April 2012
Schoolbox brought to you by Alaress
Introduction
During this release we have focused on the quality of our product and refined many existing features across the entire system. Although there is not much in the way of new features we believe these refinements are key to a great product. We hope you enjoy the improved functionality and capacity of our existing feature set.
There are four key updates to Schoolbox in this release.
- Schoolbox filesystem accessible via WebDAV
- Added grade systems to due work and improved markbook
- Display files, folders and links from other homepages
- Rewrite of School News module to improve navigation and archiving
Of course we always provide some statistics regarding the release. So here goes, we have closed 152 issues with over 540 commits to the Schoolbox repository.
Major Updates
There are four major changes to Schoolbox in this 12.0 release. These are:
WebDAV Access
The Schoolbox filesystem is now accessible via the WebDAV protocol. This will enable users to browse the files and folders of Schoolbox as a natively mounted drive on their computer. IT can configure network computers to automatically mount Schoolbox on login. Users can open, create and edit files directly in Schoolbox all via Microsoft Office. Users can also copy and paste files using their explorer directly to their pages. In the future we will provide similar access to the submission system to enable teachers to review and return work via MS Office as well, avoiding the download, comment and upload process currently in place.
Note: This feature was originally built for version 12.0, however there were issues relating to WebDav and ActiveDirectory which were scheduled in for fixing to be released as part of version 12.5.
Markbook Grade Types
The submission system has been upgraded to now provide mark types. All assessments marked online will be normalised to a standard grade for later analytical reporting. But for presentation purposes you can select Total Mark, Percentage or Grade. Along with these updates we have also upgraded the marksheet to support the new grade types and allow the modification of comments inline and keep the students' names always on the side. The grades can be altered in the admin system to support any grading system your school uses. This feature lays the ground work for future integration with reporting systems and continuous reporting via Schoolbox of current grade averages.
Display Files, Links and Folders From Other Homepages
The files, links and folders components have been updated to enable linking to foreign content. This is an important feature to enable sharing of content and centralised content development. This supports our strategy to see departments develop units of work and content that is then dynamically imported and included on class pages by the teacher. These components can now also be included multiple times, allowing multiple sections or units to be included on a single class page.
Improved School News Browser
The school news feature continues to grow in popularity and we are experiencing increasing use and content being presented via this system. To support this increased use we have developed new archiving and browsing functions to improve access. This feature breaks news down by month and year so you can browse by time as well as categories. We have also added a news detail page and added news to the unified search function to improve access.
Minor Updates
Core System
- Show advanced options on modify when they have previously been set
- Can now search for users by ID in the unified search
- Added support for searching on short strings using quotes for example "Hu"
- Added search failed screen, with information and ability to search again
- Added spellcheck into TinyMCE editor
- Added right click context menu in TinyMCE editor (select text and right click to add link, or right click on image to adjust appearance)
- When creating a new folder the permissions are set to the parent folders permissions by default
- Admins can now recursively set permissions across folders
- Added School news to search
- Improved school news archive functions and browsing
- Added support for Active Directory password expiry, account expiry and account disabled error codes to be returned to the user
- Added support for embedding Google Maps and Vimeo via iframe in TinyMCE media embed
Admin System
- Improved sidemenu display
- Added ability to set the parent of a side menu item when creating
- Added user reports to show users in each group. Groups on admin welcome page are now clickable.
- Added CSV export of user reports
- Added activity report, with filter by user and keyword. Accessible via the admin welcome page and user modify page.
- Added login report, with filter by user and IP. Accessable via the admin welcome page and user modify page.
- Admin system welcome page now lazy loads the statistics to avoid lag created in some situations on loading this page.
- Side navigation links are now processed via relative link system to handle issues with multiple domains and https
Welcome Dashboard
Please note that these components must be manually added to your welcome pages if you choose to use them. This can be done via the admin system dashboard controller.
- Added new component: Homepage Feed. Adds a feed of information regarding changes to homepages the user is involved in. Shows the latest news, files, links, wikis, forums being posted in homepages on your welcome page.
- Added new component: Upcoming Due Work. Shows a summary of the 10 most recent work due across all subjects. This component is for students only.
