What's new in FLO

Upcoming changes

Date

Updates

20^th October

In New Quizzes:

You can moderate a quiz and extend the time allotted during a student's attempt.
It is now easier to hide/show results from students.

2024

Date	Updates
26^th September	In SpeedGrader, you can now add equations to your comments.
16^th September	A button has been temporarily added to Discussions for you to re-enable threaded replies, following issues with forum settings in August.
7^th September	Several updates have been made to FeedbackFruits: An AI chat assistant has been added to FeedbackFruits support to help you find helpful information. The assistant has not replaced their human support. When setting Group Contribution Grading, you can now customise the percentages used. When rolling content, the most recent version of an activity will always be used.
11^th September	In SpeedGrader, you can now add formatting to your comments.
31^st August	In Files, when setting availability dates, you can also set availability times.
30^th August	In the Create and Edit pages for Assignments, Discussions, Pages, and Quizzes, the Assign To feature has moved back to the main part of the page, instead of appearing in a side panel. Other improvements have not been removed.
17^th August	In New Quizzes, instructors can customise the feedback displayed to all students after they complete a quiz.
15^th August	In Discussions: You can disallow threaded replies. A line has been added between replies, to make them easier to distinguish. In the Gradebook, the default option for Message Students Who is changed to 'Have not yet submitted', as this is the most commonly used option. In the Courses menu, any sections you are enrolled in are listed.
3^rd August	Admin Analytics (available to users with an admin role) will update every four hours, instead of 24 hours.
1^st August	In Files, when setting availability dates, you can also set availability times. In the Individual Gradebook, the Mute checkbox is removed. In the Calendar, when deleting an assignment event, the warning message has been updated to make it clearer that the assignment would also be deleted.
21^st July	In Canvas, you can assign modules, pages and ungraded discussions to specific students or sections: Restrict access to a module, page or ungraded discussion for specific students or sections. Set open and close dates for pages and ungraded discussions. Vary the access to a page or ungraded discussion for a specific student or group.
18^th July	In Discussions: Posts are sorted by the initial date of each post (i.e. oldest to newest), instead of the most recent reply (i.e. newest to oldest). You can quickly mark all posts as read or unread. When using the search tool, the search results include any formatting applied to posts in the results. In Speedgrader, comments that have not yet been submitted will be marked as Draft. When importing content between courses, when you search for a course the search results include the teaching period and course ID. On the people page, when students enrolled in multiple sections, the sections are displayed in alphabetical order. On the course's home page, the Publish and Unpublish buttons now display as a drop-down menu, making it clearer whether a course is published or not.
18^th July	Mahara has been upgraded: A new activity type has been added: Continuing professional development (CPD) Mahara now has a dark mode. It will automatically apply when your browser is set to dark mode.
4^th July	In Announcements: A Mark all as read button is available. You can notify students when an announcement has been updated The delayed posting field is changed to Available from and instructors can add Until dates In the Gradebook's Message Students Who window: The Cutoff Value field is moved and a header is added. A message has been added stating that the values seen by the instructor may differ from the students' view. In the Inbox: When a user has set their pronouns in their profile, they will display in the Inbox. In Files: The amount of storage used is set in Mebibytes and converted to Megabytes. This will change the numbers listed in your topic's quota, but not the amount of storage used. In Studio: You can now set automatically generated captions to be automatically published.
3^rd July	Improvements to the discussions and announcements tools. Here are the key changes: New features Sort replies from newest to oldest, or oldest to newest. Discussion and announcements display a label for users with teaching roles so students can identify them more easily. Tag other users in discussion replies by using the @ symbol. Quote other replies as part of your reply. View replies in a separate side panel, allowing you to see both the original and latest posts at the same time. Create anonymous discussions. Only student posts will be anonymous (feedback given by teaching staff are still named). Improvements Improved search functionality. Toolbar moved to top of discussion and announcement thread. Newest replies displayed at top of page.
29th June	Accessibility improvements to the Support Centre.
19th June	In Canvas: When you click on the courses button in the global navigation, you will see the ID of the course. This will help you distinguish between the different availabilities of a topic. On the courses page, you can sort courses by: course name teaching period your role in the course whether or not it has been favourited whether or not it has been published The Student View button has been renamed View as Student. The Update Course Details button on the course settings page will permanently sit in the bottom-right corner.
15th June	In SpeedGrader, if you are using Chrome or Edge, you can record and share a screen capture video as feedback Cancelled: When a classic quiz is imported or rolled to another topic, it will be converted to a New Quiz
5th June	In Canvas: When selecting roles using the Message Students Who feature in the Gradebook and modifying the Send Message To list, the displayed numbers update to reflect the current number of selected users. In SpeedGrader, you can now randomise the order of students with a certain submission status (e.g. all late students)
28th May	In Canvas Commons, minor graphical changes have been made to improve usability.
22nd May	In Canvas: When a student's enrolment is deactivated, an inactive label displays next to each inactive section on the People page and in the user context card. In SpeedGrader, you can randomise the order students are shown to you, improving the prevention of grading fatigue and bias. When selected, this preference is saved for the browser you are using. You will need to reapply the setting when using a different device. In the Course Section tab, the course dates, term dates and section dates are displayed.
