v0.27.0
About Torus
More information about Torus, the Torus Community, past releases, and the Torus roadmap can be found on the OLI web site for Torus
Release Overview
Release Date: April 9, 2024
Total improvements included in this release: 76
New Features: 43
Bug Fixes: 25
Technical / Non-Interface: 8
Key improvements in Torus v0.27.0 include:
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User experience (UX) improvements to the authoring interface. With 15 out of 43 new feature issues, this is the largest category of improvements in the release. As OLI's new product and user experience team came up to speed, we focused on iterative improvements following basic design principles.
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User experience (UX) improvements to the student interface. Though we are working on a major overhaul of the student interface that should be released as part of Torus v0.28.0, we continue to prioritize items raised by members of our user community, which are sometimes small wins that increase user clarity and minimizing opportunities for confusion.
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The addition of three security roles for Torus admins. Through Torus v0.26.x, all admins had the same capabilities, increasing the likelihood of accidental actions that could cause problems across the system. This version implements three hierarchical levels of admin capabilities: Account Admin, Content Admin, and System Admin.
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Back end optimizations. Though these features are not directly apparent to Torus users, they improve the user experience for everyone and reduce risk.
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Sorting improvements. A number of pages across the application did not sort resources as expected.
Improvements
| Issue Key | Title | Description | Interface | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MER-2356 | Current user account signed in is automatically added as instructor when creating a section as an admin | If an admin created a course section while also signed in as an instructor, the instructor would automatically be linked to the course | Admin | Bug fix |
| MER-2843 | Admin - Can set invalid email in user's details | Input validation on the email field for new users created by admins allowed some variations that were not valid email addresses | Admin | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-311 / MER-2875 | Admin - Cannot unlock author's account | After an administrator locked an authoring user's account and then unlocked it, the author would still be unable to sign in | Admin | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-335 / MER-3016 | Unable to select assignment for LMS Synchronize Grades tool | For LTI-connected courses, the page would refresh (and thus reset selection) when an admin selected an assignment using the Synchronize Grades tool | Admin | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-320 / MER-3072 | Manual Enroll Does Not Work | Error when an admin attempts to add an enrollment manually | Admin | Bug fix |
| MER-2999 | Separate Admin functionality into "Content Admin", "Accounts Admin" and "System Admin" | Prior to this release all Torus admins had all admin capabilities. There are now three levels of admin so that each user only has the admin capabilities required for their role | Admin | Security |
| TRIAGE-127 / MER-2978 | Admin view - "Created" sorting works incorrectly in Communities | Sorting Communities by date created did not work as expected | Admin | Sorting |
| TRIAGE-124 / MER-2979 | Admin view - Incorrect sorting on sections of institutions | Sorting courses by cost did not work as expected | Admin | Sorting |
| MER-2997 | Changes to CSS In Advanced Author Flowchart Tool (aka Simple Author) | Changes to styling in the Simple Author tool | Author | Advanced / Simple Author |
| MER-2500 | Deleting Columns from Tables with Merged Cells Fails Silently | Authoring users cannot delete table columns if there are cells merged across columns, even if the cells are later unmerged | Author | Bug fix |
| MER-2847 | Improve handling of React Error Boundary around Slate editing errors | Some specific actions in the rich text editor in the authoring interface caused errors | Author | Bug fix |
| MER-2903 | Unable to delete Default Correct State duplicates | In some cases an answer option could not be deleted if it was created by duplicating the correct answer | Author | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-109 / MER-2913 | Cannot Add Expression to Activity Bank inside a Group | When an activity bank is inside a group, an expression cannot be added. | Author | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-110 / MER-2914 | Mouse Focus Jumps to Top of Page When Editing (Firefox) | When using Firefox, a certain set of actions would result in the mouse focus jumping to the top of the page | Author | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-303 / MER-3014 | Video Settings Button not functional / not responsive | The settings buttons that would allow an author to specify the start and end times for an embedded video were not working properly | Author | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-407 / MER-3069 | Editing Questions in Activity Bank Errors | A set of steps would lead to an error when editing questions in an activity bank | Author | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-204 / MER-2931 | Datashop Export Differentiation by Product/Course Section | Allow authors to differentiate between students in different course sections in exported data | Author | Data processing and analysis |
| MER-2641 | Project Export/Import does not preserve language, custom labels | Ensure that project settings remain consistent when a project is exported and then imported | Author | Project and product handling |
| MER-2767 | Allow Products to be duplicated when a course project is cloned | When authors duplicate a project with multiple products, the product structure is preserved in the new project | Author | Project and product handling |
