EdX Studio¶

Week of 19 December 2016¶

• On the Video Uploads page, users who try to upload files that are not in .mp4 or .mov format now receive an error message.

Week of 12 December 2016¶

Course team members with either the Admin or Staff role can now activate or disable course certificates in Studio. Previously, activating or disabling certificates could only be done by edX partner managers. (TNL-6086) For information about setting up course certificates, see Setting Up Course Certificates.

In Custom JavaScript Display and Grading problems (also called Custom JavaScript or JavaScript Input problems), you can now specify a title attribute within the jsinput tag. This title is used as the title attribute on the generated IFrame and should typically match the title tag of the HTML that is hosted within the IFrame. (TNL-6044). For more information, see Custom JavaScript Display and Grading Problem.

Week of 5 December 2016¶

HTML headings on the course Home page have been reorganized to improve accessibility. The structure of the Home page now uses heading levels 1-5 (<h1>–<h5>). Course teams who want to add headings in the body of their announcements can use heading level 6 (<h6>). For more information, see Add a Course Update.

Week of 28 November 2016¶

• On the Video Uploads page in Studio (Content > Video Uploads), you can now remove videos from the list of previously uploaded videos without affecting course content that uses the video ID of successfully uploaded videos. (TNL-5899) For more information, see Remove Videos from the Video Uploads Page in the Building and Running an edX Course guide.
• When you use the course outline in Studio to develop your course, you can now duplicate existing units, subsections, and sections. (TNL-5798, TNL-5797) Duplicated items inherit the release date of the block that they are duplicated from, but you must explicitly publish duplicated subsections and units before they are visible to learners. For more information, see Add Content in the Course Outline in the Building and Running an edX Course guide.

Week of 7 November 2016¶

• Course teams that use proctored exams in their courses can now use a new option on the Advanced Settings page in Studio to control whether verified learners must take proctored exams with online proctoring. Previously, verified learners could opt out of taking proctored exams with online proctoring, with the understanding that this choice made them ineligible for course credit. Now, when course teams set the Allow Opting Out of Proctored Exams option to false, verified learners no longer have the ability to choose to take proctored exams without online proctoring. (TNL-5084) For more information, see Allowing Verified Learners to Opt Out of Proctored Exams in the Building and Running an edX Course guide.
• On the Certificates settings page in Studio, the Help text in the sidebar now correctly indicates that activation of configured certificates is done by edX partner managers rather than by course team members.

Week of 24 October 2016¶

• A new “staff only” option is available for the custom pages that you add to your course. You can now define a new setting, Hide Page from Learners, to identify content that should only be available to members of the course team who have the Staff or Admin role.

  For more information, see Managing the Pages in Your Course in Building and Running an edX Course or Managing the Pages in Your Course in Building and Running an Open edX Course. (OSPR-1327)

• You can now define additional correct answers for numerical input problems in the same way that you can for text input problems. In the simple editor, additional correct answers are identified by the "or=" Markdown. In the advanced editor, additional correct answers are added in an < additional_answer> OLX element.

  For more information, see Adding Multiple Correct Responses in Building and Running an edX Course or Adding Multiple Correct Responses in Building and Running an Open edX Course. (TNL-5581)

Week of 18 October 2016¶

This release includes an enhancement to the core checkbox and multiple choice problem types. When you edit these problems in the advanced editor, you can now set attributes and options by adding a <script> element.

For more information, see Using the Script Element or Using the Script Element.

Week of 10 October 2016¶

• When you add a problem component to a unit by selecting Problem and then Advanced, the different versions of the drag and drop problem type are now more clearly labeled. To use the more recently added, fully supported problem type, you select Drag and Drop. To use the previous version, which is not accessible or usable on mobile devices, you select Drag and Drop (Deprecated Version). (SOL-1612)

  For more information, see Drag and Drop Problem.

• When you add a randomized content block to a course, the Scored field is no longer available as an editable setting for this component type. This field was never used, and did not have any effect on how the resulting problem was scored. Grading for randomized content block components, like all other components, is defined in the subsection. (TNL-4171)

  For more information, see Randomized Content Blocks.

• In a video component, an updated message appears if you select an additional language from the Transcript Languages list, but do not also upload the corresponding .srt file: “There is no transcript file associated with the {name} language.” (TNL-5200)

• This release corrects an error that prevented annotation tool problems from being saved. The target.src value in the request is now correctly identified as a URL.

