Product Updates 2024

It’s always time to list and acknowledge wins! Take advantage of the earliest days of Spring, lean back, and join us in celebrating Aula’s greatest milestones of 2024.

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January

1 Starred Spaces: Users can mark frequently accessed spaces with a star for quicker navigation and remove the star at any time.

2️ Visible Learning: Students see a "Mark as complete" button on each Material page, allowing them to track their progress. They can click it again to unmark the material. To review their progress, students can click on the "View Progress Overview" button to access their dashboard.

Educators can monitor student progress through Engagement Analytics.

3️ Dashboard Enhancement: Admin users can enter or adjust space start and end dates on their own, without relying on the university record system or Aula engineers.

4️ Accessibility Improvements

🌟Key Improvements:

✔️Screen reader: Improved checkbox switches to ensure users with vision impairment can easily identify their name and purpose.

✔️Keyboard fix: Resolved an issue where pressing the ‘Escape’ key while interacting with card menus could cause the application to crash.

🐞 Bug Solutions

Engagement Analytics

Problem: The Engagement Analytics tab was not displaying content in some spaces.

✔️ Solution: Fixed the issue to ensure analytics work properly in all spaces.

February 

🐞 Bug Solutions

1️ Pinned Posts

Problem:Pinning orunpinning a post automatically removed its tags.

✔️Solution: Tags now remain intact when a post is pinned or unpinned.

2️ Engagement Analytics

Problem: Some records were missing from the Engagement Analytics report.

✔️ Solution: All records now display correctly in the Engagement Analytics dashboards.

3️ User Creation in the Admin Dashboard

Problem: An issue was preventing user creation in the Admin Dashboard.

✔️ Solution: Users can now be created successfully.

4️ Keyboard Navigation

Problem: The participant's tag chip caused errors when clicked while in a selected state.

✔️ Solution: The close button is now accessible via keyboard navigation, ensuring improved accessibility.

March 

✅ Completed Work

Handin Launches in a New Tab: When creating an assignment in Handin, it opens in a new tab for easier navigation.

🐞 Bug Solutions

Files on Mobile App

Problem: Images and files uploaded via the mobile app were not visible to users on the web app.

✔️ Solution: Uploaded images and files are now visible across both mobile and web apps.

2️ Scheduled Announcements

Problem: It was not possible to click on the"publish now" option on a scheduled announcement.

✔️ Solution: The issue has been resolved, and scheduled announcements can now be published immediately if wanted.

3️ Engagement Analytics

Problem: Previously, the Engagement Analytics metric did not account for materials that students marked as complete, and then later hidden by educators.

✔️ Solution: Engagement Analytics for "Material Completed" now correctly adjusts the completion percentage to reflect only visible materials. If a student marks apage as complete and an educator later hides it, the completion percentage is updated accordingly.

April 

🐞 Bug Solutions

ClosingAssignments in Handin

Problem: The assignment card menu in Handin would remain open even after closing it.

✔️ Solution: The issue has been resolved, and the assignment card menu now closes properly.

2️ Turnitin - Late Submission Label

Problem: When late submissions were allowed, the Turnitin assignment box incorrectly showed the “Closed” label.

✔️ Solution: Turnitin assignment boxes now correctly display the “Past due date” label when late submissions are allowed.

3️ Post Edits

Problem: When editing a postin the feed, cancelling the edit did not revert the content to its original state.

✔️ Solution: Cancelling an edit now restores the post to its pre-edit state.

May 

✅ Completed Work

Mobile App Support for LTI Blocks: The Aula mobile app supports displaying LTI 1.3 blocks and assignment blocks, ensuring a consistent experience across both web and mobile.

🐞 Bug Solutions

1️ Login Loop

Problem: Users could get stuck in a login loop when trying to access Aula.

✔️ Solution: Users can now log in without interruptions.

2️ Deletion of Handin Submissions

Problem: Educators were unable to delete Handin submissions.

✔️ Solution: Educators can now delete submissions as needed.

3️ Assignment Extension

Problem: A purple screen appeared when working on an assignment with extensions.

✔️ Solution: The experience when handling assignments with extensions is now smoother.

4️ Login Issues

Problem: Some students experienced login issues in Aula, seeing test environments as selectable options despite not being added to them.

✔️ Solution: Students now access Aula without seeing any test environment option.

June 

🐞 Bug Solutions

DuplicateAssignment Creation (LTI Tools)

Problem:

• Some LTI tools were mistakenly creating duplicate assignments.

• This caused confusion and extra work for educators.

✔️Solution:

• Ensured that only one assignment is created per tool.
• Added safeguards to prevent similar problems in the future.

👉 No more duplicate assignments!

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2️ Web App Refresh Problem

Problem:

• The community feed didn’t reload properly after refreshing the page.

