In these release notes
assessmentQ 2.5 contains the following new features and improvements:
- New Access codes module
- New item type: Interpreting
- Bulk actions in user management
- New URL for Identity Server
- New options in OIDC via Azure AD
- Removed features
New Access codes module
Starting from assessmentQ 2.5 the Access codes module is available in the assessmentQ backoffice. It has become much more flexible and user-friendly than before. The new module contains several improvements and new features:
- Overview of all your access codes
You don’t have to select an assignment first anymore, but you see a flat list of all
your access codes. You can customize the overview allowing you to display the information that is important to you, for example, the status (used or unused) of the access codes. - Extensive search and filter possibilities
You can now, for example, filter access codes by user or group, by assignment, by date range (e.g. today) or you can combine one or more of these search options to find exactly the access codes you need. - Possibility to set a review period
In case a review period has been set, participants can use the access code to review their assignment in read-only mode. - Elaborated export possibilities
You can now export access codes to Excel. The export to PDF remains possible and has been expanded with new options.
New item type: Interpreting
The Interpreting item is a variant of the Recording item. It is particularly interesting for interpreting exercises and examinations. It supports the following use cases:
- Simultaneous interpretation: the participant is being recorded while the source file is played back.
- Consecutive interpretation: the recording starts after the source file has stopped playing. There are 2 possibilities:
- The author defines upfront in how many segments the source file must be split up. After each
segment, the recording is started automatically or manually by the participant. This is a typical
examination use case. - The participant defines himself if and where he wants to split up the source file. This is usually done in a practice context.
- The author defines upfront in how many segments the source file must be split up. After each
An Interpreting item cannot be scored automatically, therefore the scoring mechanism of the Interpreting item is always Manual scoring. This implies that Interpreting items are always scored in the Grading module.
In the Grading module, the length of each recording is displayed, so the grader can compare it with the length of the original source segment. This is valuable information in the grading process:
- For our customers in the interpreting market, all existing Recording items containing a source file have been converted into Interpreting items. For other customers using Recording items, these items have been changed into Interpreting items only in case the option consecutive recording was used. Note that in both item types you have the possibility to change the item type from Interpreting item to Recording item and vice versa.
- Until now the recording started by default automatically in Recording items that used the option consecutive recording (regardless of whether the option "Start recording automatically" was used or not).
Starting from assessmentQ 2.5, the recording will only start automatically if the option Start automatically is enabled. It is therefore recommended to verify whether this option is selected in the Interpreting items in your item bank.
If this option is not enabled, the participant needs to click New attempt to start the source file and Start recording to start recording after playing the source file.
Bulk actions in user management
In assessmentQ 2.5 a number of bulk actions have been added to the module User management:
- Bulk remove users from a group
- Bulk remove group access
- Bulk remove user access
- Bulk remove groups of a user
- Bulk remove roles of a user
These bulk actions result in a more consistent user management, where every action can be performed both for 1 user or for multiple users at once.
New URL for Identity Server
When logging in to your assessmentQ channel, you are redirected automatically to the Identity Server. The Identity Server manages the secure access to assessmentQ.
Until now the Identity Server URL was https://sign-in.education. A cookie was stored on the assessmentq.com domain when logging in from sign-in.education. Browsers are starting to block these so-called third-party cookies to better guarantee the end user’s privacy. Blocked third-party cookies can lead to authentication problems in assessmentQ.
To ensure a smooth and trouble-free login experience, we have moved the Identity Server to the same domain as assessmentQ itself. Starting from assessmentQ 2.5 the new URL of Identity Server will be https://idp.assessmentq.com (“idp” is short for Identity Provider).
This move will not impact the experience of your end users.
New options in OIDC via Azure AD
Starting from assessmentQ 2.5, OIDC via Azure AD allows you to pass the following information from your Azure AD to assessmentQ:
- user's language and/or organisation's preferred language
- user groups
- user roles
Removed features
Access codes module
The following options have been removed from the module Access codes:
- Fixed end time: This option is not retained in the new assessmentQ module. You can, however, force an earlier closing of a participant's session by subtracting time from the participant's session. This is possible via the Monitoring module or via the assessmentQ API.
- Started at and Finished at: This information is no longer shown in the new assessmentQ module. You can, however, find this information in the Assignment reports. In the Access codes
module, you can see if a code has been used or not (Status: Used / Not used). - Validating an access code: in Edumatic you could validate an access code. This option is not retained in the new assessmentQ module. There are, however, several ways in assessmentQ to prevent the participants from using an access code:
- by archiving the assignment.
- by finishing the session(s).
- by setting the end date of the access code to “now”.
Recording item
The option Consecutive recording has been removed from the Recording item type. This functionality has been moved to the Interpreting item type.