- Added new component: Recent Submissions. Shows a summary of the 10 most recent submission boxes with activity across all subjects. This component is for teachers only.
- Added student profile photos to parents student component
Calendar
- Improved vCAL import support, better handling of timezones and recurring events
- Added group which events belongs to in event detail on calendar
- Added calendar publish date, allows draft events to be created but only visible to admins
- Added ability to delete or modify recursive calendar events
- Calendar filters are now remembered between pages, allowing you to set filters then view the following weeks or months without losing your settings
Homepages
- Added Twitter feed component. Can search on user, hashtags or keywords. Due to twitter limitations only shows 2 weeks worth of data.
- Added ClickView video component. Can be used to embed clickview home videos into schoolbox homepages.
- Removed deprecated components (assignments, homework, simple image, etc.)
- Added ability for admins to disable and enable homepage components
- Links, Files and Folders can be linked to foreign folders and display content from other locations. These components can also be added to a homepage multiple times and linked to different locations.
- Added compact mode to Files, Links, Due Work, Surveys, RSS, Podcast to reduce amount of content being displayed if required.
- Added chat archive to the chat component, all previous chat dialogues are now accessible via this page.
- Added a warning for teachers when leaving an active chat that doing so will result in the chat being disabled for students still present.
- Wiki revisions menu is now collapsible to increase wiki view space.
Online Assessments / Surveys
- Added display of individuals responses to survey
- Improved bulk export to show responses and easier format to translate
- Enabled HTML (TinyMCE) descriptions to surveys and assessments
- Display the creator of the survey and assessment on the homepage
Submissions
- When creating submissions, time is now optional allowing just a date to be set and the work to be handed in anytime that day
- Added editing of submission grade types and mark translation under Lists in admin system
- Added support for accepting multiple submissions
Known Issues
We already know about these issues and plan to have them resolved shortly.
- WebDAV must be installed seperately and configured. It also requires the user to login to schoolbox before they can use the system.
- Marks do not always fit in marksheet
- Marks are not always validated correctly
Update 12.0.1
Changes
- Added new admin permission control to limit school news posting to only selected users (defaults to allow teachers to post school news)
- Email autocomplete visibility restrictions enforced: students and parents can only see teachers, teachers can see everyone
Bug Fixes
- Fixed broken alignment of rows in mark sheet
- Fixed an issue where question sequence and section sequence values weren't being stored correctly
- Fixed rendering issue on All Due Work page where there was sometimes two subject headings for the same subject
- All Due Work page now compresses multiple submissions into one row, and shows the latest returned mark for that submission box.
- Fix issue with admin settings not showing HTML editor in all cases
- Fixed bug in WebDav client library that failed authentication in some scenarios, also added erroneous header to work around bug in IIS
- Fixed error handling in WebDav client when failure occurs
- Suppressed error message from xml cache system
- Fixed warning message displayed when uploading files
- Rewrote Login report query to only retrieve what will be displayed to the screen avoiding memory overflow in large databases
- Suppress ldap_bind failure in login system if system credentials are incorrect but ldap is enabled
- Fixed issue with submissions displaying incorrectly in calendar when multiple submissions accepted
- Fixed an issue in chat display times where noon would be considered as midnight due to a time conversion oversight
- Changed output date format for Twitter homepage component to be compatible with existing formats
Custom School Changes
- Body font for MGS changed to Verdana.
- Moriah calendar heading changed to black.
- St Michaels colors for footer elements now easier to read/better contrasting.
- Moriah spelling and content update for forgotten-password.html
- Removed medical details from class marksheet for st michaels
Update 12.0.2
Core System
- Fixed double commas being output in email all bcc when subject had no teachers [SB-1208]
- Updated bulk user CSV template to match expected input
- Default news expiry is now customisable via Settings > Resources. [SB-1191]
- Calendar month header no longer displayed in white in some skins [SB-1195]
- Fixed issue with class code showing multiple times on calendar when multiple submissions are made [SB-1166]
Learning Management
- Teachers are now notified in submission box when work has been submitted since last grade. [SB-1190]
- Marksheet height not aligned properly when no online assessments are present [SB-1164]
Homepages
- Renamed template variables in assess and survey homepage modules, were overwriting global USER_ID token [SB-1206]
- Fixed an issue where anyone could view survey results.
