Release Notes (May 3, 2023)

Time Limit Extension Accommodation: We are excited to announce the release of a new feature in our assessment platform: Time Limit Extension Accommodation. This project is designed to improve the assessment experience for students who require extra time to complete an assessment. With this new feature, instructors will now have the option to extend the time limit for individual students by a certain percentage of the original time limit.

To use this feature, instructors can navigate to the "Set Accommodations" section and select the student(s) who require extra time. They can then choose to extend the time limit by a specific number of minutes or by a percentage of the original time limit. The percentage setting allows for an extension of up to 200%.

For example, if a quiz has a time limit of 10 minutes, and an instructor sets an accommodation for a student to extend the time limit by 50%, the time limit for that student will now be 15 minutes (10 min + 5 min).

The Time Limit Extension Accommodation project is aimed at promoting equity and inclusivity within the assessment process. We believe that this new feature will provide instructors with additional tools to support students who require extra time to complete an assessment.

We hope you find this new feature useful and please do not hesitate to reach out to our support team if you have any questions or concerns.

Release Notes (June 20, 2022)

• Batch Edit: The new Batch Edit tool lets you apply the same assignment settings to a batch of selected assignments. This can be a time saver when setting dates and making changes to other settings that you wish to apply to multiple assignments.
  
  
• Canvas Course Copy: The new Canvas Course Copy tool allows course administrators to copy a Canvas course that is linked via LTI to an eLab course. The Canvas Course Copy then automatically initiates the copying of both the eLab course and the LTI integration. This allows course administrators to make copies of a master course and new instructors to begin using the copied course with minimal or no setup required in Canvas or eLab.

Release Notes (January 2022)

PHP Update: eLab utilizes PHP software and for information security reasons, an update to the newest version of PHP was required. This update was completed successfully, providing an even more secure operating environment for eLab users.

Release Notes (November 23, 2020)

Chrome Browser Third Party Cookie Update. A change in Google’s third-party cookies policy had caused cookies to be blocked, impacting access to eLab resources such as assignments in Canvas, Blackboard, and D2L. This has now been resolved by changing the way we store third-party cookies. This update automatically restores any settings you may have set if you followed our short term fix instructions, so no further actions are needed on your part.

Release Notes (October 16, 2020)

Allowing Late Assignment Submissions. The Late Assignment Submission tool allows students to submit late assignments and allows instructors to apply penalties to those late submissions. It also allows instructors to deduct a percentage of the total points awarded for the first day late and another percentage for each additional day late. Instructors can select these settings on assignment pages, and students see any late assignment deductions when viewing their attempt(s).

Release Notes (August 24, 2020)

Blackboard LTI 1.3 Integration. Our Blackboard LTI 1.3 integration enables you and your students to access eLab easily and securely directly through your Blackboard LMS without additional login, and to seamlessly transfer grades from eLab to Blackboard. Our latest release offers the following enhancements:

• Transfer of Raw Scores AND Percentage Scores. The availability of deep linking within LTI 1.3 enables the transfer of both raw scores and percentages to your Blackboard LMS.
• Improved Grade Syncing. Upgrades to the LTI framework will result in fewer situations where grades do not sync, reducing the frequency of manual grade syncing.
• Enhanced Security. LTI 1.3 meets the new IMS Security Framework requirements which include the industry-standard protocol IETF OAuth 2.0 for authentication services and JSON Web Tokens (JWT) for secure message signing. It also adopts the Open ID Connect workflow paradigm.

Release Notes (July 29, 2020)

• Ebook integration. An ebook link can now be added to Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, and D2L courses using our LMS integration tools. The link is readily available when setting up new integrations or can easily be added to an existing course by following the "Selecting eLab Resources to Add" sections of the instructor integration guides. Once an ebook link is added, both instructors and students can easily open their ebook from within their LMS course.

Release Notes (July 13, 2020)

• Canvas LTI 1.3 integration. Like previous versions, our Canvas LTI 1.3 integration enables you and your students to access eLab easily and securely directly through your Canvas LMS without additional login, and to seamlessly transfer grades from eLab to Canvas. Our latest release offers the following enhancements:
• Institution Level Setup. You no longer need to do individual setup for every instructor. With our Global Key, setup can apply to your entire institution.
• Transfer of Raw Scores AND Percentage Scores. The availability of deep linking within LTI 1.3 enables the transfer of both raw scores and percentages to your Canvas LMS.
• Improved Grade Syncing. Upgrades to the LTI framework will result in fewer situations where grades do not sync, reducing the frequency of manual grade syncing.
• Enhanced Security. LTI 1.3 meets the new IMS Security Framework requirements which include the industry standard protocol IETF OAuth 2.0 for authentication services and JSON Web Tokens (JWT) for secure message signing. It also adopts the Open ID Connect workflow paradigm.
• Improved Support for Manual Grade Transfers. Occasionally issues occur which prevent the automated transfer of grades from eLab to your LMS. Examples of issues include a student bypassing your LMS and logging directly into eLab, and situations where your LMS might be experiencing downtime (as noted above the LTI 1.3 release should lessen the frequency of these occurrences).

Previously, these issues required confirming the issue via eLab Technical Support, and then waiting until our development team could address it. With this release, you can now:

• Verify grade transfers from your eLab instructor dashboard – no need to contact eLab Technical Support to confirm that grades did or did not transfer.
• Respond immediately to students who report that their grade is not showing up in their LMS.
• Get faster response on requests for manual transfer of grades to your LMS. Our response times for manual grade transfers has been reduced to within 24 business hours. Our Admin/Instructor Guide (1.3) is designed to lead system admins through the process of setting up the integration on an institutional level. All instructors will then be able to use the eLab app to incorporate eLab resource links within their Canvas course(s).

Release Notes (June 11, 2020)

• LMS Grades Transfer. We added a new tool for Instructors to resend grades from eLab to their external LMS. This applies to assignments and tests only. This tool can be found in the left navigation menu under Assistants and Tools.

Release Notes (June 8, 2020)

• Canvas Global Key. System Admins now have the ability to complete the eLab integration on an institutional level. This option is available if instructors do not have access to setting up the app themselves.
  

Release Notes (April 3, 2020)

New and Enhanced Features and Tools

• New Moodle App. Our recently released Moodle app provides the same LTI connectivity to Moodle as to our D2L, Canvas, and Blackboard apps. Instructors can view the Moodle User Guide in the LMS Integration area under Assistants & Tools.
• LTI 1.3 Upgrade for D2L. Our D2L app has been updated to the latest version of LTI, version 1.3. This provides enhanced security and allows for the transfer of both raw scores and percentage scores. Our new Moodle app also supports LTI 1.3, and we are working on upgrading our Canvas and Blackboard apps to LTI 1.3 as well.
• Soft Delete Feature (Restore Courses). We’ve added a Restore Courses option that allows you to recover one or more entire courses within 30 days of deletion. If you have more than one course, use the Restore Courses feature by choosing Manage->Restore Courses. You will see the deleted courses listed, which you can then restore.
• User Guides. The D2L/Blackboard/Canvas/Moodle app-integration, instructor, and student user guides have been updated.
• Terms of Use and Privacy. Terms of Use and Privacy Policy checkboxes have been added to the Student and Educator Registration page.

You may have been asked to agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy if you’ve logged in for the first time since their introduction.

• Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS). We have added HTTPS to the eLab website to increase the security of all data.

Pest Control (Those Annoying Bugs)

Assignment resubmission has been fixed so instructors can set individual resubmission for a student without changing the resubmission date for the entire class or removing the resubmissions from the assignment. - Students are no longer able to duplicate the test page.