Highlights from Release LMS-6.6 (August 28 2015)

Highlights from Release LMS-6.6 (August 28 2015)

BQ Docs

BQ Docs is an in-line document editor that allows students and instructors to collaborate on documents more seamlessly than before. BQ Docs allows students to create documents and receive instructor feedback within BlueQuill without having to upload or download any files. This means that students who don’t have a word processor, such as Microsoft Word, can create and edit documents from within BlueQuill. Students are still able to submit assignments via uploading files as they did before.

For instructors, this means that assignments can be viewed, graded, and annotated without having to be downloaded to the computer. Instructors can view assignments alongside the grading and comments area, making the grading process much easier. Further, there are many excellent tools to provide students with feedback within the document.

Students can upload a file to submit, just as before, in learning objects where Submit is turned on. To do this, click Add.

A pop-out box will appear, giving you two options for submitting a file – creating a new one or uploading an existing one.

To create a file, click Create.

A pop-out box will ask you to provide a title, and you can also provide an optional summary and tags.

When you click Create Document, you will see the title of the new document added as a “Pinned Document” and the BQ Docs editor opens at the bottom of the window.

In the BQ Docs editor, you have many standard formatting options for editing your document. To annotate your document, click on the bookmark icon at the upper left.

You can adjust the size of the document window by clicking and dragging the top black bar up and down. Also, note the Save, Overlay, and minimize buttons at the top right.

Click the Overlay button at the top right to open the overlay options panel. You can mark the document with a “marker” with the choice of 16 different colors. Click Eraser to erase your marks. Use the Note button to add notes in the color of your choice. Each note has a date stamp and can be resized by dragging the triangle at the lower right of the note. The example below has a pink “marker” square and a green note.

When you are finished editing your document, click Save at the upper right of the editor. You can click the minimize button to remove the document from your screen.

To upload a file,click Upload in the Add File pop-out box.

You will then be prompted to select a file from your computer to upload. As before, you can upload any type of file, including ZIP files. Once you upload the file, it will appear in your list of “Pinned Documents” and will open in the BQ Docs editor if it’s a file that can be converted.

You can show or hide your list of documents by clicking the blue file icon next to the Add button. This icon also tells you the number of documents you have.

Once a file has been created or uploaded, you can submit if by clicking Submit for Grading.You will then see a green checkmark if it was submitted before the due date and a red checkmark if it was submitted after the due date.

When you hover over the document in the list, you will see, from left to right, icons to edit, delete, and share that document.

Click the pencil icon to open your document in the BQ Docs editor, and click the trash can icon to delete the document as an attachment to that assignment.

Clicking the share icon allows you to share one or more documents before you submit them. When you click the share icon, you will see a list of instructors with whom you can share the document. Select the instructor, and then click SHARE.

Instructors will see a student’s shared document via a share icon in the student roster for that assignment. Instructors can open this document and provide feedback to the student before the student submits the document for grading.

Click on that student and then click on the document show/hide icon to show the list of documents for that student. You will then see the share icon under the Status column, indicating the student has shared a document with you.

Hover over the document to see the edit and share icons. Click the pencil icon to annotate, edit, or comment on the document. Later, you will click the share icon to share it back to the student when you are finished.

.

When you click the edit icon, the student’s document will open to the left via the BQ Docs editor. Using the annotate icon and Overlay menu options (as detailed above), instructorscan provide feedback by editing the document,as well as adding annotations, drawings, and notes, before sharing it back to the student.

Students can watch a video explaining these BQ Docs features by clicking on the question mark icon next to the Submit for Grading button.

Instructors can watch a video explaining these BQ Docs features by clicking on the question mark icon next to the BQ Docs logo and lock/unlock icon within the student roster.

Instructor Ability to Close Student Submissions

Instructors can now set a specific close date for student submissions by locking the submissions. If the instructor has set a close date to lock the assignment, students cannot submit any files or documents to that assignment.Students will see the submission locked-on date in the assignment, and the Submit for Grading button will be grayed-out as well.

To lock the student submission date, click on the white box under the “Lock Student Submissions” text.

This will open a calendar. Select the date on which you want the submissions to lock.

Students will be able to submit files for that assignment until the end of the day you select (i.e., if you select 09/04/2105, students have until 11:59 p.m. on 09/04/2015 to submit). To change the date, click on the white box again and select a new date on the calendar.

Instructors can also unlock submissions for individual students. This allows a student to submit a file for an assignment past the lock date.

To unlock submissions per student, go to the assignment and click on the student name in the roster. Then click the lock icon to unlock it and enable submissions for that student. A closed lock icon denotes locked submissions and an open lock icon denotes unlocked submissions.

The default behavior is the same as before: submissions become locked when an instructor downloads or opens an assignment for that student. This new feature, however, allows instructors to lock all student submissions per assignment as well as allowing instructors to unlock submissions on a per-student basis.

Improved GradeGrid Interface

The GradeGrid has been restyled to show more students and assignments at one time. The functionality of the GradeGrid is the same as it was; the main changes are with the visual layout and the user’s interaction with icons.

Grades are entered as they were before – by clicking on the blank cell and entering the number. You can still use the keyboard shortcuts to quickly move around the rows and columns. You can also bulk-grade by pressing the Ctrl key, selecting the cells to grade, and then releasing the Ctrl key.

Comments are entered by clicking on the speech bubble icon. When you hover over the cell, a light gray speech bubble icon appears in the lower right.

When you click on the speech bubble icon, it opens a box for you to enter comments.

Just as before, after you leave comments for a student’s assignment, that cell will be highlighted blue in the GradeGridas pending to publish until you publish it.

The icons that show a cloud with a down arrow in it are for downloading submissions. If the cloud is orange, there are new submissions for you to download. If the cloud is gray, this means the submissions have already been downloaded.

The large numbers on the right are the same as before – the orange one is the number of new submissions since your last download, and the blue is the number of grades pending to be published.

Design Mode Improvements

In design mode, there is now a search filter that will help find courses quickly and easily. This is very helpful when a designer has access to many courses and has an extensive course list.

When you start typing the course prefix or course name in the filter text box, the matching results will immediately appear. Click the X to clear the text box and search results.

Designers will now see an icon for the course notes feature. To use the notes feature, click on the gear icon by the course number.

Designers can add public and private notes to their courses. They can also change the background color of the gear icon on the course for their own organizational purposes. To change the color of the gear icon, use the Select Highlight Color options.

Designers can now upload an Articulate HTML5 export and have it embed inside a learning object. If you have an Articulate export ZIP file that is the HTML5 export, you can upload it by first clicking Choose File button beneath the Attachments section.

Select the file from your computer, and then click the Upload Articulate Content button. Students will now be able to view Articulate content from within the learning object.