Week of 3 October 2016¶

The open learning XML (OLX) <label> and <description> elements, which apply to the core CAPA problem types, can now include HTML tags for paragraph separation, font styling, and other indicators of meaning. TNL-5557

Week of 5 September 2016¶

Week of 29 August 2016¶

Support Levels for Problems and Tools¶

In Studio, the support level for each exercise, problem type, or tool is now represented with an icon when you select Advanced, HTML, or Problem to add a new component to your course. The edX Support Levels heading next to the legend provides a link to the documentation describing each of the support levels.

By default, only fully supported or provisionally supported problem types and tools are available for adding to your course. To add unsupported problems and tools, you must set the Add Unsupported Problems and Tools advanced setting to true, after which unsupported problem types and tools are also available in Studio.

This change improves the authoring experience in Studio by streamlining the set of tools that is available by default. If you do choose to include unsupported problem types and tools in your course, they continue to render in the course as before. In currently running courses, all course content remains unchanged. For more information, see Adding Unsupported Problem Types and Exercises in the Building and Running an edX Course guide.

Week of 22 August 2016¶

An error that prevented content library values from being imported along with ther course data has been resolved. When you import a course that includes randomized content blocks, the Display Name and Max Attempts values are now correctly imported along with other problem settings. (PLAT-1046)

Week of 15 August 2016¶

• Course teams that add non-English videos to a course and want to provide English transcripts can now select English from the transcript language list. (TNL-4763)

• This release includes the following improvements to drag and drop problems.

  • A new, optional assessment mode requires learners to drop all draggable items before receiving feedback, and allows course teams to restrict the number of attempts.
  • Draggable items can now match more than one target zone.
  • Target zones can now align draggable items after learners drop them.
  • Draggable items no longer accept numeric input when learners drop them on target zones.

  For updated documentation, see Drag and Drop Problem in Building and Running an edX Course or Drag and Drop Problem in Building and Running an Open edX Course.

• To ensure that course IDs are unique identifiers, the edit check performed for new courses is now case insensitive. As a result, you can no longer create an “edx demox 1” course if an “edX DemoX 1” course already exists. (ECOM-4890)

Week of 25 July 2016¶

• Course teams can now hide the contents of a subsection after the subsection’s due date has passed without affecting earned grades. Subsections that are hidden in this way remain in the course navigation, but after the subsection due date, learners cannot access the content. For more information, see Hiding a Subsection from Learners in Building and Running an edX Course or Hiding a Subsection from Learners in Building and Running an Open edX Course. (TNL-4906)
• This release resolves an error that affected course exports made from edx.org from 13 July through 26 July 2016. Discussion posts were not exported correctly, and erroneous titles were given to the discussion components. Any export file made for an edx.org course between those dates (inclusive) should be replaced with an export file created either before or after that date range. (TNL-5001)

Week of 18 July 2016¶

• To improve accessibility and readability by increasing contrast, edX has adjusted some colors in Studio and the LMS. The change is most noticeable for buttons that appear in green or blue. For example, the following image shows the options for new components in Studio before and after this change. (AC-517)

  

• The edX tabbed component has been updated to follow World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) recommendations and to be more accessible. Learners can navigate the individual tabs with the arrow keys, while the Enter and Spacebar keys activate the tab, and the Tab key enters the tab panel content. This tabbed component is currently used in the teams feature and the learner profile, and will be added to more areas of the edX platform. (AC-486)

Week of 11 July 2016¶

To ensure that every text input problem includes a correct answer value, an edit check has been added to the advanced editor. These problems are now checked for an answer attribute value.

Previously, course team members could leave the answer attribute empty (<stringresponse answer=" " type="ci" >), which resulted in a question that learners could not answer correctly. (TNL-4141)

Week of 13 June 2016¶

If you delete the default title text in the Display Name setting for a problem, and do not enter a new title, the problem now displays the word “problem” as its title. If you deleted the title text for problems in existing courses, and did not enter new titles, those problems now display “problem” as their titles. (FEDX-198)

Week of 2 May 2016¶

Studio now has a setting that course teams can use to keep timed exams hidden after the exam due date has passed. For more information, see Timed Exams in Building and Running an EdX Course or Timed Exams in Building and Running an Open EdX Course.

Week of 25 April 2016¶

Week of 18 April 2016¶

Week of 11 April 2016¶

Randomized problems that are sent to an external grader now include the random seed value that was used to initialize the randomization. For more information, see External Grader for edx.org course teams and External Grader for Open edX course teams. (OSPR-1202)

Week of 28 March 2016¶

• The JavaScript library Underscore.js has been upgraded to version 1.8.3.