19th May	In the Rich Content Editor, a Find and Replace tool has been added. To access it, click on the tools menu.
17th May	In FeedbackFruits, when in the peer review tool, students can upload alternative formats of a file for accessibility purposes, such as adding transcripts for a video, or an audio recording of a written document.
9th May	In the Gradebook, the Message Students Who feature now allows instructors to message students who have submitted an assignment. Options include messaging all students who have submitted on time, students with graded on time assignments, and students with ungraded on time assignments.
7th May	In Canvas Studio: In your topic's library, filter between your videos, your topic's videos, and videos shared with you from a menu button at the top of the page [1]. The add and record buttons have been combined into a Create button [2]. In your personal library, use the navigation at the top of the page to switch between your personal and topic libraries. If you are using Chrome and Edge you can use the web-based screen capture tool (now called Studio Capture) to create a picture-in-picture window to display video from your webcam. The picture-in-picture display can be moved and resized in the display and the picture-in-picture can be turned off in the display window. Initially, this will only be available when you are sharing your entire screen.
24th April	In Canvas, jQuery has been updated from version 3.5 to version 3.7.1.
19th April	Significant usability improvements are being made to FeedbackFruits: Easier to give and review feedback Easier to rate contributions Improved access on phones Students can more easily access submissions Students can now view all marks they are giving across their group from one screen These changes will apply to all new assignments created after April 19. Older assignments will not change. View announcement from FeedbackFruits
27th March	In Canvas Studio: Captions are now transcribed with 99% accuracy. Captions are now automatically generated, but not published. You will receive an email once the captions are generated, prompting you to review and publish them.
14th March	In Extension requests: Students can now request additional extensions on already-approved requests. The extension request tool will set until dates for all approved requests, equal to the length of time between the original due date and the original until date. Students can now submit and modify requests until 10 weeks after the teaching end date. Staff can now action requests until 11 weeks after the teaching end date. Staff with the Academic Lead role can now view and action requests. Example: Original date Due date: March 7 Until date: March 21 (two weeks later) Student A Extended due date: March 14 Extended until date: March 29 Student B Extended due date: March 15 Extended until date: March 30
13th March	When right-clicking on media in the Canvas Rich Content Editor, the options to download media, open media in a new tab, and copy the media address have been removed from the menu. This change increases the security of media, as it makes it harder for users attempting to share Canvas media outside of the platform.
6th March	Manage H5P is a new portal that lets you create and maintain your H5P content in one place. To access it, edit your course navigation and remove it from the disabled section. Students will not see the tool.
1st March	In DesignPLUS you can now create columns to lay out your content. Using this tool, you can create content that is both accessible and mobile-device friendly.
29th February	In Canvas, the following fonts have been removed from the Rich Content Editor (RCE) as they did not display correctly on all computers: Andale Mono Book Antiqua Comic Sans MS Helvetica Impact Symbol Terminal Webdings Wingdings This update does not affect text where the fonts have already been used; it only prevents the fonts from being added to new text.
23rd February	In FeedbackFruits: Videos can uploaded using a wider range of file formats. It is now possible to automatically generate subtitles for videos created or uploaded to FeedbackFruits. This feature is in beta, and it is not currently possible to edit these subtitles. If changing groups in FLO causes students to be in more than one group, you will now get a warning message in the group window in FeedbackFruits. This will help you quickly fix any mistakes when adjusting groups. It is now easier to compare the grades attained by self-assessment against the ratings received from peer and group reviewers.
17th February	When a classic practice quiz is migrated to a New Quiz, zero-point settings are now enabled by default. In New Quizzes: The Quiz and Item Analysis report can be downloaded The item analysis report now displays the total number of correct, incorrect, and no responses for Multiple Choice, Multiple Answer and True or False question types
8th February	Studio has introduced a new browser-based screen recording function. It is currently in beta, so you may experience issues if you choose to use it. It is available in Chrome and Edge.
6th February	DesignPLUS has been upgraded. The new interface will help you more easily find styling options. Coding changes in the background require you to upgrade the DesignPLUS content on each page. This takes a couple of seconds per page and does not have to be done in any timeframe.
2nd February	Accessibility improvements to the Support Centre.
31st January	You can now unpublish a module while leaving the items in the module still published. If you have access to all courses in a college, or broad access to Canvas courses, you can now more easily view nested Subaccounts, e.g. teaching programs within a college.
26th January	In FeedbackFruits: Improvements to the screen and camera recorder, including simultaneous screen and camera recording Clearer indications if students have rated the peers who have reviewed them. This applies to activities created from 26th January.
21st January	In New Quizzes, the Answer Frequency Summary charts now display the total number of correct responses, incorrect responses, and no responses for the following question types: Categorization Matching Ordering Hot Spot Formula
18th January	Calendar start and end times can now be inputted manually. When students view their grades they will see the date their assignment was submitted. When attaching a file through the Rich Content Editor, you can hover over a file name to view the full name
17th January	Quiz and Item Analysis reports in New Quizzes now generate in under 1 minute.
16th January	Improvements to the layout and metrics of the Studio quiz results page (more information)

