elements and functionality to these features. It is also possible to provide direct feedback for features that are already in open beta.

Replaced the CSV import to Respondus import format

As announced earlier, the CSV import and export has been deprecated. Instead, the Respondus import and export has been developed further. All Ans question types can be imported now. Please note that you do not need Respondus or any other third party tool to use this import. We only stick to the Respondus import format.

The documentation for the Respondus import will be updated as soon as possible, so it is clear exactly how the import works. The import template contains examples of each question type already. The template can be found by selecting the Respondus import when you choose Import in your question bank.

Added flow groups to mark calculation variables

With the beta feature 'Mark calculation' enabled, you can use flow groups in the mark calculation formula. Variables for the all flow groups are available in the mark calculation formula. This will expand opportunities for calculating points.

The Schoolyear integration has been upgraded

We have updated the Schoolyear integration to comply with V2 of Schoolyear and V2 of Schoolyear's API. The improved version of Schoolyear now supports Chromebooks more seamlessly.

API updates

No additions have been added to the API this release.

Important changes

A new important change has been added this release. We also wanted to remind our users that for next release, two important changes will be deployed. These changes were already announced in an earlier stage.

12th of March 2023 - Restrictions to the amount of users that can be added to a group or class
We previously announced that we had added a restriction of 1000 users in a group and class. Based on your feedback, we have decided to revert this change.

This is what can be expected instead:
- The limit will be set to 50.000 students per group to prevent any issues from happening in this release.
- During the release scheduled on the 12th of March the limit will be reduced.
- From your feedback, we found that the amount of 1000 students was not enough, so we have reconsidered the limitations. The following limits will apply from the 12th of March 2023 onwards:
  - 2500 students per group
  - 1000 students per class
12th of March 2023 - Update date and time format in export files
We are changing the current exports that contain date time fields. The date time fields will be made consistent by using the ISO6801 format (2022-12-31T19:19:19+01:00)
A consistent export format will make it easier for users to process exports in an automated way.
12th of March 2023 - Step by step guides removed from the help center
Currently, our help centre consists of instruction articles for administrators, employees and students. It also includes step by step guides for employees and students. We have already stopped updating the step by step guides as we are focusing on improving and restructuring the instruction articles. The step by step guides will be depricated.

The overview of all important changes can be found here.

Bug fixes

Fixed an issue where the numeral of the submission would not be set if an exercise did not contain any questions
This issue would result in the bottom navigation bar during grading to appear incorrect.
Fixed an issue where incorrect filters would be shown in question bank assignments
We removed the school levels and school years filter on the question bank assignments overview page as they were shown unintentionally.
Fixed an issue where exercises were unlinked from the question bank when copying an assignment
When copying an assignment that was linked to a question bank assignment, then the "new" copied assignment would also be linked to the same question bank assignment. This broke due to another code change, but is fixed with this story.
Fixed an issue with Readspeaker where the state of the option 'Click and listen' is not persisted between page reloads
The option 'Click and listen' allows Readspeaker to read part of a text with one click. If this option is enabled and a user reloads the page (or navigates to a different question), the mentioned behaviour stops working. This bug affected teachers, students and everyone who had access to the Readspeaker functionality.
The option 'Click and listen' will only need to be enabled once. Reloading of the page or navigating to a different question will not have any impact on this functionality.
Show participant names instead of name of the user who is viewing the participant answers
Changed the name in the header of the monitoring view from the user who is viewing the participant to the participant's name. This will improve the clarity of the interface.
Fixed an issue where the 'send invite' button would not sent an invitation to the user if they had previously signed in before.
Invitations are not sent to users that have already signed in, but the sign in button would make it look like a invitation was sent. We now disable the 'send invite' button if the invitation can not be send.
Fixed an issue where an error message will be show when attempting to sign in using SSO after preselecting a school
The request made by clicking on a preselected school would not work for custom single sign-on providers.
Fixed an issue with changing the points of a bubble sheet assignment
It is now possible again to change the points of a bubble sheet question after the assignment has been taken.
Fixed an issue with the fill-in questions when modifying the HTML of a question
We have fixed an issue when manually modifying the HTML of a fill-in question, would sometimes unlink gaps from the question, displaying only a blue box in the digital test.
Fixed issues with missing images in QTI export
At this moment, we do not support image descriptions. We only support in-line images. We currently take all descriptions until the first question and add the descriptions to the QTI question of the question. This means that descriptions after the last question are not taken into account.
Fixed an issue where the download button of the pdf viewer would disappear
We have fixed an issue where the download button would disappear when moving to a different student during grading.
Changed unread icon for notifications back to 'filled'
Reverted the 'unread' icon for notifications from 'outlined' to 'filled'. This will indicate unread notifications more clearly.