• Announcements and posts sometimes disappeared until a manual reload.

✔️Solution:

• Now the feed and announcements update correctly after a page refresh.

👉 Smoother browsing and real-time updates!

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3️ iOS App – Notification Checkbox Flickering

Problem:

• On iPhones, notification checkboxes flickered when checked or unchecked.
• It made it hard to know if a setting was saved.

✔️Solution:

• We ensured each checkbox works independently without flickering.
• Optimizing the User Interface for a smoother experience.

👉 A more reliable and user-friendly notification setup!

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4️ Group Avatar Display

Problem:

• After uploading a group avatar, it didn’t appear on the page.

✔️Solution:

• Avatars now display correctly right after upload.

👉 No more missing avatars – groups now look complete! 🎉

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5️ Handin Rubrics

Problem:

• When an educator created a HandIn assignment with a grading rubric, the rubric was not carried over when an extension was added. 

✔️Solution:

• Rubrics now persist when extensions are added.

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6️ Participant History 

Problem:

• The 'Load more' button continued to appear at the bottom of the participant history list, even when no additional participants were available to load.

✔️Solution:

• The button no longer displays when there are no more participants to load.

July

 ✅ Completed Work

1️ Easier Control Over LTI Assignments

We’ve improved how educators manage LTI assignments to give them more control.

• Assignments Start as Hidden – By default, assignments aren’t visible to students until an educator decides otherwise.
• Easy Visibility Toggle – Educators can turn assignment visibility on or off whenever they need to.
• More Clarity for Students – If an LTI tool is disabled, students see a clear warning message instead of an error.

👉 This makes managing assignments smoother and ensures students don’t get confused.

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2️ Enhancing Integration of External Assessment Tools (LTI Tools)

❓ Why Was This Needed?

• Some tools required educators to manually enter settings, which was time-consuming and could lead to errors.

✔️What’s New?

• Admins can now pre-set configurations for external tools.
• Educators just select a tool from a drop-down menu, and the settings fill in automatically.

👉 Seamless setup, fewer errors, and less hassle for educators!

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3️ Improving Copy-Paste Functionality in theEditor

🌟Key Improvements:
✔️Lists (Bullets & Numbering) working properly – Pasting from Word keeps the correct format.
✔️Multi-level lists improved – Sub-lists stay structured.
✔️Links are clickable – URLs convert into working links automatically.
✔️Font colors from Word are retained – No more losing important formatting.
✔️Unnecessary comments & references are removed – Reduces clutter when pasting.
✔️Missing images now show placeholders – Helps users identify missing visuals for manual upload.

👉 Better formatting, cleaner pasting, and an improved user experience! 🚀

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🐞 Bug Fixes

4️ Profile Picture Uploads Now Work Correctly

• Problem: When users uploaded a profile picture, it sometimes looked stretched or cropped weirdly.
• Solution:
      ✔️ Images are now cropped into a  perfect square.
      ✔️ They are resized properly (500x500 pixels) so they look clear.

👉 Now, your profile picture will always look just right.

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5️ Fix for Duplicate Assignments

• Problem: Some assignments were being created twice by mistake.
• Solution:
      ✔️ Now, only one assignment is created per tool.
      ✔️ We’ve added extra safeguards to prevent this from happening again.

👉 This fix prevents unnecessary confusion and keeps things organized.

August 

✅ Completed Work 

1️ Quiz Feature Removed 

We have removed the old native quiz system (Learnosity) to improve platform performance and simplify things for users.

• No More Quiz Button – The quiz feature is disabled, and the item bank button was removed.
• Blocked Direct Access – Users can no longer open quizzes using old links.
• Error Page for Quizzes – If someone tries to access a quiz, they will be redirected to an error page.

👉 This change removes clutter and makes the platform more efficient.

September

✅ Completed work

Learnositytool no longer used for new quizzes

• Allowed institutions to use their own quiz tools with LTI integration.
• Ensured past student submission data is available for institutions.

Keychanges: 

✏️ Creating Assignments – Educators can no longer create or import Learnosity quizzes.

📊 Assignment Page View – Educators and students can view quiz statuses and grades, but students cannot access detailed quiz pages.

✅ Submission View – Educators can see statuses and grades but not detailed quiz submissions.

🎯 Student Success App – Educators can view past quizzes mapped to assessments and export grades, while students can see grades but not detailed quizzes.

🏫 Institution Data Access – Institutions can view all past quiz answers, submissions, marks, and feedback.

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🐞Bug Fixes 

📌 Pinned Post Count Issue
Problem: When users unpinned a post, the post count didn’t updatecorrectly. The post disappeared from the pinned list, but the count remained the same.

