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

Release date	Environment
7th of April 2023	Stage (stage.ans.app)
23rd of April 2023	Production (ans.app) Education (edu.ans.app)

Changes to the platform

The webhooks feature has been released out of beta

The webhook feature allows you to create webhooks that notify your internal services of certain changes in Ans.

By subscribing to a webhook Ans will proactively send data to your server and requesting this data via the API will not be necessary.

Added support for the Names and Role provisioning service for LTI 1.3

With the names and role provisioning service it's possible to receive access to a list of users and their roles within the context of a course, program or other grouping.

The role within the context of a course, program or other grouping will be taken into account when a user enters through LTI and they do not have a role in the course yet.
Ans verifies whether one of the following roles are found within the context to provide the user with an 'Instructor' role in Ans:

Instructor
Administrator
Contentdeveloper
Staff
Faculty
Mentor

If none of these roles can be found then a "Student" role is created in the Ans course.

Please note, as of this moment we do not support provisioning of users via this service, this service is only used for setting the correct role on the user in the Ans course.

Scan issues for multiple choice questions (MCQs) will no longer be flagged, but instead marked as 'Ungraded'

Many of our users have indicated that solving a scanning flag in a written assignment takes a lot of unnecessary time and clicks. To improve this process, we have decided to mark all unrecognised MCQ answers as 'Ungraded'. Unrecognised MCQ answers have no answers checked or multiple answers checked.

In this way, teachers will not have to both solve flags and correct MCQs, but only correct the unrecognised MCQs. It also makes it easier to distinguish (important) manually created flags from automatic scanning flags.

We are aware that this change makes the distinction between scanning flags and to-be-graded open questions less clear. However, the multiple choice questions can still be corrected per exercise via the same page as before. Additionally, we also understand that the error messages that are shown in the flags will no longer be visible. The advantage of having less clicks per unrecognised scan outweighs the textual explanation of the error which is also visible during grading.

Enabled the 'No answer' button for all ungraded multiple choice questions

By default the 'No answer' button for ungraded multiple choice questions was only displayed if the question had been graded first. We now always show the 'No answer' option. This change is related to the change above (Scan issues for multiple choice questions (MCQs) will no longer be flagged, but instead marked as 'Ungraded').

Moved the export result button to the result settings

The 'export result' button has been moved from the result profile block as currently it is not the mainline feature, and it should not be that prominent in the student profile block.

In addition, we have updated the styling of the result profile block to make the provided information more easily understandable at a glance. With the new styling, we have added text labels to provided values and visually separated information blocks with a divider and increased white space. These changes improve the readability of information and consistency of data labels. The updated result profile block now includes all information about the results in a condensed and clear way.

New location of export button

Previous location of export button

Updated the styling of student and employee profile block

We updated the styling of the employee and student profile block to make the provided information more easily understandable at a glance. With the new styling we added text labels to provided values and visually separated information blocks with a divider and increased white space.

These changes improve the readability of information and consistency of data labels. The updated profile blocks now includes all information about the results in a condensed and clear way so users can easily read it.

New profile block Previous profile block

Added callback URL for ProctorExam

We now show the callback URL for ProctorExam integrations in the school integration settings. This makes it easier to test the integration in multiple environments and troubleshoot issues with the callback URL.

Added tooling for in-app surveys to employees

We have added tooling to Ans to more easily deliver in-app surveys to our users. This will allow us to reach out to all our users more easily to monitor satisfaction and detect issues with certain workflows or features, helping us to focus our efforts to improve our services for all our users.

All surveys will be optional and are designed to be short and unobtrusive. We will not be implementing any surveys for students or participants at this time. We are also planning to roll out our new NPS monitoring with this tooling. Any other surveys will mostly be focused on specific workflows or features.

In line with our current data policy, no personal data from our users will be sent to a third party via the surveys.

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.

Renamed 'test' to 'assignment' and 'students' to 'participants' in the code editor warning within a digital test. This applies to the English version of the platform only.
Changed the converting a student action description in the student settings from 'Convert to staff' to 'Convert to employee'. This applies to the English version of the platform only.
Added the word 'assignment' in action button descriptions within the assignment settings. For example:
- Copy assignment to course (in the question bank assignment settings)
- Link assignment to a question bank (course assignment settings)
- Print assignment (Course assignment settings)

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.

Allow changing the label of an archived assignment

We are allowing changes to the label of archived assignments. In this way, labels can be used to categorise archived assignments as well as unarchived assignments. As labels are used in combination with protection rules and archived assignments cannot be changed, updating the label will not have an effect on the changes that can be made to the assignment.

Together with the upcoming retention period feature, this will allow for the manual anonymisation of assignments.

Custom roles feature additions

Added custom role restrictions for viewing answers of students during a digital test

We've added restrictions for viewing answers of students during a digital test. This allows organisations to restrict access to students' answers during a digital test for specified roles.

API updates

We have added the following extensions to the API V2:

Added a way to decouple Canon case from Ans written assignment through API V2
After having linked a written assignment to a Canon exam case (V2 integration), it becomes impossible to unlink this exam when necessary. When the user tries to do so anyway, there is no feedback whether the action has failed or succeeded.