Week of 21 March 2016¶

• In Studio, all video components erroneously displayed a “No playable sources found” error, even when the components were correctly configured and functioning. This issue has been resolved. Video components no longer display this error message unless playable sources are not configured. (TNL-4121)

Week of 14 March 2016¶

The crowdsource hinter XModule is no longer available as a course tool. This XModule was a prototype version that was not fully supported by edX. It has not been used since July 2013.

A new crowdsource XBlock is currently under development.

Week of 3 March 2016¶

In self-paced courses, when course teams attempted to edit subsection configurations, the configuration settings did not include grading options. This issue is resolved. (ECOM-3760)

Week of 22 February 2016¶

• A problem that caused a status of “Published, not yet released” to be visible for sections in self-paced courses has been fixed. (ECOM-3615)

• The “randomize” component, previously a little-used provisional tool, is now deprecated. To provide randomized content, you can continue to use the fully supported Content Libraries tool to create randomized content blocks. For more information, see Randomized Content Blocks.

  If an instructor accesses a course that still uses the older randomize component, Studio displays the message “This course uses features that are no longer supported”.

Week of 15 February 2016¶

• When you change your password in Studio by selecting Forgot password on the sign in page, the sign in page now appears with a “Password Reset Email Sent” message. Previously, a page that was blank except for the header appeared. (TNL-3573)
• Beta testers for self-paced courses can now access the course before the course start date. (ECOM-3612)

Week of 8 February 2016¶

Week of 3 February 2016¶

For courses running on edx.org, a new procedure for uploading course About videos is now ready for use. The edX media team has developed a process that automates hosting and encoding for your About videos. For more information, see Adding a Course About Video in the Building and Running an edX Course guide.

Week of 26 January 2016¶

• The peer instruction tool is now available. With this tool, you set up a multiple choice question and provide a sample explanation for why each of the answer choices might be the correct one. Learners then select an answer, provide their own explanation for the answer they selected, and then view the answers and explanations that other learners have provided before selecting a final answer.

  For more information about how course teams set up these assignments, see Peer Instruction Tool in Building and Running an edX Course or Peer Instruction Tool in Building and Running an Open edX Course.

• A problem that occurred when the course image URL was removed from the Schedule and Details page has been fixed. (ECOM-3384)

Week of 18 January 2016¶

Week of 6 January 2016¶

• In the HTML component visual editor, the Heading 1 and Heading 2 options have been removed. The Heading 3 option remains available, and the Heading 4, Heading 5, and Heading 6 options have been added. For more information, see Use Best Practices for HTML Markup or The Visual Editor in Building and Running an edX Course, or see Use Best Practices for HTML Markup or The Visual Editor in Building and Running an Open edX Course.
• Course teams can now specify additional rules and exceptions for proctored exams. An Advanced tab has been added to the settings for the subsection that contains the proctored exam. For more information, see Including Proctored Exams In Your Course. (PHX-161)
• The graphical slider tool is no longer available. (TNL-3923)
• Courses that only have an audit track no longer have an option to create course certificates. (ECOM-3117)

16 December 2015¶

• Course teams can now set due dates to any time, rather than only to times that end in HH:00 or HH:30. For example, course teams can now set due dates to 08:45 or 17:15.
• The Tools menu in Studio no longer offers the Checklists option. For a template checklist, see the Course Launch Checklist topic in the Building and Running an edX Course guide or Course Launch Checklist topic in the Building and Running an Open edX Course guide.
• Several unused and deprecated items have been removed from the edX Platform, including the FoldIt protein simulator XModule and the first version of open response assessments (ORA 1). Courses that used ORA 1 continue to have access to associated data.

8 December 2015¶

1 December 2015¶

10 November 2015¶

The default Consumer secret key that is provided in Django Admin for LTI consumer configuration is now 32 characters in length, the same maximum length that is supported in the database.

For more information about LTI, see LTI Component.

4 November 2015¶

• This release includes the timed exams feature. Course teams can now configure a course subsection so that learners have a set amount of time to complete and submit all problems in that subsection.

  Course teams can grant individual learners more time to complete problems.

• On the Course Team page in Studio, the description has been updated to clarify that adding people to your course team does not automatically enroll them in your course. (TNL-3697)

21 October 2015¶

• Oppia explorations are short, interactive tutorials that encourage exploration and experiential learning. This release includes the new Oppia exploration tool, which you can use to embed Oppia explorations in your courses. For more information about how you enable this tool and add Oppia explorations, see the following documentation.