- Fixed an issue where questions could not be imported to question bank
- Enabled anyone with read access to take a survey, rather than just those involved in the folder
- Changed twitter limit to drop down and fixed issue with no limit being set
- Fixed issue with twitter cache not refreshing often enough (now set to 1 hour)
- RSS feeds now accessible without authentication, requires token for access which is accessible via a button on the feed of the homepage [SB-1194]
- Components description now clears the row properly [SB-1198]
ePortfolio
- Modified permissions to block staff editing other staff ePortfolios [SB-1187]
- Removed private note privileges from parents on ePortfolios [SB-1187]
Update 12.0.3
Core System
- Changed Calendar search to return all events not just those in the future
- Fixed issue with Calendar search not displaying correctly in search results page
- Updated htaccess file to fix issues with URLs [SB-1211] [SB-1238]
- Fixed Student Profile page display of boarder types when a non-synergetic external db was being used.
- Fixed auto-scroll in the resource browser to the active folder [SB-1234]
- "Select from your existing files" feature no longer renders when WebDav is enabled as it does not support WebDav
- Created update script to create keys for users who don't have one, should fix some RSS access issues
- Improved support for google maps from www.google.com.au/maps and https
- Fix to prevent the addition of blank rows in the admin list module
- Fixed an issue where certain characters (quotes, ampersands) in category names weren't being decoded whilst ajaxing content in the Resource Browser
- Fixed an issue where Synergetic portraits wouldn't update due to caching
- Fixed an issue in My Files browser where the uploaded datetime was incorrectly displayed.
- Fixed an issue with Calendar search results returning the wrong number of events which was breaking pagination
Homepages
- Altered homepage components to determine whether you can access a particular assess/survey based on open and close times plus permissions.
- Language Translate component disabled following Google no longer offering service for free
- Moved javascript on folder,links,files,image gallery and image carousel homepage components so that it works following an ajax load.
- Fixed CSS include on ajax load of folder,links,files.
- Updated Clickview component to accept full URL from Clickview home
Online Assessment / Surveys
- Added validation on line items for multi-choice to avoid removing all answers [SB-1230]
- Now hiding assessments before they are open to anyone with read only permission
- Added permissions checks to each step of taking an Online Assess.
- Fixed an issue in Online Assessments results screen which was preventing certain attempts from displaying
- Added permission checks based on open and closed time for surveys and online assessments
- Updated permissions on survey and online assess, such that anyone with write access to the parent category is allowed to modify contents, view results and manage attempts.
- Fixed a bug in Cloze question type rendering
- Fixed an issue where export/import permissions weren't being checked for either surveys or assessments.
- Added checks on Radio and Multi answers output. This should prevent some errors displaying in case UI validation breaks.
- Fixed an issue where Survey start and finish times weren't display correctly in the UI
Submissions
- Added check for "restrict student submissions" policy to filter out results from the activity feed.
- Fixed output containing commas in marksheet export to CSV
- Fixed display of calendar on Due Work page when displaying on a really small resolution
Custom School Changes
- Removed emergency contact information from Bialik profiles
- Removed emails from Bialik parent profiles
- Recovered some missing CSS for JPC
- Fixed Wenona year calculation for home folders on WebDav
- Morris library redone to fix layout issues in some browsers [SB-1140]
- Removed medical information from Bialk
- User token added to Shore homepage template for RSS
Update 12.0.4
Core System
- Removed instances of appearing in certain comment/description fields for search results.
- Changed formatting of synergetic changepassword api request.
- Added ability for banner to hide logged in information if user is not logged in but banner is rendered. [SB-1265]
- Fixed issue with search on category regarding number of results.
- Fix removal of @ in search strings [SB-1271]
Admin System
- Fixed bug in group report preventing the data from being exported additional changes for group report bugfix.
- Added username to fields list, which resolves [SB-1189].
- Updated report exporter to not store report data in PHP memory more than one row at a time. [SB-1239]
- Fixed issue with residential house and houses not being supported in all skins and on add user page.
- Added last login to super users list [SB-1268]
ePortfolio
- In ePortfolio, Image Embed only displays images and Media Embed only displays non-images.
