We've upgraded the editor for Assessments, Assignments, Forums, Content Fragments, and Widgets.
The previous "Content Block" is now known as "Page Organizer," providing a quick snapshot of your complete content.
Easily reorder or delete content right from the Organizer to reflect changes in the main editor.
User-friendly names, thumbnails, and the ability to highlight elements from the Organizer have been added for better identification.
Align Outcomes to Rubric Criteria:
Authors can now choose to align, remove, or replace outcomes/taxonomies in rubric criteria or manually define descriptions.
Aligned outcomes appear along with the human coding scheme and taxonomy node description in the Align platform.
Track the association of outcomes with the rubric in usage count reports.
Authors can preview, export, or deep publish aligned taxonomy information to Canvas.
Rubric Enhancements:
Preview rubrics associated with assignments and forums within Designer.
Now support up to 35 criteria within all rubric types.
Duplicate Assessments, Assignments, and Forums on TOC:
Users can now duplicate Assessment, Assignment, and Forum nodes, creating a local reference copy linked to the TOC.
Copy over associated Rubrics, settings, questionnaires, and metadata associations.
Preserve asset references, ensuring local assets stay local, and references to assets in the LOR remain unchanged.
Author Content with Inline Images:
Introducing the Inline type option for images in Designer and LOR.
Add images in line with text, with options for left, right, centre alignment or none.
Easily toggle between inline and block display styles.
Available for imports, exports, deep publishes, duplicates, and previews.
Enhancements in Deep Publish:
When deep publishing a course to Canvas, the last applied settings for each LMS configuration are now preserved, even when different users attempt deep publishing.
This improvement ensures consistent functional behaviour, especially when the same course is deep-published by different users using the same configuration.
Error validation is now in place for end users' deep publishing courses from Frost to Canvas, based on their sub-account level access.
Grade Settings - Support for D2L Import:
We've extended support for importing, previewing, and complete portability of commonly used LMS settings from D2L for grading assessments, assignments, and forums in Frost.
This now includes courses authored and imported from D2L.
Enlarge Image in Preview:
Frost authors can now enlarge/magnify embedded images in preview by configuring the respective image patterns while authoring.
Directly Tag Courses to Browsing Taxonomies:
Creating or editing courses in Designer with taxonomy filters applied now automatically associates the selected taxonomy node with the respective courses.
These associations reflect across metadata usage count, editing, and preview.
Reuse Unidentified Objects as External Links in Content:
Authors can now filter and embed unidentified objects from the LOR library as External Links within all Frost editors (Designer and LOR).
These hyperlinked assets are downloadable by end users during course previews in FROST and LMS.
Note: This feature is currently supported exclusively in Canvas for exports and deep publishes.
Enable External Links from LOR to be Reused while Authoring:
Authors can now reuse External Links authored in the LOR across Frost editors during the authoring process.
A new filter, 'External Link,' has been added under the 'Content' type across Frost editors.
Applicable to various areas like Content Screens, Templates, Widgets, Patterns, Assessment Instructions, Assignment and Forum Description, and Content Fragment.
Enhanced Resource Authoring and Management:
Users can now author resource patterns directly while creating content in Designer, eliminating the need to pre-add resources from the management section.
This feature offers the convenience of quickly authoring and reusing resources while creating other content.
Support of Module Description Authored in D2L in Frost (D2L Import):
Authors can preview the D2L module (Folder) description in Frost upon importing the package.
The description of each module authored in D2L is displayed within a separate Content Screen in Frost after import, placed as the first node in the course TOC within the respective Folder.
Note: The description Content Screen is treated as a normal Content Screen while exporting from Frost and is not expected to map back to the Folder Description in D2L.
Set Alignment of External Tools in Content:
Authors can now easily align External Tools to the left, right, or centre from the Settings tab of the respective element.
This applies to various areas in Designer and LOR, including Content Screens, Templates, Widgets, Patterns, Assessment Instructions, Assignment and Forum Descriptions, and Content Fragments.
The support extends to imports, exports, deep publishes, duplicates, and previews in both Frost and LMS.
External Tool Height & Width Updates:
While authoring External Tools, the placeholder block now scales proportionally for better usability and readability.
The default empty placeholder dimensions are set at 150px height and 940px width, transforming to 528px height and 940px width upon selecting a registered tool.
Users can now see max/min-height and width indications for External Tool patterns.
Applicable to various areas with advanced editors in Designer and LOR, including Content Screens, Templates, Widgets, Patterns, Descriptions (Assessment, Assignment, Forum), and Content Screens & Content Fragments in LOR.
Support extends to imports, exports, deep publishes, duplicates, and previews in both Frost and LMS.
Ability to Assign Default Groups to Projects:
Users can now set default combinations of User Groups and Roles within Designer, automatically assigning them to new projects.
A new tab named 'Auto-assign to Projects' under Settings > Users enables this feature.
Default groups will be automatically included in new projects created, saving effort in extending course access to the required set of users.
Manual association of users and groups to projects will continue as before.
The feature works during project duplication, allowing the choice of default group and role assignment or carrying forward the same user/group association from the source.
Validation ensures no duplicate user inclusions and handles conflicts with user groups efficiently.
This feature is governed by settings on the Tenant Configuration page.
Usage Report on TOC:
Individual node-level usage reports have been introduced for both hidden LOR objects and global objects in LOR.
'Hidden LOR objects' and 'Global objects in LOR' icons display usage details on click in terms of their presence in other courses.
The report opens as a popup, showing a list of courses where a specific node is present in the outline.
Accessibility Checker (BETA):
Phase I of the Accessibility Checker is now integrated with all Designer and LOR editors.
Users can run the checker to identify and fix issues related to missing Alt Text in Images, missing descriptions in Audio, missing Closed Captions in Videos, and issues with Color Contrast.
Each identified issue is presented sequentially through an overlay popup, allowing users to apply fixes directly from within the popup.
This feature ensures a quick and efficient resolution of identified accessibility issues.
Tagging Course Elements to Any Level of the Taxonomy Hierarchy:
Authors can now tag course elements present on the TOC to the taxonomy at all levels in the hierarchy, including parent nodes and leaf nodes.
Usage count of the taxonomy is tracked against all levels of the hierarchy.
Users can select any taxonomy node from the metadata (taxonomy) picker for Search and Browse, enabling filtering courses in Designer with nodes at any individual level of the hierarchy.
Enhanced Taxonomy Coverage Report with Taxonomy Associations:
The Taxonomy Coverage Report has been improved to include correlations of selected nodes with other taxonomy nodes added and published from Align.
The report now shows a more detailed picture of relationships, including connections with both assets and other nodes in the same or different taxonomy.