2023

Date	Updates
29th December	Improvements to the tool picker in FeedbackFruits.
18th December	Mahara is now available in Canvas.
12th December	In FeedbackFruits, students can now rate their reviewers' feedback. This can be enabled in the ‘Received reviews’ step.
7th December	In the Calendar, you can create and edit duplicate events for different sections of a course.
22nd November	Editing access to courses has been extended to 12 weeks after the end of the teaching date (as defined in Student Management). This affects current, past and future courses. On the Dashboard, a link has been added to the Cookie Notice.
18th November	New quizzes now support anonymous grading You can duplicate an item bank. Duplicated Item banks can be edited without affecting the original content. Improvements when searching for an item bank.
21st October	In the Calendar, you can now create and edit recurring events. You can enable Push Notifications for new discussion topics and new replies.
19th October	The Results Processing Utility tool (RPUT) will now map grades from the override column.
13th October	When viewing New Quizzes that are locked and not yet available, the due date, points, number of questions, and the availability dates display for students. The Rich Content Editor Accessibility checker does not inspect colour gradients when checking contrast requirements.
10th October	Usability improvements to the grading module in FeedbackFruits.
27th September	In Canvas, when creating a delayed announcement, the Publish button is updated to display as Save.
26th September	In the Support Centre, Screen Reader users can open the drop-down menu using text and tab navigation.
20th September	Accessibility improvements have been made to the Support Centre. Focus contrast displays appropriately. Each table row has been converted into a single link, and tab movement now maintains a single focus per article. Keyboard-only and Screen Reader focus is contained within the modal. When users complete a search, the Screen Reader informs them that the search is complete. The search results modal page now includes a heading. Screen Reader users receive notifications when the Support Center modal is closed. Keyboard-only users’ focus now displays appropriately for the Yes/No buttons in the ‘Was This Article Helpful’ section. Screen Reader and Keyboard-only users can navigate the options list with both tab and arrow keys.
16th September	In Canvas: When you change the name of a page all links to that page automatically update in a course. In New Quizzes, you can allow students to build on their last attempt by reattempting incorrectly answered questions. New Quizzes can be exported as QTI files. Item banks can be shared between courses.
14th September	In Canvas: Updates to the text on the Change a Quiz Engine screen The setting that hides the total column has been renamed for clarity.
11th September	In Canvas Studio: Use the up and down arrows on your keyboard to change the volume. When moving media, a search feature option allows you to easily search for collection names.
6th September	Accessibility improvements to the Support Centre. When using a keyboard to navigate the support centre, the initial focus goes to the close button, then the search bar, and finally the content. Screen-Reader users are placed at the top of the screen when returning to the main screen. The developer of the support centre has reduced the headings at the top of the page from level 1 to level 2. Some of the headings we had added to indicate subsections on a page are also level 2 and we will reduce our headings to level 3 accordingly.
1st September	Minor design improvements to FeedbackFruits to improve usability. Here are the key highlights: General design tweaks, such as module rounding, shadows, typography, and spacing Tweaks to our ‘Notes’ feature design, now more compact New layout to ‘Instructions’ module, including formatting options Moving some buttons to the top bar of the interface: ‘Add note’ ‘Chain assignments’ ‘Copy from existing’
31st August	In Canvas: In the Gradebook, when filtering by section, section titles are displayed alphabetically. If you try to add a link to a type of resource (e.g. a page) in the Rich Content Editor, but no such resource exists, you will now see an option to create one.
19th August	Enhanced Gradebook filters have been turned on in all courses. These bring additional searching options in the gradebook, plus the ability to create and edit custom filters of your choosing. Please note that some settings on the Gradebook page have moved to a different location. For more information on the Enhanced gradebook filters, watch an overview of the changes or read the guides on using the filters, creating your own filters, or managing your gradebook options. When editing a course link, the sidebar is updated to allow users to view the name of the current link and choose a replacement from all available course links.
