Attention eClass Users,

Please be aware that in June 2014, CTL will be performing a major version upgrade to eClass. This upgrade (to Moodle version 2.6) will introduce a new look and feel to eClass with responsive mobile-device support and will address several outstanding known issues and improve overall system performance.

The upgrade has officially been scheduled for Saturday, June 21st from 1:00 AM to 9:00 AM. eClass will be completely unavailable during this time window, so please do not schedule any teaching and learning activities during the outage.

The main system features that will change in the new version of eClass are as follows:

eClass Look & Feel:

• eClass now has a new theme with mobile support. Features include:

• Continuity between platforms with responsive design for phones and tablets.

• Improved mobile navigation and gesture support.

• Improved load times and access speeds.

• Improved usability and functionality. Mobile users should now have access to most resources, activities, and features in eClass.

• The ability to dock blocks in eClass has been removed. Users will no longer misplace blocks due to accidental docking.

• The breadcrumbs navbar has been removed - navigation to all course components must occur through the Navigation block.

• Dragging and dropping media files directly onto a course homepage will now provide the option to add the media as an inline label or as a file resource. This change allows instructors to drag and drop images directly into topics as labels.

• Drag and drop file uploads within the file picker will now display a progress indicator.

• The Settings for all Activities and Resources in eClass have been simplified and reorganized with collapsible sections.

• Improved error handling in the form fields of settings pages. Users who try to save settings without entering information into required fields will now be prompted and directed to fill any required information in order to proceed.

• The HTML Editor in eClass (TinyMCE) has been updated to 3.5.7. This version of the editor comes with a graphic redesign, is lighter and faster, and allows users to toggle between 1 and 3 toolbar layouts.

• Improved support for editing content on mobile devices with smaller displays.

• The SETTINGS block in eClass has now been re-named to ADMINISTRATION.

• In course settings, the Availability field has been renamed VISIBLE with the options 'Show' or 'Hide'.

• The SCORM course format has been removed from eClass.

• The tabbed format of the Onetopic course format has been updated.

Assignments:

• Assignment settings have been reorganized.

• Assignment now allows for multiple versions of submissions.

• Addition of a marking workflow routine that allows instructors and TAs to monitor grading through a series of steps and release marks to students all at once.

• Improvements and bug-fixes for blind-marking of assignments.

• Improvements to the process for zipping and uploading multiple student feedback files.

• Assignments restricted to groupings only show the students within the groups of that grouping in the assignment grading interface. Students who have not been added to the grouping and do not have access to the assignment will not see the activity in their user report grade view.

Forums:

• Instructors are now able to enable a ‘Display Word Count’ setting, which allows a word count to be displayed at the bottom of each post within the forum.

• Instructors now have the option to specify read tracking on a per forum basis (instead of this being a user profile setting) and the option to force read-tracking.

• Students now have the option to set their read-tracking preferences in the forum administration area.

Quizzes:

• Quizzes have been updated with a new look and feel.

• Quiz settings have been cleaned up and reorganized with collapsible menus.

• When accessing a Quiz activity, the ‘Results’ area is no longer available under the Navigation block. Results can now be accessed under the ‘Quiz administration’ area under the Administration block.

• Fixed a bug in Adaptive Mode where students were shown in the feedback area that they had been penalized even when the ‘no penalties’ option was set.

• New option for instructor to choose to display student’s profile pictures with their attempts.

• Backing up or importing a quiz will now provide the option to include or exclude the course question bank. This option is available in the ‘Backup Settings’ while backing up or importing a single quiz.

• The question editing interface has a number of improvements:

• Streamlined html editor in the question interface.

• The option to pre-fill essay question entry boxes with text and tables.

• Options for overall question feedback have pre-filled text.

Enrollment & Administration:

• A Search field has now been added to the ‘Enrolled Users’ area. This allows instructors to search for specific users within their course using a variety of criteria and filters.

• Instructors will now receive a warning message before they can delete or hide the enrollment method that contains their own enrollment from a course. This will help to prevent instructors from accidentally hiding or removing their own enrollment in their course.

Reports:

• Reports have now been moved from the Navigation block to the Administration block. Instructors can now find reports under ‘Course Administration’ in the Administration block.

Folders:

• Files within a folder resource can be displayed directly on the course page.

• Sub folders within the new in-page folders can be shown in a collapsed view.

Databases:

• Database entries can now be un-approved by instructors to remove inappropriate submissions (bug fix).

• Database entries can now be deleted in bulk to facilitate construction and ease management of the activity.

• Database activity descriptions will now display properly below the title on all tabs of the database.

Glossaries:

• Glossary entries can now be un-approved by instructors to remove inappropriate submissions (bug fix).

Workshops:

• Addition of a new Overall Feedback setting. Allows reviewers to post the overall assessment of a submission or to provide additional explanation of their assessment.

• Minor functional bug fixes to workshop activity.

Other minor changes and bug fixes:

• Improved support for accessibility in various components of the system.

• The 'Download all' link for assignments no longer appears if no submissions have been made.

• Bug in downloading PDFs in Chrome is resolved.

• Various bug fixes in the Lesson activity module have been applied.

• Improvements to the layout and features of course completion tracking.

• The syntax for duplicate file names has now changed to append numbers within parenthesis instead of underscores. For example, adding a duplicate file for ‘File.txt’ will now default to ‘File (1).txt’ instead of the previous format of ‘File_2.txt’.

• Legacy filters that were deprecated in Moodle 2.2 have now been completely removed from eClass.

• In-page help links will now open in a new window in browsers with javascript disabled.

• SCORM activity settings have been reorganized.

• Resolved a bug in the RSS Block where deleted items from Forum and Blog posts were not removed from the RSS feed.

• Various minor style improvements have been made to the Choice Activity.

• Activities or Resources that are moved to or from a hidden section will now have their visibility changed to match the visibility of the section.

• The Mathjax Library has now been updated from version 1.1 to 3.2

For the full list of Mooodle core changes, please refer to the detailed documentation at moodle.org: Moodle 2.5 release notes, Moodle 2.6 release notes.

Please contact ctl@ualberta.ca if you have any questions about this upgrade.

Regards,
CTL Technology Services