Solution ✔️Now, the pin count updates instantly whenever a post is pinned or unpinned.
✔️Ensures data consistency across all platforms (mobile & web).

👉 Users now see accurate post counts without delays!

October 

✅ Completed Work 

1️ Learnosity Updates 

 ✔️ New quizzes can no longer be created using Learnosity to ensure a smooth transition.
✔️ Existing Learnosity quizzes could not work as expected back then.

👉 This is part of a larger transition to a better quiz system.

2️ Organizing Quiz Submission Data

• The quiz data was originally in a complex format (JSON), which was hard to read.
• The team converted it into a structured, easy-to-use format for better access.
• Stored the cleaned-up data in Google Drive so institutions can easily find it.
• Created a visual tool that lets institutions view, print, and download quiz submissions.

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3️ Faster & Smoother Aula Editor

 ✔️ We upgraded the Aula Editor to the latestversion across all systems.
What’s better?

• Faster performance – Pages and content load quicker.
• Bug fixes – Fewer glitches when editing.
• Improved experience – Easier, smoother writing and formatting.

👉 This means a better and more reliable editing experience for everyone!

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4️ Accessibility Statement Page 

• A new accessibility page was added to Aula to help all users navigate the platform easily.
• The link to this page was placed in the footer of the website for quick access.

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🐞 Bug Fixes 

1️ Fix for Community Feed Not Loading

Problem: Some users experienced issues with the community feed not loading properly.

Solution:✔️ Issue fixed and extra tests were added to prevent it from happening again.

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2️ Missing Web Tracking Data

Problem:

• Since March 2024, web events hadn’t been tracked properly due to a system error.
• This meant we were not getting accurate data on how students and educators used the platform.

✔️Solution:

• The data team identified the issue and the data now displays correctly

November 

✅ Completed Work

1️ Learnosity is Now Fully Removed

 ✔️ Learnosity was completely removed from Aula.
✔️ No more new quizzes can be created using Learnosity.
✔️ Existing Learnosity quizzes can no longer be edited.

👉 This marks the final step in moving away from Learnosity, and into an improved quizzes experience!

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2️ Student Assessments – Now Smoother on Mobile

 ✔️ The team was dedicated to making submitting assignments easier on mobile devices.
✔️ Enhancements help students navigate and complete assessments seamlessly.

👉 An improved mobile experience for students!

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3️ Student Success App Renamed

✔️ The "Student Success App" button is now called "Assignments" – making it clearer for students.
✔️ A new "View" button has been added for quick access to assignments.

👉 No more confusion – students can now easily find theirassignments!

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4️ Mobile Assignment Links Now Work Correctly

Before: Clicking an assignment link on mobile showed a "Use a desktop" message.
✔️ Now: Students are taken directly to the submission page and can make the submission.
⚠ Note: If an assignment provider (like Turnitin) doesn’t support mobile properly, the experience may still have issues.
✔️ The team cannot fix third-party problems but can request improvements.

👉 A big step towards better mobile accessibility!

5️ Better UX – No More Extra Headers

 ✔️ An extra header on the Handin assignment page was removed.
✔️ This makes the page less cluttered and easier to use on mobile.

 ✔️ “Cancel” Button Placement Fixed: Adjusted for better clarity and ease of use.
✔️ Screen Alignment Improved: Ensures a better and more accessible viewing experience.

👉 A simpler, more user-friendly experience!

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🐞 Bug Fixes

HiddenAssignments Now Sync Properly

Problem: When an assignment was hidden in Handin, it was still visible in Aula.
✔️ Solution: Hidden assignments stay hidden across both platforms.

👉 No more mismatched assignment visibility!

Assignment Deletion Issue
Problem: When an assignment was deleted, users who were viewing or editing it faced errors.

✔️ Solution:Users are redirected with a clear message explaining that the assignment was deleted or hidden.

👉 No more confusion when assignments are removed!

Tooltip Issue in Materials Section

Problem: When an educator hovered over certain text in the materials section, a tooltip appeared. However, when the cursor moved away, the tooltip did not disappear as expected,leading to a cluttered and confusing interface.

✔️Solution: The tooltip now disappears immediately when the cursor moves away.

👉 Seamlessly experience avoiding clutter and visual pollution.

December 

✅ Completed Work 

1 Easier Student Assignment Submissions

✔️ Students can now submit assignments from multiple places:

• From the common Materials page
• From the Assignment section
       ✔️ A video demo is available, showing the entire submission process.

👉 This makes submitting assignments clearer and more convenient!

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🐞Bug Fixes 

1️ Profile Pictures Now Appear in Participant History

Problem: Profile pictures were missing in participant history.

Solution:

✔️ Profile pictures now display correctly.

👉 Now you can view participant profiles without issues.

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