  • EdX Partners: Oppia Exploration Tool.
  • Open edX Users: Oppia Exploration Tool.

  On Open edX instances, you must install the Oppia XBlock before you can use Oppia explorations in courses.

• This release includes several updates to web certificates.

  • Course teams can now override the course number as well as the course name on the certificate. (SOL-1247)

  • Both the course number and the override course number are displayed in the certificate set up page in Studio. (SOL-1247)

  • There are now no character limits on the name and title fields of certificate signatories. (SOL-1225)

    For information on web certificates, see the following documentation.

    • EdX Partners: Setting Up Course Certificates.
    • Open edX Users: Setting Up Course Certificates.

• LTI components consume remote learning tools and present them in a course. With this release, LTI components use full screen mode to present remote content that is configured for full screen viewing.

  Note

  To ensure that content shown by the LTI component is accessible, verify that the remote system providing the content has implemented full screen mode with accessible controls that allow learners to enter and exit full screen mode.

1 October 2015¶

• You can now configure checkbox, multiple choice, numerical input, and write- your-own-grader problems so that learners can receive partial credit for a problem if they submit an answer that is partly correct. For more information, see Awarding Partial Credit for a Problem. (TNL-3197)
• For numerical input and text input problems, you can use the Advanced Editor to add text after the response field, including words and symbols. For more information, see Numerical Input Problem and Text Input Problem in the Building and Running an edX Course guide or Numerical Input Problem and Text Input Problem in the Building and Running an Open edX Course guide. (OSPR-804)

23 September 2015¶

• For edx.org courses, course teams can no longer update the Enrollment End Date and Enrollment End Time fields on the Schedule & Details page. Course teams can contact their edX partner managers to update these fields. (TNL-2694)
• On the Studio sign-in page, users can now use the keyboard to select the Studio Forgot password link. Previously, users had to use a mouse to select this link.

9 September 2015¶

This release includes changes to the Unit page in Studio to improve accessibility. It is now easier to use a keyboard to navigate to the options in the Add New Component section of this page. It is also easier to use a keyboard to make selections from the list of choices that appears when you select the Advanced option. (TNL-2153)

3 September 2015¶

When course authors included HTML tags inside a <choicehint> or <demandhint> tag in a problem, the content inside the HTML tags and any content after the HTML tags was invisible to learners. This problem has been fixed. (TNL-3096)

25 August 2015¶

You can now configure the following problem types so that learners can receive partial credit for a problem if they submit an answer that is partly correct.

• Checkbox
• Dropdown
• Multiple Choice
• Numerical Input

By awarding partial credit for problems, you can motivate learners who have mastered some of the course content and provide a score that reflects their progress.

19 August 2015¶

In courses that include content experiments, course team members can no longer delete a group that is in use by a unit. This problem, which only affected course team members who use Internet Explorer 10, is now resolved. (TNL-2882)

12 August 2015¶

4 August 2015¶

17 July 2015¶

In Studio, problem types with hints and feedback are now listed at the bottom of the list of common problem types. (TNL-2619)

8 July 2015¶

1 July 2015¶

Feedback and Hints in Common Problems¶

You can now add feedback, hints, or both to the following problem types.

• Checkbox
• Dropdown
• Multiple choice
• Numerical input
• Text input

In Studio, you can use new templates to add sample problems that use the feedback and hint syntax.

For more information, see Adding Feedback and Hints to a Problem in Building and Running an edX Course or Adding Feedback and Hints to a Problem in Building and Running an Open edX Course.

10 June 2015¶

28 May 2015¶

Course teams can now specify either “All Rights Reserved” or a Creative Commons license for course content as a whole as well as for each individual video in the course. For more information, see Licensing a Course in Building and Running an edX Course and Enabling Course and Video Licensing in Installing, Configuring, and Running the Open edX Platform.

12 May 2015¶

When course teams work in the course outline, they can now preview units in the LMS before the content is released. When course teams select Preview for a unit, they can choose to preview the unit in the LMS as staff, all students, or as a student with access to a specific content group.

Previously, Preview Changes did not work until the content was live.

For more information, see Preview Course Content.

5 May 2015¶

New templates for HTML and problem components are now available. These templates provide updated guidelines and examples, accessibility information, and links to documentation.

22 April 2015¶

• Course teams can now upload video transcripts for video components in either Simplified Chinese or Traditional Chinese. For more information, see Working with Video Components.

• The Advanced Settings page for video components includes a renamed field, Video ID. Previously, this field was named EdX Video ID. For more information, see Working with Video Components.

