(18-11-2019) The next release is scheduled within approximately 5 days. This release will contain the following: 

​No more .direct features
​As we have moved away from the direct pages (as mentioned in the September release) we want to announce via this way that Standalone activities are now accessible via the normal course overview and the direct pages are now removed. This is only relevant for our platform users, the reason for these alterations is because we are moving away from the use of the direct sites. All our tools are integrated into the LMS and we are focussing to improve the experience there, as this is the main way of usage, the platform will remain. The direct domains are no longer part of the platform and visitors will be redirected. All activities that users made on the direct features are available through the main platform. The landing pages for the tools are now part of the main website. 

​New tool overview dialog on the platform
​When adding one of the activities on the platform it will be shown in a new overview dialog rather than in the bottom-right corner.
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Fig. 1: new tool overview dialog on the platform

New Notification Center with deadline notifications & Discussion Assignment notifications
​There is no more button to “mark all notifications as read”. Instead, the counter resets as soon as you open the notification center, while the actual notification remains “unread” until you click it. This behaviour is similar to how notification centers work on social media. Also there is no more button to “see more” notifications, you can now keep scrolling in the same window and it will load older notifications. Next to that the Notification Center is now also visible inside activities in LTI, allowing LTI users to see the notifications for that specific activity and linking them, for instance, to the exact comment mentioned in the notification. Users can also expect deadline reminders in their notification center (the reminder email is also still there). Next to that Discussion Assignment now has notifications about comments, upvotes and deadlines too.
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Vid. 1: new Notification Center

Fig. 2: Deadline notifications

​Topics & announcements disabled for all users on the platform
​The buttons to create a new topic or announcement have been hidden for all users now, as we intend to remove those platform-legacy features soon. At the moment it is still possible to turn them back on on request. Next to this the personalisation feature is not accessible anymore, as it was not used by our users on the platform.

​Students rate their reviewer in analytics (beta and feature flagged)
​Small addition when using the "Students rate their reviewers"  feature - the results are now also visible in the review step analytics table, so that teachers can sort on highest/lowest feedback grade, and quickly intervene. This added column to the table can be found under the "Give feedback to group members" step, for Peer Review this is step 3 and for Group Member Evaluation this is step 2.
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Fig. 3: showing of the "students rate their reviewers"