October 10, 2009, Sunnyvale, CA - The Etudes team is committed to the on-going evolution of the platform. Below is a summary of Etudes enhancements and new features that underway, completed, or planned.
COMPLETED AND AWAITING QA
Discussion and Private Messages Tool:
* Include "From:" info in topic and PM email notifications.
* Implement the ability to preview posts and private messages.
* Implement 'grade-by-category' to accommodate private forum group work.
* Include "Due Date" in forums - differentiate from Lock Date.
* Significant accessibility enhancements, including support for access keys
Modules Tool:
* Integrate with Schedule (add module dates to schedule)
* Ability to set your default license preference.
* Bring "Sort" functionality to the main author page
* Change image buttons to text for better accessibility.
* Accessibility enhancements and access key support.
Announcements:
Ability to pre-set Announcements to be auto-posted on X date.
Home Page
Include Editor so that faculty can create a mini web page, instead of being limited to posting a URL in the home iframe. (This editor will also be available under Edit Information in Site info for your course description).
MyWorkspace Preferences
As Customize Tabs is used most often here, it will be the default page when you click on Preferences.
Gradebook
Support for weighted averages
IN PROGRESS -- Assessment Engine
* Ability to set different points for INDIVIDUAL questions when you set up an Assessment to deliver it to students (which may be different from what was established at pools)
* Ability to edit questions from the Assessment view, if an assessment is not locked (as of now).
* Adjust system messages throughout TT&S to accommodate Assignments (i.e. remove strict vs. flexible order words, etc.).
* Implement "View All" in student view so that students can access and review all of their submissions, if many tries were allowed.
* Enhance the navigation across questions in pools so that instructors can move from question to question when previewing or editing without having to return to the main pool page.
* Implement a feature that allows instructors to check some or all questions in a pool to preview them all in one page!
* Develop a new / additional workflow for authoring assignments (test or survey) from the Assessments area, without having to go to or think about pools.
* Enhance the implementation of "parts" in tests, by allowing authors to include random and manual questions in one part.
* "Download All" -- implement the ability to download assignments / essay submissions (inline or attachments) in a zip file for easy offline grading.
NEXT TEN-TWELVE MONTHS - NEW DEVELOPMENT
* Publish / Unpublish a course site on X date. Faculty will be able to preset when they want their site to open / close automatically.
* Implement 'base date' and 'master calendar' in Etudes. This will give authors the ability to set all of the due dates for their materials (tests, forums, modules, etc.) from one spot (this will be a new tool, probably under Site Info)
* Time Zone support. Those of you who have students from other states or countries or are developing International Studies programs will appreciate this, as support for time zone is not implemented in all tools at the moment. This will basically allow students to set their local time zone and not worry about missing the instructor's deadlines in CA!
* Include TinyMCE Editor across all Etudes tools. Unlike FCK Editor, TinyMCE is fully accessible and nicer to blind learners. We'll also add a spell-checker to it that works on Firefox and IE, too.
* Include the robust Sferyx Editor as a choice in AT&S, as many faculty have asked for it to author rich assessments.
* Explore offering some degree of 'flexibility' to instructors to make changes to 'locked' assessments, while ensuring some level of 'fairness' for students who were served a different assessment version and submitted it before instructor revisions.
* Upload All - ability to upload graded submissions and scores back into the Etudes TT&S grades tables.
* Export summary of assessment data in a spreadsheet for offline item analysis, review of survey or test results, or backups.
* Complete the QTI Import / Export work in TT&S to support embedded media.
* Re-factor the Syllabus tool to be more consistent in the UI (user interface) with the Modules tool and TT&S. Although the Syllabus tool is simple, instructors find it hard to include 'redirects' and 'attachments'. The process is not consistent with the other tools.
* Deal with conflicting userid's. Having over 178,000 users now in our database user tables, the possibility of two individuals to end up with the same login is real. :( You don't need to know more about this challenge. We'll figure out a solution.
* Make the Reset Password tool smarter. It needs to understand two accounts with the same email address but different userids (i.e. same student taking classes at two different colleges).
* Notify new students when their Etudes Account is established. Send an automatic welcome message with login formula and other important information such as Etudes URL, supported browsers, etc.
* New, friendly URL for Etudes Gateway: myetudes.org
If you have any questions, please contact inquiry@etudes.org.
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