17th August	In the Inbox, when composing a message to all members in a course with a specific role (e.g. student), the number of users with that role is shown.
16th August	Topic links have been added to the navigation of all courses. The link will appear at the bottom of the navigation, so you may want to move it to a better location. To provide a consistent and user-friendly experience for students, we recommend that the navigation order is Home, followed by Modules, and then all other items listed in alphabetical order.
4th August	In FeedbackFruits: The dashboard that displays student progress has been simplified to improve usability. All activities created from August 4th will show keyword insights, which summarise the most frequently used words in student discussions and comments, providing teachers with an overview of what students are saying in their FeedbackFruits activities.
3rd August	In Canvas: If you post an announcement while your course is unpublished, you will receive a warning that students will not be notified. If you edit an announcement you will receive a warning that students will not be sent a copy of the edited announcement.
1st August	An issue was recently discovered where Teams recordings booked through the RCE editor or calendar were expiring after 120 days, instead of 365 days. This has been fixed, and recordings with shorter expiry dates are being extended over the next few days.
17th July	In Canvas: You can now more easily select a grading scheme when choosing to mark using letter grades. Accessibility and usability improvements have been made to the Inbox
13th July	Accessibility improvements to the support centre.
5th July	Microsoft Teams Classes has been introduced. Every Canvas topic has its own Team (named after the topic code), complete with its own chats, file section and channels, like a regular Teams channel. Create meetings inside Teams and have them added to your Outlook calendar. Students can automatically access recordings without you needing to share a link to the file. All staff can now enable breakout rooms in meetings. Students have lower access than staff, preventing access to some meeting features (e.g. sharing, recording, breakout rooms). Teams are created as needed and won't appear until you activate it in your topic. Access it from your course's navigation menu, or from inside Teams (once activated). Teams Classes is separate from the Teams Meeting tool available in semester 1. Both can be used, though Teams Classes has a wider range of features.
4th July	Enrolments in Student Management now sync with Canvas once per hour, bringing it into line with FLO.
21st June	You can now add a rubric to assignments created using an external tool. When adding a To-Do item in the Dashboard List View: The Date field includes a calendar icon to more easily pick a date The Date field now displays the day of the week You can now pick a time in addition to a date Improvements have been made to the calendar layout At the bottom of the Dashboard list view, the text indicating you are at the bottom of the list has been rewritten so it is easier to read. When resizing an embedded Canvas Studio video, the option to use a percentage dimension type has been removed. This change allows for more accurate sizing of videos.
17th June	In Canvas, you can now publish or unpublish all of your modules in one go.
9th June	In FeedbackFruits: Improvements have been made to the Keyword Insights feature (which is still in beta) Students can now make submissions by recording video and audio inside FeedbackFruits Teachers can create interactive video and audio inside FeedbackFruits
8th June	When switching views in the gradebook, the main gradebook has been renamed Traditional Gradebook.
24th May	Updates have been made to the Balsamiq Sans font (a selectable font in Canvas), so parentheses and bracket glyphs display correctly. (❨❩, ❪❫, ❬❭, ❮❯, ❰❱, ❲❳, ❴❵)
20th May	You can now access SpeedGrader from the options menus on the Assignments, Graded Discussions, Modules, Classic Quizzes and New Quizzes screens. You can now resize Canvas Studio media embedded in your course. After the video has been embedded, click on the Studio Media Options link. Choose from a standard size, or enter a custom height and width. Display media tabs (i.e. student comments) must be disabled.
12th May	In Feedback Fruits, the instructions in Group Contribution Grading have been improved.
11th May	In the Rich Content Editor, users can drag and drop or paste multiple files at once.
8th May	In Canvas Studio: When editing captions, your changes are now saved automatically. Improved options for editing and deleting captions.
2nd May	In Canvas Studio, when you cut or trim your media, the captions are cut or trimmed accordingly.
26th April	The Rich Content Editor is now easier to use in narrow browser windows.
14th April	Updates have been made to Feedback Fruits: Use keyword insights to find common topics of discussion. You can now add FeedbackFruits from the dropdown menu on the assignments or module screens (Note: link goes to an image). The description for each learning step has been clearer and easier to understand.
