(26-01-23) The new release update is scheduled for 2-3 pm CET and contains the following:

New releases

• FeedbackFruits in Icelandic

• Importing Eduflow and Peergrade rubrics 

Improvements for teachers and LMS admins

• Multimedia improvements: recorder 2.0 

• Improvements in grading modules: grading facets

  • Added facet: Has rated their reviewer

  • Removed facet: Has written minimum comments

• Enhanced clarity in collaboration options

Pre-announcements

• Ratings redesign in Assignment Review and Skill Review

New releases

FeedbackFruits in Icelandic

We're thrilled to announce that our software is now available in Icelandic! As well as in  Dutch and French, we want to align with the needs of our valued partners in Iceland. We are looking forward to providing FeedbackFruits in more languages in the future.

To turn it on, both teachers and students can navigate to their Preferences menu (three dots in the top right corner), and then select Íslenska within the Language preferences.

(Fig. 1: Changing your language preferences in the Preferences menu.)

Why we made this: This new language option ensures a more inclusive and user-friendly experience, further strengthening our commitment to providing tailored solutions for our diverse user base.

Importing Eduflow and Peergrade rubrics 

We can now recreate your Eduflow rubrics in FeedbackFruits by using a combination of Rubric, Scale and Comment criteria, matching as closely as possible to the criteria you used in Eduflow/Peergrade.

How does it work?

1. Provide a full Eduflow export zip file to your FeedbackFruits Pilot and Partner manager or contact person. Please note: only FeedbackFruits representatives can do this for you —this import option is not visible within our Criteria setup. 

2. Your FeedbackFruits representative will take care of the import from our admin side.

3. Your Eduflow criteria will appear in your Library of choice: Shared Library (recommended) or Institutional Library. 

   1. Why do we recommend Shared Libraries? Eduflow imports can result in a very large number of created rubrics. Therefore, keeping them separate from your own FeedbackFruits rubrics allows for easier management, especially since we don't have support for copying/moving rubrics yet. ​

4. Easily apply them to your FeedbackFruits assignments by selecting them from your Libraries.

Why we made this: Supporting this import helps Eduflow and Peergrade users smoothly transition to FeedbackFruits, in a quicker and more seamless way. For more information on switching from Eduflow and Peergrade to FeedbackFruits, please read more here. 

Improvements for teachers and LMS admins

Multimedia improvements: Recorder 2.0

In our latest release, we've undertaken a significant enhancement of our audio, video, and screen recorders to elevate your user experience. Key changes include:

• Simultaneous screen and camera recording: Introducing a circular webcam for on-screen presentations, featuring customizable toggling, resizing, and movement options.

  

  (Fig. 2: Recording your screen and yourself at the same time.)

• Enhanced input device management: Seamlessly choose microphones and switch between front and rear cameras during recording, providing greater versatility in capturing your content.
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  (Fig. 3: Changing your input devices, for instance, microphone.)

• Recorder is paused by default: Recorders now pause upon opening, offering users a moment to compose themselves or make necessary adjustments before initiating recording.

• Enlarged recording window: The recording window has been enlarged for easier previewing of both screen and video recordings, ensuring a smoother and more intuitive user experience.

Why we made this: As part of our broader multimedia upgrade, we're focused on improving the user experience by enhancing accessibility and usability within our multimedia features. Our aim is to facilitate seamless video recording for students and teachers, reducing video editing time and addressing the rising demand for video assessment, projects, recorded lectures and study materials. The addition of simultaneous screen and camera recording not only simplifies the process but also adds a stronger human touch to the overall experience.

Improvements in grading modules: grading facets

In the past months, we have been refining and redesigning our grading module. In this release, you can expect changes in Peer Review and Group Member Evaluation's grading: 

New grading facet

• Has rated their reviewer: only possible with the ‘Review your reviewer’ setting. This facet indicates if the student has completed rating the peers who reviewed them, based on the quality of their feedback.

• Furthermore, when students rate their reviewers, it will also be part of the progress for Read received feedback module, besides the grading module.

(Fig. 4: Seeing 'Has rated their reviewer' process within the 'Read received feedback' step.)

Removed facet

• Has written the minimum number of required comments: this facet was confusing and repetitive together with ‘Has completed providing feedback’, which one implied the other. Nevertheless, the ‘Has completed providing feedback’ also involved the ratings, not just the comments. We have merged them and understood ‘completing feedback’ as a whole, whether comments or ratings.
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• How will this affect assignments? 

  • Activities created before 26 Jan 2024: No change! You can modify grading facets as always.

  • Activities created after 26 Jan 2024 (but copied from older activities with "required comments"): Any original weight (%) from "required comments" will be moved to "has completed giving feedback". If "completed giving feedback" was off, it will be turned on.

  • All other activities after 26 Jan 2024:"Required comments" will no longer be an option in the grading module.

(Fig. 5: New grading facet 'Has rated their reviewer' is enabled, whereas the facet 'Has written the minimum number of required comments' has been removed.)

Why we made this: We have made this modification to enhance the user experience, providing a detailed, comprehensible and accurate grading module that leaves no room for doubt. We aim to help students better understand their grades, and save time from teachers answering student doubts.

Enhanced clarity in collaboration options

We have made small wording changes in the collaboration options within our tool suite. Visually, there won't be any major changes for our users, however, these micro-copy adjustments will enhance the clarity of the different collaboration options within our tools.
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​See an example for Group Member Evaluation in the picture below. Before, it was labelled as ‘Students work’ and ‘Students evaluate’. Now the labelling will be: ‘Students are evaluated’ or ‘Students evaluate’. 

(Fig. 6: Old and new labelling in collaboration options in Group Member Evaluation.)

Why we made this: We aim to help teachers clearly understand the collaboration options of the assignment at a glance, reducing doubts when setting up, and enhancing overall user experience. 

Pre-announcements

Ratings redesign in Assignment Review and Skill Review

In the past year, we have been redesigning some of our tools and modules to increase overall usability and consistency across our entire tool suite. You may have noticed the new Assignment Review and Skill Review redesigns were introduced in our September 2023 release.

(Fig. 7: Current ratings feature design, available in Assignment Review and Skill Review.)

Taking a step beyond that, we have enhanced a specific aspect of those redesigns: the ratings widget. In the upcoming changes, when a reviewer provides a rating for a student, they will now encounter rating buttons instead of the slider scale. These buttons provide a visual representation that utilizes color-coding to signify the number of ratings, where the intensity of the color increases with the higher quantity of ratings on that specific level.
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(Fig. 8: New Rubric ratings design from the reviewer view, now including full explanations per rating.)

(Fig. 9: New Scale rating design from the reviewer view.)

Why we made this:

• Enhanced data comprehension: Both teachers and students will be able to quickly see the overall results at a glance. This intuitive representation also allows for easy differentiation between ratings given by individuals themselves, or teachers.

• Consistency across our toolsuite: This redesign is consistent with our Platform designs, specially in Competency Based Assessment Portfolios, where skill development is displayed in the same fashion. 

• Alignment with Assignment tools redesign: In line with the redesign of Assignment tools, the changes to the ratings system will eventually extend to Peer Review and Group Member Evaluation. Stay tuned for more announcements in the coming months.

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This concludes the January Release Notes v2.98.

If you have any questions or experience a technical issue, please contact our friendly support team by clicking on the blue chat button

(Note: support is available 24h every weekday & unavailable on the weekend).