Public Blog 
Software update 6 May 2010
A patch has been released which addresses some issues that were discovered after the previous release. The update contains the following changes:
Course administration: The tip box that was introduced after the previous release is removed from the course administration page. The 'Enrol me' function also performs better.
Early learner interface and plug-ins: Plug-ins with licensing now works in the early learner interface.
ePortfolio/assessment portfolio: The ePortfolio and assessment portfolio can now be accessed with both short name and www in the URL.
Test 2.0: When assessing tests and the 'Ok – Next student' button was used; the user was redirected to at test which was already assessed. This has now been addressed.
Test 2.0: It is now possible to import and export questions in test 2.0 again.
My library: Users with æ, ø, å or other special characters in their first or last names were allowed to share content in My library, but their content could not be accessed by other users. This has now been addressed.
Parent dashboard: Some users reported that the parent profile was not created if the parent function was enabled. This has now been addressed.
Parent dashboard: Translation of 'Open' in the parent dashboard is now correct for Norwegian Bokmål and Norwegian Nynorsk (changed from Åpen to 'Åpne').
Behaviour – permanent deletion: Permanently deleting courses with behaviour remarks now works. The behaviour remarks will still be available.
Users – permanent deletion: Permanent deletion of users now works.
CSV import of users: CSV import of users now works for sites using policies.
Projects: New projects are now saved to the correct organisation.
Customer skins: Fixes for dashboards in the customer skins.
Applications: The URL in the tip box on the add applications page did not work. This has now been addressed.
Internet Explorer 6 warning: Some users have reported seeing the Internet Explorer 6 warning with different browsers than Internet Explorer 6. This has now been addressed.
Software update: 15 April 2010
A new version of it's learning has been released. The most important news includes a new parent dashboard, and a new library, which are described in separate blog entries. The other news is described below. In addition to the new features we have made almost 150 enhancements and corrections.
Hierarchy spring clean up
Sites and administrators are already notified about the forthcoming hierarchy spring clean up. The following actions will be performed:
- Restrictions on hierarchy type:
- Only the root hierarchy can be defined as a site
- A school cannot be placed under a school
- A local administrator at a school can no longer see users on other schools
School autonomy
The idea behind school autonomy is to make the schools more independent from each other – for example if a site consists of a local authority with several independent schools.
As a result, administrators are now only allowed to see and manage courses and mentors in the organisations in which they are administrators. Mentors are only able to see elements – such as users and ILPs – at their own hierarchy level.
When managing projects, administrators are only allowed to see projects in the sites or schools in which they have 'manage projects' permission.
It is now possible to add a hierarchy level to a courses and projects. This allows courses and projects to be filtered or displayed according to organisation, for example 'site' or 'school'. When a course is imported, the school is assigned automatically. Site administrators can filter policies by organisation level.
When a local administrator enters a site with school autonomy enabled, only elements from the local school are shown in Administration >> Trashcan.
eSafety
Others are renamed to Guests in eSafety.
Show dashboard and main page simultaneously
The main page is discontinued and replaced by the dashboard 31 December 2010. Administrators are notified about this in a message in Administration >> Profiles. To provide administrators with time to move content from the main page to the dashboards, it is now possible to display the old main page and new dashboard simultaneously. To enable both the dashboard and main page for a profile, click Administration >> Profiles >> Edit profile, and check the Main page and Dashboard boxes under Profile functionality.
Teacher task list
The task list for teachers which was missing from the course dashboard after the last release is now available as a content block.
Task list for students via REST API
An API is created where portals can retrieve a list of tasks for a specific user. Supports paging.
Beta functionality
If new functionality is tagged as in beta, users are allowed to provide feedback on the functionality. The feedback is automatically sent to our idea portal – via Google translate if users choose to comment on languages other than English.
Lynchpin
An important milestone has been reached as Lynchpin is now officially certified and integrated with it's learning. Lynchpin is an interoperability system that moves data from a school's MIS system, and automatically creates amends, populates or delete accounts in it's learning. It also has the ability to work with other SIF compliant online systems. Read more about Lynchpin.
Behaviour
Behaviour is enabled for all customers. Teachers and mentors can now delete incorrect behaviour remarks, or flag them as erroneous.
Individual learning plans
Mentors are now allowed to have several different current plans for each learner, and have one progress bar visible for each plan.
Discussions
It is now possible to add an introduction to discussions. This allows teachers to provide introductory comments or questions when adding discussions.
Test 2.0
A new feature makes it possible for teachers to change manual assessments in test 2.0 at whatever time.