| TRIAGE-209 / MER-2163 | Archive media items | Allow authors to archive media items that they no longer want available to insert into pages. The items will still be available for previous course sections that are using them. | Author | UX Improvement |
| MER-2456 | Ability to see who created a section in the publish area that shows you the sections that were created off of a project | In the publication table, authors can now see which user created each course section | Author | UX Improvement |
| MER-2799 | Accessibility Issue: Repetitive reading & not focusable for navigation buttons (screen reader) | The main navigation buttons in the authoring interface did not operate properly in a screen reader | Author | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-32 / MER-2882 | Add tooltips to authoring toolbar | Help authors understand the function of toolbar buttons by adding explanatory text when the user hovers | Author | UX Improvement |
| MER-2884 | Remove "settings" icon in authoring toolbar and move subitems to top level | Remove a hierarchical level to the authoring toolbar to make features more apparent to authors and make them easier to access | Author | UX Improvement |
| MER-2885 | Add "undo" function to authoring toolbar | Increase usability by allowing authors to automatically undo actions | Author | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-34 / MER-2886 | Hovering tooltip for sidebar page outline | Help authors understand the function of sidebar items by adding explanatory text when the user hovers | Author | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-35 / MER-2887 | Learning Objective tooltip for new pages | Help authors understand the learning objective functionality by adding explanatory text when the user hovers | Author | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-36 / MER-2888 | Persisting Add New Content Plus Sign | Help authors identify where they can add new content by leaving the icon where it can always be seen rather than only displaying it when the user rolls over the location | Author | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-62 / MER-2889 | From All Pages View: See Which Pages are In / Not In Curriculum | Add an indicator for each page in the All Pages View to indicate whether or not the page is in the curriculum | Author | UX Improvement |
| MER-2891 | Add link on curriculum page to all pages and vice versa | Add links from the curriculum page to all pages and vice versa to allow easier navigation between the two pages | Author | UX Improvement |
| MER-2892 | Get rid of "Practice Page" phrasing | Enhance the UX to clarify that any page, basic or adaptive, can be graded or not graded (not graded being a "practice page") | Author | UX Improvement |
| MER-2896 | Add "redo" function to authoring toolbar | This is a companion ticket to the "undo" feature - once an author uses "undo" they can do a corresponding "redo" | Author | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-103 / MER-2911 | Can't add Objective to a page | Make the search for a learning objective not case sensitive | Author | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-301 / MER-3002 | Number Enrolled Should be Students Only | The number of enrollees for each section had included the instructor but now only includes students | Author | UX Improvement |
| MER-2433 | Recommended action approve pending posts takes instructor to student view | Approving pending discussion posts links instructors to the wrong location | Instructor | Bug fix |
| MER-2499 | Canceling independent course build has unexpected landing page | A particular sequence of events involving cancelling a course section led to the system navigating to the wrong page | Instructor | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-143 / MER-2915 | Instructor view - Additional Activity Summarization only visible when answering more than once | The number of attempts was incorrect for certain activities on practice pages | Instructor | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-148 / MER-2916 | Instructor view - No Additional Activity Summarization for activities | On scored pages, certain steps would lead to an incorrect Additional Activity Summarization | Instructor | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-136 / MER-2927 | Adding Suggested Dates or In-Class Activity Dates Reverts to 1975 | A particular set of steps led to suggested dates in scheduling reverting to a date in 1975 | Instructor | Bug fix |
| MER-2970 | Scheduling Calendar Adds a Day to the Due Date | In a particular circumstance, a set of steps would result in a day being added to due dates | Instructor | Bug fix |
| MER-2994 | Scored Activities - Incorrect Additional Activity Summarization in Multi Input activities | On scored pages, certain steps would lead to an incorrect Additional Activity Summarization | Instructor | Bug fix |
| MER-2670 | Soft Schedule can't be removed | Allow instructors to remove a soft schedule (a suggested schedule as opposed to an enforced or "hard" schedule) once it has been set | Instructor | Scheduling and gating |
| MER-2441 | Sort gating by sequence/appearance in course | Course gates (ie, parts of the course the students navigate in sequence) appeared in alphabetical order rather than in the order that they occur in the course | Instructor | Sorting |
| TRIAGE-120 / MER-2918 | Instructor role - Incorrect sorting of practice activities | When sorting Practice activities by Assessment, the order of the activities was not sorted as expected | Instructor | Sorting |
| TRIAGE-266 / MER-2980 | Incorrect sorting in due date for scored activities | Scored activities did not sort as expected | Instructor | Sorting |
| TRIAGE-324 / MER-3008 | Attempts Sort Out of Order | Student activity attempts were not sorted as expected | Instructor | Sorting |
| MER-2622 | Student/Instructor Content Browser Does not Respect Custom Container Labels | Instructors have the ability to give custom name to different hierarchical content containers in the course (ie, units, sections, modules), but the system was not respecting those customizations | Multiple | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-221 / MER-2760 | Cannot change password when editing account | This bug prevented users from updating their password in certain circumstances | Multiple | Bug fix |