Due to current behaviour, the user has no way to decouple an exam case from written assignment in case they have linked a faulty case. Users prefer to have the option to decouple their exam case from an Ans written assignment via the API V2. Expected behaviour can be achieved through sending us a PATCH request for the linked assignment, with the following request body:

Whenever we receive this "empty" request, we should delete the already existing Canon case coupling for the written assignment.
Enable assignment integrations with their default configuration by sending {} as the value through the API
We have added several integrations to the API which do not have any settings. Following best practices, we have decided to change the way integrations are disabled via the API.

Previously, it was possible to disable integrations with '{}'. From now on, integrations can be enabled with default settings using '{}', and disabled with 'null'.

Enable the Ouriginal assignment integration with its default configuration

Disable the Ouriginal assignment integration

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 where students were unable to start a digital test in Proctorio
Students were unable to participate in digital tests that were proctored using Proctorio, as the start button was greyed out.
Fixed an issue where submit button would remain disabled after checking checkbox
Before students submit their assignment they are taking to the submit page where they have to check the checkbox and press the submit button. If the students would check the checkbox too fast after the page loads, then the submit button would remain greyed out, until they unchecked and checked the checkbox again.
Added a warning when pulling changes from the question bank if the assignment contained graded submissions
When synchronising questions in an assignment that has been taken, a warning will be displayed informing users that the grading will be undone.
Fixed an issue where searching on assignments with the "Filter by assignments filter" would yield incorrect results in specific use cases.
When searching on the "Filter by assignments filter" with for example a four digit number, no results would be found unless a space was added at the end of the search query .
Fixed an issue where it was not possible to use the '+' sign when making an adjustment during grading

It was previously not possible to add an adjustment, like '+1', as this would default to '-1'.
Fixed an issue where removing studies could cause courses to have no studies, while they are mandatory.
If a single study would be linked to a course and the study would be removed, then the course would not have any studies, while it's mandatory to have studies on a course.
If a study is linked to a course then an error message will be shown when attempting to remove the study, until the link between the study and course has been removed .
Fixed an issue where incorrect locations would be displayed when monitoring a students digital test and using a subnet mask for a location
When using an IP location such as 127.0.0.0/24 for an assignment, the IP location shown when monitoring a student during the digital test would appear incorrect.
Fixed an issue where the location of the grader would also be shown in the monitoring
After the students finished a digital test where monitoring was enabled and the grader would update the grading scheme or change a question into a bonus question, then the location of the grader would also show up in the monitoring tab. The location of the grader will no longer be shown in the monitoring tab, this fix applies to old and new assignments.
Fixed issue that caused the question dropdown to appear out of screen when editing the grading scheme of a question
There was a bug with a dialog box when editing the grading scheme using the Safari browser.
Fixed issue where digital test notes were unusable
The option of digital notes disappeared from student view even when it was enabled in the test settings.
Fixed an issue where reviewers would not be shown the message "showing x students have the same answer" if "Use same grading" is enabled
As an instructor you will see the message 'x other student has the same answer' if same grading is enabled. Reveiwers however, could not see this message.
Fixed an issue where the incorrect question options would shown when pulling changes from a question bank
When pulling changes from the question bank with the "New version available" option, the +- sign would be shown instead of the 3 dots (more options) icon.
Fixed an issue where the order of question bank assignments would appear incorrect when ordering by name
The question bank assignments would previously always be sorted by creation date, however, they will now correctly be sorted by the column that has been selected.
Fixed an issue where SSO URL's would by default redirect to SURF
On the stage environment, schools would be redirected to SURF when signing in with SSO even when they used a different SSO provider
Fixed an issue where the objectives would not be shown when copying a planned assignment with objectives to another course.
The link between questions and objectives would remain on the planned assignment instead of the newly copied assignment in the new course. This fix applies to existing and new assignments.
Fixed an issue where using one time password would result in showing two separate entries in the access log
When students logged in using the generate one time password functionality, then two entries would be made in the access log. This fix applies only to new entries in the access logs.
Fixed issue that prevented the preliminary result from updating for small tests
Preliminary result would not update for very small tests.
Removed redundant instructions and changed the spacing in the order question
We removed the repeated instructions in the drag & drop question to 'Place the item below' as we received reports that it made it less clear which text accompanied which input box.
Fixed issue where pasting a mark calculation formula from a different application did not work
When copy and pasting a formula from a different application, such as Word, pasting would not work and the variable would disappear.
Prevented possibility to assume your own account
We received reports that it was possible to assume your own account. This is no longer possible.
Fixed issue where incidents were created with wrong timestamps
Timestamps for incidents were created with wrong timestamps if the user's system time was incorrect.
Fixed an issue where adding users to courses with quotation marks around the user ID's would result in an error stating that the user already exists
Previously it was possible to add users to courses with user ID's that contained quotation marks, e.g. { "instructors": [ { "user_id": "1" } ] }. Due to a change where performance was improved this was no longer possible.
Fixed the incorrect naming of university_id to school_id on webhook endpoint in API V2
We accidentally used university_id instead of school_id in the response when creating a webhook endpoint via the API.
Fixed issue that caused the integrations list to always include "safe_exam_browser" and "safe_exam_browser_server" in the assignment response body in the API
Fixed issue that caused the integrations list to always include "safe_exam_browser" and "safe_exam_browser_server" in the assignment response body in the API.