- Fixed incorrect reference to file browser in eportfolio blog
- Made files visible in the root folder of eportfolios
- Fixed issue where directories weren't getting cleared correctly when files were added to the root and directories made elsewhere in the tree
- Added ability to add files via the resource browser from My Files, when files were in the Root
- Share In ePortfolio link no longer appears when ePortfolio is disabled for that user.
- ePortfolio Image Advanced now understands resizing when using a remote url image.
Calendar
- Calendar components in homepage now support attendance.
- Anyone with write access in a homepage can manage the attendance list for events pertaining to that homepage
- Calendar views in Week and Month now stay in those views if you choose a new date from the datepicker.
- Fixed display and handling of birthdays in calendar
Online Assessments / Surveys
- Fixed unrendered token in Upcoming Due Work module on Welcome page. [SB-1309]
- Surveys and Online Assessments that aren't supposed to show are just ignored, rather than having their block cleared.
- Fixed Plagscan, and updated redirect function to allow system to redirect client, but keep working in background. [SB-1266]
- Fixed printing survey results
- Hide View All work button from parents without permission to see grades
- Fixed issue with links to groups not working in due work subject listing [SB-1270]
- Added mark value to Marksheet CSV export. This is the "letter grade" associated with the normalised mark.
- Fixed issue in survey export where incomplete surveys at time of export would show Jan 1970 in Finished column.
- Fixed issue in outputAssess/outputSurvey where rows wouldn't get output due to block clearing.
Homepages
- TinyMCE requires the purifier to be bypassed when the editor is instantiated to allow editing of embedded media. [SB-1227]
- Faulty display of textarea in forum edit, missing "theme_advanced_statusbar_location" tinyMCE paramater.
- Fixed wiki component display for IE7
- Removed "Unkown User" on in teachers component when teacher unable to be found
- Fixed link in activity feed to point to homepages rather than resources
- Fixed issue with RSS feed not working
Custom School Changes
- Fixed Joey's news componet SB-1292 [from revision 4560]
- Added bialik error message to expired ldap
- Changed title on morris library from did you know to news
- JPC removed advanced options from news
- JPC Randomised suggestions dashboard component
- Updated JPC's icons, moved time inside the h4 on homepage calendar
Update 12.0.5
Core System
- Rewrote weather API to use wunderground.com rather than Google
- Fallback Webmail URL to sql config if not otherwise defined [SB-1410]
- Fixed issue with multi file uploader submitting before all files complete [SB-1400]
- Added support for linking to FTP sites through both homepages and the side navigation, note that in order to work around IE bug ftp links are direct and not via redir [SB-1342]
- Removed editing restriction on 2nd-level folders in My Files browser [SB-1335]
Admin System
- Fixed several issues updating allowed file types in admin [SB-1331] [SB-1330]
- User::cleanUserFromSystem() wasn't removing user from userCampus. [SB-1369]
- Integrated changes to lists so empty tables can still be populated [SB-1370]
- Fixed report download being blank. [SB-1345]
ePortfolio
- Fixed issue with adding files component to eportfolio [SB-1336]
Online Assessments / Surveys
- Improved error handling for Assess/Survey question modify [SB-1371]
- Fixed issue with randomising questions in assess [SB-1293]
- Added html entity decoding to titles in submission list view [SB-1321]
Homepages
- Worked around some of the IE issues with keeping focus in online chat [SB-1404]
- Rewrote image scroller fixing several bugs in the process [SB-1344] [SB-1346]
- Fixed issue with posting to folder, file and links when they are remote included
- Fixed issue with homepage feed not showing subjects and forum threads
- Fixed issue with being unable to leave groups [SB-1405]
- Chat archive now shows correct date when only 1 chat item [SB-1374]
- Fixed RSS feed when no content available [SB-1343]
Custom School Changes
- MGGS sync script update to ensure parents do not change groups
- Do not show subjects without homepages at JPC on student profile pages
- Updated Bialik sync to sync parent passwords from Synergetic. [from revision 4669]
- Fixed MGS banner template issue
- Changed Wenona 'Head of House' to 'Year Coordinator' on student profile page
- Removed coaches from staff report at Wenona [SB-1231]