The primary focus of the v17.5 release has been on improving and enhancing existing features and functionalities, which we have previously outlined. Many improvements have been based on feedback from our community, so thank you for your continued contributions to the Schoolbox Help ideas forums!
Release Candidate Walkthrough
To become familiar with some of the most important updates and features of v17.5, make sure you’ve watched our Webinar Walkthrough, hosted by Product Director, James Leckie.
Introducing the new features to your team
We have previously written about some of the standout features of this release, but to provide you with even more guidance, we’ve also provided Change Management Tips and Changes For Teachers guides.
The standout features include:
Inline Annotations
Due to the upcoming retirement of the Crocodoc inline annotation system, we’ve worked with Kami to provide new enhanced abilities to give feedback to your students.
Along with the features you’ve come to love, there are some additional new functionalities to get excited about.
LTI Embed Extension
This extension to the LTI standard allows you to use the ‘Embed Learning Tool’ component to browse a third party resource and embed it in your Schoolbox instance.
Other changes and features
Additional updates include improvements to the ePortfolio blog and Resource Booking features, as well as a new Markbook column freeze, which maintains visibility of all the key information you need.
Additional v17.5 features
Since our beta release, we've included some bonus features that you should know about:
- Added a grade scale into the 'Modify Due Work' page
- Added the ability to email parents straight from a group
- Added the ability to configure dates on each assessment when importing an activity from course to class
- A confidential Pastoral Care content area for adding private pastoral information
To find out more, make sure you read the full release notes!
Important things to note:
Crocodoc Retirement
As part of this update and due to the pending retirement of Crocodoc, Schoolbox will be migrating all documents out of Crocodoc and into Kami, our new inline annotation system.
It is crucial that all of our schools upgrade to v17.5 before December 15th, so that we can quickly (and painlessly) move you to our new system, Kami.
Usage Tracking
We've introduced a new opt-in feature to help us collect data of how you use your instance, using Google Analytics. By default, usage tracking will NOT be turned on when you upgrade to v17.5, but we encourage you to opt in and help us build a better product!
All data collected will be anonymous and no data will be shared outside of our company. For further information, please check the Privacy Policy on our website.
To receive the v17.5 upgrade
If you’re currently running a version prior to v17, we strongly suggest you book a time for us to perform your upgrade immediately, by simply choosing from the available times.
As upgrading from v16 or v16.5 will cause a more dramatic change in teacher workflow, we advise that you take that into consideration and choose the best possible time for your teaching staff - we recommend after school term ends!
If you’re currently on v17, then you’re lucky! It will only take us around 15 minutes to perform your upgrade, and you will also need to book in a time for us to do this. Simply pick from the available times.
As this is a smaller update, we do not require any data synchronisations.
Talk soon,
The Schoolbox team