(02-10-26) The new release update is scheduled for 2-3 pm CET and contains the following:

New releases

• A smarter Feedback Coach
• Repetition of TBL & Quiz steps

Improvements

• Rubric import keeps your rubric exactly as you wrote it
• LTI setup wizard tells you exactly what to fix when a test launch fails
• Course Analytics: engagement and performance views, and an Action Center per student
• Keyword insights now work in all seven supported languages

Bug fixes

• Notification emails are easier to read on your phone
• Deadline reminders stop as soon as you complete a step
• Canvas activities open reliably after LTI dynamic registration
• Peer review deadlines are respected with one-by-one allocation

Pre-announcements

• Oral Assessment and Practice: beta update

A smarter Feedback Coach: more precise, criterion-based coaching

Feedback Coach helps students improve the feedback they write for a peer before they submit it. We rebuilt how it coaches, from the model it runs on to the way it decides what to say and when to stop. It now behaves like a good tutor: it reads the draft, points at the one thing that would improve it most, and says when it is good to go.

What changed for students

• One focused suggestion, tied to the criterion. The coach checks the feedback against the four qualities of good feedback: specific, balanced, actionable, and linked to the assessment criteria. It picks the weakest one and suggests a single improvement that names the criterion. No generic writing advice, and it never rewrites the feedback.
• It recognises progress. The coach sees earlier drafts and its own suggestions, so it acknowledges what improved and does not ask for the same thing twice.
• It tells you when you are done. Once the feedback meets all four qualities, the coach says so and stops.
• It answers in the student's language. The coach responds in the language the student writes in, whatever the course language.

Under the hood the coach runs on a much more capable model, at no extra cost, which is what makes this more precise coaching possible.

Why did we create this?

Students told us the coach felt generic and never seemed satisfied. Teachers want students to learn what good feedback looks like, not to depend on an AI to write it. Every suggestion now has a pedagogical reason, and every session ends with the student, not the coach, in charge.

What's the availability?

Feedback Coach is available in all activities where students write feedback on a peer's work, for all institutions with Acai enabled. The Self-Assessment Coach will receive the same improvements in an upcoming release.

Read more about Feedback Coach here.

Learning Design Studio: Repeat and combine Quiz, TBL and Group Formation

Before: In Studio you couldn't combine Quiz and TBL in one design. If you tried, the Quiz pulled in the TBL questions. Each of these modules could only be used once.

Now: Quiz, TBL and Group Formation modules can be combined and repeated as many times as you need. For example, a TBL followed by a case-study Quiz, or several TBL rounds with new groups.

Improvements for all users

Rubric import keeps your rubric exactly as you wrote it

Imported rubrics now keep your point values, including decimals, your language and wording, your criterion order, and every rating level. Files without a title also import correctly.

LTI setup wizard tells you exactly what to fix when a test launch fails

When a test launch is rejected, the setup wizard now shows why, for example a blocked environment or a role that is not allowed to launch, instead of only reporting that no launch was detected.

Course Analytics

Visualizations

• Engagement: see how students engage across the course and each activity, with a new engagement styles chart.
• Performance: see average scores across feedback activities and quizzes, plus the skills the class scores lowest on.
• Student sheet: each student's skill ratings (Poor to Excellent) from competency rubrics.

Action Center

Before: The student page didn't allow you to take any actions related to the student.

Now: A student's detail page lists every open action that affects them, and you can message them from there.

Keyword insights now work in all seven supported languages

The "Often mentioned by students" keywords in your review steps now work in Spanish, Norwegian (Bokmål and Nynorsk) and Icelandic, alongside English, German, French and Dutch. That covers every language FeedbackFruits is available in.

Keyword extraction is also more accurate, so fewer everyday words are picked up as keywords. This is already live.

Coming next: faster filtering by keyword.

Pre-announcements

Oral Assessment and Practice: now in Beta

As generative AI makes it harder to verify whether submitted work reflects a student's own thinking, oral assessment allows students to demonstrate their learning by putting it into their own words, out loud.

Three new activities support this at scale: Oral Practice, for formative rehearsal with an AI voice agent or a peer; Oral Reflection, for recording video responses to defined topics about submissions or skills; and Oral Assessment, for running instructor-led summative activities within the LMS with a consistent structure and no additional workload.

Instructors can review recordings and interactive transcripts, use rubrics to provide structured feedback, and assign grades, all within FeedbackFruits. Acai, our pedagogy-driven AI, supports the process by helping instructors outline topics and generate rubrics during setup, surfacing key moments during review, and suggesting grades. The final decision always remains with the instructor.

Users interested in an early demo can sign up here: https://292rg.share.hsforms.com/2beij7icNQx6hnSxqqpN85g

Do you want to be the first one to know all about our newest features? Subscribe to our Release Notes Newsletter here. Feel free to share the form amongst your curious, innovative peers who also want to unlock the power of pedagogy.

This concludes the October Release Notes v.2.133. 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).