12th April	Improvements have been made to the Canvas version of the Extension requests tool: Students can now submit a request until six weeks after the topic's teaching end date. Staff can review requests until seven weeks after the topic's teaching end date. Formatting changes that make it easier to tell that Canvas is processing your request. Behind-the-scenes improvements to enable future updates to be made without any downtime Security improvements In the Canvas Gradebook, you can sort individual assignment columns and rows by excused submissions and unposted grades. In the Canvas Rich Content Editor, an Equilibrium button is now available in the equation editor.
30th March	In Canvas Studio: If a video is captioned, users can download a transcript. When adding a video from YouTube or Vimeo, you can now add a specific section instead of the whole video.
29th March	You can now sort the Canvas gradebook by a student's first name.
23rd March	Improvements have been made to the Canvas version of the Extension requests tool: Emails about outstanding requests are now sent as per your notification settings. Users were not reminded about older requests. Minor wording changes. Security improvements.
17th March	Updates have been made to Feedback Fruits The text editor in the Instructions section has been improved, to make styling and formatting text easier The profile picture of the person who added Instructions has been replaced with an icon, to reduce confusion when the person who created the assessment is not teaching the topic. You can now switch between different cameras and microphones when recording video/audio.
14th March	Improvements have been made to the Canvas version of the Extension requests tool: The Extension requested column lists the extension as x days, y hours, and z minutes, instead of a decimal (e.g. 1.5 days). Extensions can now be applied to assignments when a student already has a custom due date. Clearer wording when you are looking at a request that has already been declined. Students can no longer withdraw requests that have already been declined. You can now filter for withdrawn requests.
1st March	The full-featured Extension requests tool has been added to Canvas, and the hypercare arrangement for release 1 is winding down. The tool can be found in your course navigation. In addition to the features currently in FLO, the following features have been added to the Canvas version of the tool: Improved look and feel You can now bulk approve requests longer than three days Students can no longer see assignments they don't have access to Students can request extensions if their assignment has been granted a resubmission Students can modify a request if they have made an error, up until a request has been approved Students can resubmit a declined request The following features have been removed: Emails to students notifying them about the outcome of their request can no longer be switched off Staff can no longer nominate other approvers. Approvals must be made by Topic Coordinators or Teachers
23rd February	When editing captions in Canvas Studio, you can now: Search for all instances of a word in the captions and replace it with a different word. This will be most useful with errors created by automated captioning. Insert a new line into your captions While watching a video in Canvas Studio, all users can now: Change the size, location and colours of your captions Set the playback speed to 0.75x and 1.25x of the normal speed (in addition to the previously available speeds).
18th February	Updates have been made to Feedback Fruits: Any time enrolments or groups are changed in Canvas, the groups in FeedbackFruits will update in real time. You will now be asked to confirm when you try to delete a step in an assignment, in case you have done so by accident. You will now receive a notification if the file you are uploading fails because of an unreliable internet connection.
16th February	Updates have been made to Canvas: The Rich Content Editor (RCE) now supports pasting, and the drag and drop of content. The keyboard shortcuts window has been redesigned and made more accessible. The button to open the keyboard shortcuts window has been redesigned and added to more places. The keyboard shortcut to open the window has been removed
6th February	Statement of Assessment Methods (SAMs) now appear in the navigation menu.
30th January	Users are being added to Canvas courses more frequently (it was previously once per day).
3rd January	First topics taught in Canvas 🎉 Kaltura has been temporarily added to Canvas while videos continue to be transferred to Canvas Studio. You can use Kaltura to embed existing videos from FLO, but not new add videos (add new videos in Canvas Studio)

2022

Date	Updates
23rd December	Canvas and Canvas Studio are available to all students and staff through Okta.
15th November	Canvas and Canvas Studio are available to staff who request sandpits DesignPLUS is available to staff