April 2022

Content Editor – Advanced code editor visual update and accessibility improvements

Minor visual updates made to the advanced code editor in Avenue to Learn increase the readability of tags and text in the advanced code editor and place the Save and Cancel buttons in consistent locations. Improved compatibility with screen reader technology is also included in this feature.

Previously, certain screen readers in specific form settings were unable to access or read from the advanced code editor.

This feature makes no changes to the functionality or workflows associated with the advanced code editor.

Figure: The updated location of the Save and Cancel buttons for the advanced code editor.
 

This feature has accessibility impacts, including:
•    WCAG 2.1 Success Criterion 3.2.3 Consistent Navigation

Group/Section Management – Asynchronous Group Creation

This feature moves group creation and enrollment to background task, minimizing risk of timeouts when creating large numbers of groups requiring enrollments.

When instructors create and save a new group category, the Groups tool displays the category and prompts instructors that their group or groups are being created in the background; further, it indicates that the instructor will be notified once the groups are created. The instructor who created the group receives a subscription alert in the minibar that indicates that the groups for their courses have been created.

While this is in process, the Brightspace UI indicates that “Group creation is in progress”. While processing, users are unable to make changes to groups or enrollments.

To facilitate these changes, and the potential for allowing clients to make much larger numbers of groups in a category, this feature introduces pagination to the Groups tool, that limits each page to a maximum of 200 groups. In addition, the header row for the category has been moved to above the grid and the Delete and Email options are added to the Category dropdown menu.

Figure: The updated Groups page with the ‘Group Creation in Progress’ message highlighted.

Figure: The updated Groups page with the Category dropdown menu and the Delete and Email options highlighted.

Integration with Office 365

Over the next few months, UTS and Avenue support are working together to make it possible to access Office 365 files, email and calendar from within Avenue to Learn. While this integration will also allow students to submit files from Office 365 to Avenue assignment folders, and instructors to add Office 365 files to Content, it will not be replacing Avenue Mail at this time. This work is being completed to ensure that those who are using Avenue to Learn can choose to access the tools they are using in one place. More information on this integration as work develops and we are able to officially launch.

Intelligent Agents – Create Agent page facilitates more flexible scheduling and frequency options

This feature changes the Intelligent Agents Create Agent page to facilitate additional scheduling options and frequency options to allow for improved flexibility.

The changes to the Create Agent page include:

• A modernized user interface. This is a visual upgrade and does not impact functionality.
• Scheduling options have been moved to the top of the page.
• The ability to expand/collapse each section on the agent creation page (Scheduling, Criteria, Actions) to improve usability.
• Two new agent frequency options:
  • One-Time Run allows instructors to choose a single date and time to run.
  • Hourly allows instructors to choose a date and time to run between. If no dates are chosen, the Hourly agent runs every hour with the first time being “now” (that is once the agent is saved and enabled).
• The existing Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Annually options all now have a Scheduled Time option that users complete to determine what time that the agent will run on the dates scheduled for the agent to run.
• The Subject line of the agents’ emails now supports up to 128 characters. This brings it inline with the Email tool. Previously, the character limit was 100 characters.

Figure: The Intelligent Agent scheduling page with the Hourly option selected.

SCORM – Edit dates and associated grade items for LOR based SCORM packages

SCORM packages added from the LOR using the New Content Experience now have an improved editing experience. When the new create and edit experience is enabled, instructors see a new edit page for LOR sourced SCORM packages. The editing page allows instructors to edit dates and associated grade items (like Imported SCORM topics) and edit LOR details and version information (like other LOR topics). This brings greater consistency to the create and edit workflows for all activities.

Previously, in the New Content Experience, only topic titles were editable for LOR based SCORM.