Open edX Eucalyptus hotfixes and new features released February, 2017

We browsed the Open edX documentation and collected  the list of all Eucalyptus improvements for learners and course authors. They are listed below, with short explanations on each fix or update.

LMS updates

• Dashboard with Analytics. More detailed and up-to-date information about enrollment is available on the course dashboard.
• Reporting on a Problem. Increased learner support through prevention of a user from manually entering a course name when submitting a problem and, thus, reducing the time to resolve the learner’s concern.
• Accessibility Improvements. Better experience for screen reader users and for learners relying on keyboards is now provided.
• Discussions Sorting by most votes, most activity, and recent activity.
• Correct answer is indicated by a check mark as well (if Show Answer setting is active for a problem).
• Commenting with screen readers improvement. In discussion forum, users with screen readers now get pointed to a correct part of the discussion after they post a comment.
• Standard radio buttons. Standard radio buttons describing post type are now used during new post creation to help users with high contrast schemes identify the post type easier.
• No tools announcement. If “no tools” option is enabled, course learner notes and calculator tools are not announced to screen readers.
• Visible field label for wiki filter. The wiki filter control now has a visible field label.
• Searchable Insights Course Pages. Course authors and staff now can search the courses on Insights Course pages by course ID or name.

Mobile app updates

• Closed video captions are now rendered correctly in the mobile app
• More screen reader text was added to the learner profile controls in order to better inform users of the actions available.
• Native downloads panel for Android users allows managing downloads outside of the edX app.

Studio updates

• Access Differentiated by Course Cohorts. Differentiated student access to specific course resources by content groups, so that important information reaches the right learners.
• Sending Email Messages to Learners in Different Enrollment Tracks. Better communication with learners is provided by sending the messages to learners accordingly to course track, so that staff can reach all the verified emails or audit learners at onсe.
• Content Creation Improvements. Adding a link to a specific course unit is made easier and faster for content creators.
• Updates on Grading Problem Creation. Instructions and a new example with the problem template make grading problem creation easier and faster.
• Add New Library button is now available only to course creators and course staff roles.

As you can see, quite a lot of improvements were added to Open edX Eucalyptus release this February. They mostly aim for learner and staff convenience, greater content accessibility, and a better mobile app experience. We will keep you posted regarding new hotfixes and features added to the Open edX platform, so stay in touch!