Espresso
Until now, Espresso has been available for all sites in the UK. It is now possible to enable or disable Espresso via a site setting. In addition it is possible to grant students access to Clipbank and Espresso content. If enabled, Espresso and Clipbank are available as a content block.
IMS/ES
The performance of readPersonForGroup and readGroupsForPerson is now radically improved. As a result, the number of timeouts will hopefully be reduced.
Hierarchy distribution lists
Users are now provided with an extended amount of distribution lists.
Cloud e-mail
The itslearningmail.com domain is discontinued and replaced by edumail.org. Schools can have edumail.org enabled by request. The edumail.org domain does not support filtering on reading.
Internet Explorer 6 and other outdated browsers
As previously mentioned, we will discontinue support for Internet Explorer 6 and other older browsers. Users on these browsers will now see a message in the interface asking them to upgrade.
TV 2 Skole
TV 2 Skole has been discontinued and is removed from it's learning.
Extensions
Vendors can now use rich-text in the long description metadata field when adding and editing extensions. It is also possible to add volume licensing for schools or sites in different markets. Example: Set a price for 0–9999 users, but give a discount for schools or sites with more than 10 000 users.
Corrections
Almost 150 bugs are addressed. Click here to download a PDF document with all the fixes.
Update: Parent dashboard
A new version of it's learning has been released. The most important news includes a new parent dashboard, and a new library, in addition to almost 150 enhancements and corrections.
Engage the parents!
The first version of the parent dashboard is finished and released in beta. Our goal is to provide the parents with an overview of the child's school work, development, behaviour and presence – a combination that will enhance the home-school communication.
Although still under development, parents are allowed to log in to it's learning and access an overview of their children's planned and completed activities, courses, personal reports and lesson plans.
A little manual work is necessary from the system administrators before parents can log in: Enable the parent dashboard, add parent users, and assign parents to the learners. See the help for more information.
The first version includes ten features:
- New global setting: Allows system administrators to enable or disable the parent module.
- Profiles: New profile setting for parents.
- eSafety: The fixed eSafety rules are updated to cover the parent relationships.
- Mentor menu: A new Parents link is added to the mentor menu.
- Mentor: A new child-parent overview is created for the mentor.
- Individual learning plans: As a preparation for the upcoming ILP content block, mentors can now make certain information from the ILP visible to the parents.
- Administration: Administrators are allowed to add parents to a learner.
- Parent user import: Possible to import parents via CSV files.
- Child dashboard: A dashboard is created for each child, containing the most important information parents need to know about their child's education and school life.
- Parent content blocks: The following content blocks are available:
- Planned activities
- Completed activities
- Course list with links to personal reports and lesson plans
The child dashboard as seen from a parent's perspective (click the picture for a full-screen view):
The mentor menu:
Read more about the parent dashboard in the help!
Update: My library
A new personal library is created for teachers and administrators, in which course elements can be created. The elements can be used in multiple courses, or shared with other users. In courses, elements from My library are added from the Ready-to-use content list of resources.
My library is available as a new tab, and provides teachers' with an overview of their elements. Currently only pages can be added, but more elements will be added later on.
The most important we have accomplished with the first version of My library is to allow teachers to reuse their own content in multiple courses. A teacher can now add the same page in 20 courses and update it in all courses with a few clicks in the library. This is incredibly time-saving!
Elements created in My library can be shared on three different levels: school, site and community. The last option allows you to share your content with all it's learning users across the world – regardless of site. We encourage teachers to create content that can be reused globally! Content from other users can be found by clicking Add content from My library while in a course, and search for content.
Read more about My library in the help!
it's learning browser support
In order to continue delivering the best of the breed in learning platforms we need to harness the latest web browser technology. As of now, older browsers are slowing both us and you down. Typical examples of such old browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 and Netscape 4.7.
To speed up development, enhance security and improve the user experience we plan to begin phasing out support of Internet Explorer 6.0 and other outdated browsers on 1 July 2010. Certain functionality within it’s learning may not work correctly in these older browsers when we stop supporting them.
We know that some of you still use Internet Explorer 6.0, but be aware that this browser for a long time has been considered an antique – even Microsoft recommends their users to upgrade. New browsers such as Internet Explorer 8.0 and above and Firefox 3.6 and above are more secure and have the built-in technology you need to get the full potential of it’s learning.
Starting in March/April, users on these older browsers will see a message on the login page explaining this change and asking them to upgrade their browser.
Users who continue using these browsers after 1 July 2010 log in at their own responsibility.
To avoid any problems, we recommend you to upgrade to one of the following browsers:
- Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.0 or higher
- Mozilla Firefox 3.6 or higher
- Safari 4 or higher
- Opera 10 or higher
Click here to find out what browser you have.