• If course teams define either one or both of the Video Start Time and Video Stop Time values, learners no longer have the option to override those values and watch the entire video file. Only the segment of the video file that is delimited by your specified start and stop times plays.

  Note

  The Video Start Time or Video Stop Time does not apply to videos that are downloaded or viewed using the native mobile app. Learners who use the mobile app can play the entire video file.

• A typographical error in the template filename for Math Expression Input problems has been corrected. Formularesponse.yaml is now correctly spelled. (TNL-1639)

25 March 2015¶

Cohort creation and management has moved from the Advanced Settings page in Studio. Course teams can now use the new Cohorts tab on the Instructor Dashboard in the LMS to add and rename cohorts, change a cohort’s assignment method, associate cohorts with content groups, and specify whether course-wide and content-specific discussions are divided by cohort.

For more information, see Using Cohorts in Your Courses.

18 March 2015¶

• Course teams can now include a new type of component, a randomized content block, in their courses. These components randomly draw problems from a predefined library of components and present them to learners.

  You create and maintain libraries of components separately from courses. All of an organization’s course teams can work collaboratively to develop the problems that the libraries contain. Each library can then be referenced by randomized content blocks in any of that organization’s courses. For more information, see Working with Content Libraries.

• Open response assessments can now include more than one prompt or question. A single rubric is used to grade all of the prompts in the assessment. For more information, see Open Response Assessments.

• When you add an HTML component to a course outline and select the Full Screen Image Tool, IFrame Tool, or Zooming Image Tool, revised example templates now appear. The descriptions and procedures in the templates now include additional detail, including how to provide accessible labels for your learners.

• A problem with the file locking feature on the Files & Uploads page is now resolved. To lock a file, click the lock icon that appears near it. (TNL-1461)

11 March 2015¶

Course teams can now include Google Drive files and calendars in courseware by creating a link to the file or calendar in Studio. For more information, see Google Drive Files Tool and Google Calendar Tool.

5 March 2015¶

When course teams work in the course outline, they can now preview units in the LMS before the content is released. When course teams select Preview for a unit, they can choose to preview the unit in the LMS as staff, all students, or as a student with access to a specific content group.

Previously, Preview Changes did not work until the content was live.

For more information, see Preview Course Content.

2 March 2015¶

• When course teams work with content groups on the Group Configurations page, they can now see which units in the course use a content group, and can link directly to those units from content group details. Course teams can now also delete content groups that are not in use in a course. See Creating Cohort-Specific Course Content for more details.
• Previously, if a dropdown problem that was created with variables was answered, the chosen answer was not retained in the selection input. This problem has been fixed. (TNL-1419)
• Some issues with MATLAB problems were resolved. (TNL-1459)

12 February 2015¶

A new video appears as the default video when you add a Video component.

4 February 2015¶

Previously, you received an error when opening the Settings & Details page in French. This problem is resolved. (TNL-1237)

28 January 2015¶

• If you include cohorts in your course, you can now assign different course content to different cohorts. See Creating Cohort-Specific Course Content for more details.
• All courses created after 14 Jan 2015 now use the The New Key Introspection API format for internal course identifiers and the course URL. An example of the new URL format is: http://www.edx.org/courses/course-v1:edX+DemoX+Demo_2014/info.
• MathJax, which Studio and the LMS use to render text as “beautiful math”, is now upgraded to version 2.4 from version 2.2. For more information, see the descriptions of MathJax 2.4 and MathJax 2.3. (OSPR-21)
• When you create a new course in Studio, edit checks now identify special characters in the Organization, Course Number, or Course Run fields. An error message appears to prevent entry of spaces or characters such as !, ', (, or ). (SOL-233)
• For LTI components, you can now set the new Accept grade past deadline setting to True or False. The default for this setting is True. Previously, grading always included learner submissions that were submitted after the subsection due date. (TNL-805)

14 January 2015¶

When you made multiple attempts to log in to edX Studio with the wrong password, the error message was not refreshed and there was no indication of the problem on subsequent attempts. This problem is resolved. (TNL-140)

8 January 2015¶

• When a component with multiple parents had a draft version, you received an error when trying to export the course. This problem is resolved. (PLAT-332)
• You can now use a new advanced setting, always_cohort_inline_discussions, to control whether content-specific discussion topics are unified or divided by cohort.
• The inline help for the Discussion Topic Mapping advanced setting is updated to note that discussion IDs must be unique. (TNL-752)