September/October 2021 Release Summary

October 20, 2021

This is the latest information on changes to UWM’s Digital Learning Environment which includes changes to Canvas, Kaltura (a.k.a. My Media), Zoom, and other services available in Canvas.

Updates are made regularly to bring new features, improve the user experience, and fix bugs. For each item, the change date is provided. Release Summaries are used to communicate planned updates for the given month and may include updates which occurred after the previous update.

Service Maintenance

No service maintenance is scheduled for these updates.

Major Changes

  • Canvas
    • October 16, 2021: SpeedGrader Status Label Edits
    • October 16, 2021: Assignment Search
    • October 27, 2021: Search for Multiple Assignments and Students
    • October 16, 2021: Users Can Change Course Notifications Outside of Courses
    • October 16, 2021: Immersive Reader for Syllabus and Assignments
    • October 29, 2021: UDOIT 3.0 General Availability
  • Kaltura
    • September 1, 2021: Kaltura Lecture Capture General Availability

Canvas

October 16, 2021: SpeedGrader Status Label Edits

When grading assignment types using SpeedGrader, a pencil icon allows the grader to change the label for a student submission, which is in-turn viewable in the Gradebook.

  • Before the change: Labels could only be set in the Gradebook
  • After the change: Label changes made in SpeedGrader actuate changes in the Gradebook
  • How this affects teaching and learning: This quality-of-life improvement makes it easier for course Teachers, TA’s, and Graders to communicate the status of assignments to students.

The status can’t be set on previous submissions, concluded enrollments (students whose access to a course has ended), inactive enrollments (students who have dropped a course, or were withdrawn), and assignments in a closed grading period (which are not used at UWM, but may be used at other UW System institutions).

October 16, 2021: Assignment Search

A search box for students and assignments can be used to filter the instructor gradebook to display individual student assignments, a specific assignment, or both.

  • Before the change: To filter students or assignments, menu options must be selected.
  • After the change: Two search boxes are implemented which allow the instructor to filter users using a more intuitive and familiar search interface.
  • How this affects teaching and learning: This quality-of-life change makes the Gradebook easier for instructors to use and is more flexible.

October 27, 2021: Search for Multiple Assignments and Students

Instructors can use the Assignment and Student Search boxes to display more than one student, and more than one assignment. If two students, and two assignments are searched-for at the same time, both assignments for both students will be shown.

Prior to this change, the feature only allows selecting one assignment, and/or one student at a time.

October 16, 2021: Users Can Change Course Notifications Outside of Courses

Users can visit their Account > Notifications page to change the notification settings for individual course sites.

  • Before the change: Users need to change notifications in each course by visiting the course.
  • After the change: Users can change course-specific notification in one location
  • How this affects teaching and learning: This quality-of-life change enables students to disable notifications for courses which they may no longer have access to due to section, date or enrollment restriction.

October 16, 2021: Immersive Reader for Syllabus and Assignments

The Microsoft Immersive Reader is now available on the course Syllabus page, and course Assignment pages. As such, the accessibility and usability functionality of Immersive Reader are available for more highly trafficked areas of courses.

  • Before the change: Immersive Reader was available on course Pages (a.k.a. wiki pages).
  • After the change: Immersive Reader is available in the Syllabus, and in Assignments, and on the course Home page in Continuing Education, and Training and Development courses.
  • How this affects teaching and learning: This change enables a powerful usability feature

Because Immersive Reader has a wide array of functionality, instructors may wish to consider how having Immersive Reader in the assignment can affect the design of the activity.

If your course code starts with “UWM.C” or “UWM.T”, and your course homepage is a page, Immersive Reader will be usable with this change.

October 29, 2021: UDOIT 3 General Availability

UDOIT is a course accessibility checker which is available to all instructors, in all Canvas courses. UDOIT 3 replaces the previous version 1, and the upgrade signals a significant upgrade in usability and functionality.

  • Before the change: Instructors click UDOIT Cloud from course navigation to manually scan their course to resolve accessibility issues.
  • After the change: Instructors add UDOIT to navigation. Once clicked, UDOIT 3 will automatically begin a scan of the course.
  • How this affects teaching and learning: Accessibility checking is easier to conduct, and less technical knowledge is needed on the part of the instructor to resolve issues.

Note: instructors will need to re-add UDOIT to navigation when this change takes place. Search for “Course accessibility checker (UDOIT)” in the desired courses navigation settings.

UW System is offering training to instructors who are both new to the tool, and who are already familiar with UDOIT.

Kaltura

September 1, 2021: Kaltura Lecture Capture General Availability

UWM Classroom Services has migrated most classrooms to leverage Kaltura Lecture Capture, which relies on computers in-the-classroom to record cameras, audio, and applications. Videos may be recorded on-demand by the instructor, or all class sessions can be scheduled by Classroom Services. Once videos are recorded, they are uploaded to Kaltura (My Media).

Kaltura Lecture Capture is supported by Campus Technology Support (including the UWM Help Desk, and Classroom Services). Instructors experiencing issues should contact Classroom Services. The UWM Help Desk, Classroom Services, and CETL can assist in making the recorded video available in your Canvas course.

Additional Changes

  • Canvas Catalog
    • August 30, 2021: The registration process for students has been updated. The change was made to help users avoid creating duplicate accounts.
  • Canvas LMS
    • September 15, 2021: The Grades page for students is responsive, making it more friendly to view on mobile devices and low-resolution screens.
    • September 29, 2021: Excused assignments in the Gradebook display in SpeedGrader.
    • October 16, 2021: Navigation is now “sticky”—navigation menus in your course now stay positioned and usable on the left even if pages are long.
  • External Tools (LTI)
    • September 1, 2021: Great River Learning’s “GRCONTENT” platform is now available as an opt-in tool. Instructors can request for GRL to be added to their course using “Request an External Tool” in UWM Canvas Tools.
  • Kaltura (My Media, Mediaspace)
    • September 5, 2021: In Kaltura Capture (non-classroom desktop recording), the whiteboard can now be “maximized” (made to fill the whole screen).
  • Point Solutions
    • September 3, 2021: TurningPoint has been re-branded as Point Solutions. Canvas links to TurningPoint have been updated to use the new name.
  • Proctorio
    • The Chrome extension can now be used in Japanese.
  • Zoom
    • August 21, 2021: Meetings can be freely transferred between computers and other devices while in-progress.
    • September 15, 2021: Instructors who must interact with protected health information (PHI) or records protected by HIPAA can safely use Zoom after requesting a change to instructors’ Zoom accounts. Schools and colleges should report the need for PHI/HIPAA protections as soon as possible. Non-academic business units who must use Zoom should contact Classroom Services for further assistance.
    • September 23, 2021: (Windows, MacOS, Linux) Local recordings receive unique file names.
    • September 23, 2021: (Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS) Alternate hosts may be allowed to offer and manage polls.
    • September 23, 2021: (Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS) The chat window supports rich text and message quoting.
    • October 25, 2021: (Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS) Profile photos are displayed in chat. This feature can be enabled in Settings. It may be enabled by default at a later date by UW System Zoom administrators.

Learn More

To learn more about updates, and to see how the changes may affect instructors’ and students’ work, refer to the release note links. Remember that some features may not be enabled for UWM or the UW System.