May

new feature discussion grades release date may 26, 2025 instructors can now create grades directly linked to student participation in course discussions this powerful new option is designed to help you better assess and encourage meaningful engagement discussion grades allow you to • link grades to student discussion activity choose ‘discussion’ as the grade link type when adding a new grade to your course • customize grading rules set requirements like minimum number of messages, word count per message, required ratings given, and more grades can be tied to all topics or a specific one, and you can even require that students create discussion topics themselves • auto grade based on progress or ratings select how you want the grade calculated—based on completion of discussion requirements or peer ratings received • track and manage easily under lms / discussion , a new discussion grades section allows you to view, manage, and edit discussion linked grades click the + icon to expand and view student progress click the edit icon to see full stats and override grades if needed • real time progress updates if auto grade is enabled, student grades update as they participate you can choose whether or not to publish the grade • full student insights view student progress, eligible messages, ratings received and given, average rating, and more—all from the edit discussion grade view or within the gradebook this new feature gives instructors even more flexibility when assessing participation and makes discussion based learning easier to evaluate and manage discussion ratings updates release date may 19, 2025 we’ve expanded the discussions tool to encourage peer feedback and improve engagement instructors now have the option to enable student ratings on discussion posts—giving you more flexibility, visibility, and control over student interaction flexible rating options when creating a new discussion topic, instructors can now choose a message rating type none like / not like out of 5 stars you can also set start and end dates to limit the time students are allowed to rate messages student participation students can rate each other’s posts during the rating window they can also change or remove their rating if needed students cannot rate their own posts, instructor posts, or be rated by instructors instructor insights click the magnifying icon next to any post to view a detailed breakdown, including number of ratings average rating rating breakdown chart list of students who rated and their ratings improved layout we’ve made the discussion board easier to navigate each message now displays in its own box actions like reply, edit, and delete are grouped as buttons topic lists now show total messages and highlight new ones rating type appears in the top right of each topic what’s next this is the first step toward auto grading based on ratings, post count, and word count—coming soon course discussion updates release date may 13, 2025 we’ve introduced several new features to improve visibility and workflow within course discussions collapsible discussion topics you can now collapse and expand discussion topics—just like course content—for a cleaner, more focused view of the discussion board student summary table a new student summary table is now available under courses / lms / discussion this table provides a quick overview of student participation this data is calculated automatically once per day, but can also be refreshed manually by recalculating course totals these updates aim to make course engagement more trackable and integrated into assessment workflows video walkthrough course discussion updates form approval updates release date may 5, 2025 resend approval requests to staff administrators can now resend a form approval email to the staff member assigned to the form navigate to the student profile / forms section, click the view form icon, and then select resend approval email at the bottom the staff member will receive a new email with a direct link to the form, allowing them to approve or refuse it without needing to log in separately staff can now refuse form approval staff assigned to a form can now choose to refuse the request rather than approve it after clicking the form link, they follow the same steps as an approval—signing and optionally adding notes—but select refuse instead of approve once a form is refused the status updates to approval refused and is displayed in red in the student profile the downloadable pdf version of the form will also be stamped with refused any notes added by the staff member are stored as part of the form record video walkthrough form approval updates here’s a quick walkthrough of the new form approval updates, including how to resend an approval request and how staff can refuse approval