Public Blog 
Software update 26 August 2010
it's learning has been updated with a new version. This time we hope to reduce some of the burden connected to the start of a new school year for teachers and administrators – with focus on reusing.
We are also proud to release a brand new attendance system for all customers, a new progress report and a number of new features and improvements to the dashboards. Click the links below to read more about the news!
We make the start of the school year easier!
The beginning of a new school year can be stressful for administrators and teachers. We are now releasing some features meant to reduce the work burden connected to the start of a new school year.
Copying course elements
It is now possible to copy elements between courses without copying participants, answers and submissions. This simplifies the reusing of courses, and teachers no longer have to spend time cleaning up old reused courses. Uncheck the Include answers and submissions box to copy elements without participants, answers and submissions connected to them.
Importing and exporting links
This nifty little feature allows teachers to export and import course links as a bookmarks.html file, thus making it easy to reuse links in different courses, or import bookmarks and favourites from your browser – for example Firefox or Internet Explorer.
Script for end of school year
In order to reduce the end of school year process, a script has been made that stops all SIMS integrations on a site and start them again later. The script breaks all current hierarchy synchronisations and creates a new start hierarchy for the school's synchronisation with SIMS.
New attendance system
The new attendance keeping system has been enhanced with more features and improvements. As a result, the old attendance system is removed and replaced with a brand new solution. The new attendance system has been in beta for a while, and was described in this entry. If you want to retrieve data from the old system, please contact our helpdesk.
The video shows how the attendance system can be used by teachers, mentors, learners and parents.
The new features for this release include:
Managing and registering planned absence for learners
Learners can now inform teachers about planned absence in advance. This is time-saving for teachers who no longer have to spend time searching for reasons for scheduled absence. The learner registers the absence by clicking ePortfolio >> Attendance >> Register absence:
Teachers see the notifications from the learners as comments in the attendance overview.
Feedback on attendance
The comment/feedback on attendance function is slightly changed. To make the interface more efficient, the old interface is replaced with a new interface with a comment column to the right of the attendance table:
Comment logs
All comments are shown as a log when you click the comments icon. It is possible to hide comments from the learners. Learners, mentors and teachers are notified about new comments through the internal messaging system and thus also on the main dashboard. The images below shows the comment feature from a learner's view.
Class length in course timetable
Course teachers and mentors can now edit the class hour length (in minutes) in the timetable setup. As a result, the attendance reports now include minutes in addition to hours.
Showing two absence rates
It is now possible to show two absence rates: Whole term and Completed class hours. The first shows the total absence for the term, while the latter shows the percentage and number of class hours that are actually completed and submitted.
Notification letters
From the attendance and behaviour systems it is possible to create letters with behaviour or attendance notifications that can be printed and sent to a learner's parents. The report is usually sent when a learner has shown unacceptable behaviour or has a high absence rate. The letters easily generated, and they are saved in it's learning as a reference for later.
Teachers and mentors are allowed to edit the template text when new letters are created. The addresses of the school and learner are automatically inserted into the letter – if address information is saved in it's learning.
The notification letters are available for course teachers in the attendance and behaviour reports in Status and follow-up, and for mentors from under the mentor tab. The letters are created in it's learning, saved, and then printed and sent to the parents who signs it and returns it to the school.
Read more about attendance in the help!
Dashboards and parent dashboard
Dashboards
Aggregated content blocks
A number of aggregated content blocks, allowing users to add content blocks to their personal dashboards, hierarchies, courses and parent dashboards are now available from the add content block pop-up.
Because of the increasing number of content blocks have changed the way the content blocks are organised. There are now two tabs in the add content block window: 'Create' and 'Aggregated'. 'Create' content blocks have content created by the person setting them up, such as files, images, links and rich content. Under the 'Aggregated' tab you find content blocks that are generated by the system or other user, including activities from the calendar, completed activities, e-mail, and internal messages. This allows for more flexible dashboards and information flow.
Tip: When you have logged in to it's learning, click My dashboard in the left frame. You can now set up your own dashboard and fill it with the content blocks you want.
Course progress content block
A learner's progress report can now be added as a content block to the course dashboard.
Parent dashboards
ILP and attendance content blocks
New individual learning plan and attendance content blocks are added to the parent dashboard. The ILP content block shows a progress overview of the child's current plans with link to the plans. The attendance content block provides parents with an overview of their child's attendance.
Content block administration
Different schools may have different practices of parent involvement. To allow schools to customise the parent dashboards, it is now possible for administrators to define the positioning of the content blocks for the parent dashboard. The feature is located under the Administration tab >> Edit global settings >> Manage user summary dashboard.
Progress report 2.0 and course completion
The new progress report shows the participant's progress in the course, measured by the number of mandatory elements. It is also possible to create rules for course completion. Example: Eight out of ten mandatory elements should be completed (see Course completion below).
Each element is represented by a section in the progress bar, and there are four colour codes based on the status of the task:
- Grey: Open (not started)
- Green: Completed
- Red: Past deadline
- Yellow: Deadline within a given number of days
Links to both the old and the new progress report can be found in Status and follow-up.
Course completion
A course teacher may now define other course completion criteria than 'All activities completed'. This allows for a more flexible way of course completion. The course completion settings allow you to define the completion criteria for progress report. Click Settings in the top right corner of the progress report to edit the course completion settings. There are three course completion criteria: 'All mandatory activities', 'A number of mandatory activities' and 'A percentage of the mandatory activities'.