| MER-2748 | No license present | Make it easier to add a license to course content (Creative Commons or otherwise), including in courses with content mixed from various projects | Multiple | Licensing |
| MER-2761 | Sticky flash messages look wrong | In some cases, flash messages (messages that appear on the screen after a user action, such as a warning or confirmation) were positioned awkwardly | Multiple | UX Improvement |
| MER-2809 | DD Activity - It is posible to set the Maximum number of posts as lower than Required number of posts | For class discussions, instructors could set the maximum number of posts to be a lower number than the required number of posts, which would make reaching the requirement impossible | Multiple | UX Improvement |
| MER-2717 | Improve DataShop download feature | This ticket involves some back end improvements to datashop download feature | N/A | Technical |
| MER-2898 | Fix flaky tests coming from the CourseDetailsTest module | This was a testing-specific issue | N/A | Technical |
| MER-2984 | Optimize get_resources_scheduled_dates_for_student function | Optimize database queries | N/A | Technical |
| MER-2988 | Cleanup Oban error messages in test logs | Update logging configuration | N/A | Technical |
| MER-3062 | [SIM - CAPI Issue] variable added in configData section of a SIM not getting replaced before sending it to SIM | This is an enhancement to for an API integration | N/A | Technical |
| MER-3068 | Opening Lessons in QA as a student gives a 500 error | This was a testing-specific issue | N/A | Technical |
| MER-3075 | License missing JSON Encoder, breaking export function | This was a testing-specific issue | N/A | Technical |
| MER-3076 | Export crashes on migrated image-hotspot activities | This is a migration-specific issue | N/A | Technical |
| TRIAGE-56 / MER-2859 | Captcha fix for TourIt VR support | The integration between Torus and the TourIt VR application required users to do a recaptcha even after being signed in. | Student | Advanced / Simple Author |
| MER-3024 | Advanced Author Next button behaves differently in different lessons | In certain lessons in Advanced Author pages, the "Next" button did not behave as expected | Student | Advanced / Simple Author |
| MER-3050 | Drop down menu for trap states gets cut off | Under a particular set of circumstances, some drop down menu options were not selectable | Student | Advanced / Simple Author |
| MER-3056 | Adaptive Page Link doesn't open in a new tab | Make the default behavior for links in adaptive pages to open in a new browser tab | Student | Advanced / Simple Author |
| MER-2687 | Scored Activities does not allow page advance until new question is selected | Under a particular set of circumstances, students in a scored activity could not advance to the next page without selecting a question first | Student | Bug fix |
| MER-2867 | Student Exceptions - Extended due dates are displayed incorrectly on the home screen from the student perspective | When the instructor makes an exception to a due date, allowing students to turn in an assignment late, the original date was appearing on the home screen under certain circumstances. | Student | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-338 / MER-3020 | Trailing Space in Correct Answer = Impossible to Answer Correctly | This issue impacted courses migrated from the OLI legacy system. If answer options had trailing spaces at the time of migration, the system would not trim those spaces and thus answers were marked incorrect if the student did not enter an answer with the same trailing spaces | Student | Bug fix |
| MER-3055 | Students receive a 1/1 when restarting on the Title PAge | When following a specific set of steps in some lessons, students could restart a page and receive an automatic score | Student | Bug fix |
| TRIAGE-107 / MER-2912 | Practice Activity pages displayed in random order in navigation. | Practice Activity pages displayed in random order in navigation. | Student | Sorting |
| MER-1886 | Discussions - Remove them from student view if the feature is not turned on | For class sections that do not have discussions enabled, this feature will not be visible | Student | UX Improvement |
| MER-2512 | Place Submit button and Reset button in different locations to avoid accidental resets: CMU-456 | An improvement to the student interface to prevent students from accidentally clicking the wrong button | Student | UX Improvement |
| MER-2925 | Variables not recalling on screen refresh | The page will remember variable values after a browser refresh | Student | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-228 / MER-2956 | Table Difficult to read because of Header | Increase the readability of table contents | Student | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-226 / MER-2957 | Table Menu Gets Cut off in Authoring when in a group | Increase the readability of table contents | Student | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-262 / MER-2961 | Equations getting cut off | Increase the readability of long equations | Student | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-141 / MER-2985 | Reduce the number of clicks for users to launch a lesson | For students accessing Torus content through the NASA Infiniscope portal, make the transition easier by reducing the number of clicks | Student | UX Improvement |
| TRIAGE-297 / MER-2995 | Feedback isn't coming up in the order of the question | When students are answering a multi-part question, the feedback for each part doesn't always stack in the same order that the student answers each part. This can lead to confusion where students don't connect each feedback item to the correct answer part. | Student | UX Improvement |
Known Issues
| Issue Key | Title | Description | Interface | Category |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TRIAGE-149 / MER-2917 | Instructor view - Incorrect Additional Activity Summarization in Multi Input activities | On scored pages, certain steps would lead to an incorrect Additional Activity Summarization | Instructor | Bug fix |
Full Changelog: v0.26.5...v0.27.0