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Release Notes: April 2021
Overview
Version 2.4 of SparkLearn adds new features to help learners stay up to date about new content and contribute their own articles to the content library. It also includes loads of enhancements and bug fixes to improve your learner’s experience in SparkLearn.
Summary Highlights
For Content Managers and Owners
- You can now send push notifications to learners when there is new or updated content for tags they are following.
- When creating or editing an article, you can now save your changes as a draft to avoid learners from seeing your work-in-progress.
- When a learner contributes an article, you have an opportunity to review their content before it is visible to other learners.
For Learners
- You can now follow tags you find interesting to be kept up-to-date about new content associated with those tags.
- And if you’re not seeing the type of content you think is important, you can now contribute your own Articles to be reviewed and published by the content manager. When your contribution is accepted, you’ll earn a badge to thank you for your contribution!
New Features
User-Generated Content
Learners now have an opportunity to contribute their expertise by creating their own Articles.
Learners can save drafts of their work until they’re ready to submit it for review. All content created by a learner must be approved by a Content Manager or Owner before it can be seen by other learners.
From the For Review screen, Content Managers and Owners can see content that is waiting for review. They can edit the article, if needed, and publish it for other learners.
After the article has been published, the author still retains edit rights and can keep the content up-to-date. Any changes to the Article will need to be reviewed again before they are seen by other learners.
Plus, you can give your users credit for their contribution by adding a byline to the articles that they create.
Note: This feature is not enabled by default. (needs to be enabled by Float)
Channels
Learners can now choose to follow tags to receive updates when there is new or updated content related to those tags.
Learners can see an overview of recent updates to the tags they are following from the new Following screen.
The Following screen shows each tag the learner is following and the most recently updated content in each tag (up to 10 for each tag).
The learner can tap the tag to see more content with that tag or choose to unfollow it.
Note: Learning objects that belong to a course are not shown on this screen.
When a content manager adds or updates content, they can choose to send a push notification to learners following the tags associated with that content.
Enhancements and Bug Fixes
Web App
- Enabled content moderation so that only content managers / admins can publish articles
- The Annotations tab on the article appears now appears in gray if the learner has not yet created any annotations
- Feedback Submit button is grayed out until the user either upvotes or downvotes the article
- Added ability to filter Learning Objects by type
- Improved warning messages during bulk user import
- Standardized all views to have 30 items by default
- Improved the form for sending push notifications
- Improved form and validation for bulk import user
- You can now sort users on the Users screen by clicking the column headings
- The Difficulty field is no longer required when creating a Web link
- Comments can now be enabled by default on new Articles
- Bulk operations on content no longer default to “Delete” and require the admin to select an action
- The values entered in the Web interface for learner goals are now validated to be between 0 and 100
- Added custom theming capabilities for background pattern and menu color
- Admins can now change default achievement/certificate values via UI
- Added revision log to article edit page
- Updated reset password message to avoid showing if email is associated with an account
- Improved access control checking and validation
- Adds version information to the status report
- If an article has no author, it now defaults to the current user
- Improved the phrasing of goal reminder messages
- Improved the layout of the summary analytics dashboard
- Relabelled “Corpus Activity” to “Library”
- Fixed an issue where a manually completed article was still be automatically marked as complete
- Fixed an issue where users were able to deselect private groups from their profile which made it look like the user had left the group when they hadn't
- Fixed bug where achievements popup showed up on content when viewed in app
- Fixed an issue where content could appear multiple times if it was a part of multiple groups and the user was also part of those groups
- Fixed issue processing group membership changes from user page
- Fixed an error during onboarding if there were no public groups
- Fixed an issue in Safari where it could be difficulty to reorder learning objects within a course
- Fixed an error processing quiz answers if the answer option was too long
- Various minor UI improvements
Mobile App
- Improved user interface for viewing and updating goals
- Improved handling of completion for audio media
- Tapping on a badge or certificate notification now takes you to that item
- Corrected text for warning messages to reflect the name of the app
- Improved user interface for quiz and article cards
- Improved user interface for empty states
- Improved how long course descriptions are truncated
- Resolved a “flickering” loading indicator when viewing interests or groups
- Resolved a bug that could prevent receipt of push notifications
- Fixed an issue where Badges/Certificates may not be visible
- Fixed an issue where course completions would not reflect in the user’s stats
- Fixed an issue where prompt cards would not correctly display some characters
- Fixed an issue where saving groups occasionally fails with a login screen
- Fixed a bug that may have prevented feedback submission
- Fixed a bug that prevented viewing some embedded content
- Fixed a bug on Android that could cause videos to continue playing after navigating away from the page
Known Issues / Limitations
Web App
- As a content manager, when bulk adding content to a course, changing pages in the content browser will lose the selection from the previous page (#SL-2104)
- Varying Issues with learning object statements (completed, launched, terminate) in packaged content sent to mobile app (#SL-2297)
- Notes do not sync with mobile app when xAPI actor IFI is set to Email (#SL-2789)
- LRS section in status report is not updating correctly (#SL-3060)
- On iPhone, when editing an existing note, the text field may scroll off the top of the screen (#SL-3087)
Mobile App
- xAPI statements that occur while the app is launching are not sent to the LRS (#SL-1985)
- New and Trending tabs only show content when the device is offline if the learner had accessed those tabs while the device was online (#SL-2035)
- Large accessibility text sizes may cause overlapping text in some areas of the app (#SL-2091)
- Bookmarks only show the most recently 50 bookmarked items (#SL-2595)
- Some linked content may show a downloading icon (#SL-2788)
- Users may get redirected to a login screen if the app can't load a requested learning object (#SL-3203)
iOS-specific
N/A
Android-specific
- Files exceeding the local cache limit may be deleted and redownloaded frequently (#SL-2092)
- Users may be unable to open settings until next app launch (#SL-2096)
- Workaround: Terminate and relaunch the app
- In some cases, the user may be unable to immediately reopen a web link after closing it (#SL-3375)
- Workaround: Select another learning object, and then return to the web link
Tips for Updating
To ensure that your application is kept up to date, make sure your iOS & Android auto-updates are turned on. We have provided links below to assist you with turning on this feature. There is no need to update the CMS, as that is done automatically. If you have a customized SparkLearn® instance and need help with anything, don’t hesitate to reach out to our Customer Support team.
For Tips & Tricks
Visit our Knowledge Base
For help with anything don't hesitate to reach out support@gowithsparklearn.com