In these release notes
assessmentQ 2.3 contains the following new features and improvements:
- New item type: Canvas
- New User Management module
- Economic item Journal available in assessmentQ backoffice
- Answer details available for three item types
- Improvements to the Monitoring module
- Support for webhooks
- Various improvements in the assessmentQ backoffice
- Removed Edumatic features
New item type: Canvas
Digital exams have many advantages over exams on paper, but several challenges remain:
- How can you let your participants solve a math or science question that involves complex formulas and multiple steps?
- How can you let your users draw something, for example an electric scheme?
- How can users draw or indicate something on a background image, such as an image with an X and Y axis?
The new Canvas item in assessmentQ solves many of these challenges: it allows users to draw on their PC or tablet like they would draw on paper.
Note: The Canvas item requires a pen device to enable handwriting or drawing as input.
New User Management module
Starting from assessmentQ 2.3 the User management module is available in the assessmentQ backoffice. It has become much more flexible than before, as administrators can now define their own custom roles based on the specific needs of their organisation.
Note: The Edumatic Coach role has been split up into 2 roles: a Scheduler (who schedules assignments) and an Analyst (who analyses and has access to the results).
The user management contains several other improvements and new features that our customers will welcome:
- new permissions that you can enable or disable
- The ability to give a certain role access to all items, assignments, schedules or scenarios in your environment (the so-called extended access)
- The possibility to deactivate users
- The possibility to permanently delete and anonymise users
- The possibility to import groups
- and much more.
Economic item Journal
The economic item type Journal is now available in the assessmentQ backoffice.
The item has several interesting new features and options. As an author, you can:
- choose the model on which the journal item is based.
- group debit and credit lines.
- allow an account range or not
- allow extra journal entries to be added to the player
Journal is also available in the Grading module now, so graders can override the automatic score if they want.
Answer details for three item types
In the Analysis module in the assessmentQ Reporting, you can now see the answer details, including the time spent on the item, for the three most common item types:
- Multiple choice
- Multiple response
- Fill gaps
When you preview a question from within the Analysis module, you will see A, B, C, D in front of the answers in multiple-choice or multiple response questions, or 1, 2, 3, 4 in front of the gaps in a fill gaps questions. This way you can easily map the answer statistics with the corresponding answer.
Improvements to the Monitoring module
Based on the feedback by our customers, the following improvements have been added to the Monitoring module:
- The field User name can be enabled in the overview of sessions, so the supervisor can more easily identify the participants.
- The supervisor cannot only unlock, but also lock sessions in the Monitoring module. The session overview now also shows which sessions are locked by means of an icon
- The supervisor can also enable a column in the session overview that shows the number of warnings and incidents, so he can easily monitor how these evolve in the course of an exam.
- The supervisor can not only add extra time but also reduce the available time for participants.
Note: Subtracting time is also available in the assessmentQ API.
Support for webhooks
External platforms polling the assessmentQ API on a regular basis, cause extra and often unnecessary load on assessmentQ.
To enhance the communication with external platforms in a future-proof way we introduced Webhooks.
Webhooks allow an external platform to subscribe to assessmentQ events. When the expected event occurs, a message is sent to the external platform in order to inform the platform that new results are available in assessmentQ and can be retrieved.
Currently, assessmentQ supports Webhooks for 2 events:
- Session Finished
- Assignment Results Published
Starting from assessmentQ 2.3, it is possible for assessmentQ administrators to manage Webhook subscriptions themselves. Administrators can do that in the new Integrations module under Settings.
Note: Administrators can create a new role Developer and let a developer set up Webhook subscriptions (and in the future: other integrations) by giving this role access to only the Integrations module.
Interesting use case:
Signpost (Certified Reseller of assessmentQ) is developing an integration with the school platform Smartschool based on the Assignment Results Published event. When the grading and
analysis of an assignment are finished, the analyst can select the option Send results in the assignment
report and all results of this assignment will be sent to Smartschool.
Various improvements in the assessmentQ backoffice
- Authors can archive and delete assignments in bulk. This is useful in education, for example, when the assignments of the past academic year have to be archived or deleted together.
- The score of a case is displayed in the item bank and for cases that are part of an assignment.
- Offline packages now use the themes that are defined in the Themes module.
- The icons used on the Click on image item have been improved.
- The participant can now use a table in his answer to an open question.
- The assignment template offers a new option to lock a session.
- A new option in the assignment template allows you to prevent participants from navigating back from an assignment to the portal. This is particularly interesting when the sessions are locked, as the participants will not be able to start their session again in case the sessions are locked.
Removed Edumatic features
- Media library
The media library has been removed from the Edumatic backoffice. - Feedback rules in the Journal item
In the Journal item, the database with feedback rules has been removed. - Multilingual items
In the Edumatic item bank, it was still possible to create a placeholder for a multilingual item. As multilingual items are not supported anymore, this option has been removed. - Item detail view in Edumatic reports
In the Edumatic reports, it was still possible to see a detail view of item types that are already supported in assessmentQ. This view will now no longer be available for assessmentQ items. It only remains available for Edumatic items. - Integrated exercise
The integrated exercise (combining the results or several economic exercises) has been removed. - Attachment text
In Edumatic, it was possible not only to upload a file as attachment to an item, but also to type text as attachment. Attachment text has not been converted to assessmentQ and has now been completely removed, also for Edumatic item types.