Gradarius Support

We are very excited to announce the upcoming major Gradarius Release 1.53. Besides some minor upgrades, this release has three major ones. 

MAJOR UPGRADES

• We can now update problems in use by either directly updating the existing problem(exercise) or creating a new one.

• If you choose "Update Existing" option, the system will directly update the problem in use, that is, the exercise in the assignment will be edited. The suggested action after choosing "Update Existing" is to apply "Regrade" to the corresponding exercise so that students' scores are adjusted according to the update. 
• If you choose "Create new" option, the system will only update the problem in the "Problem List" and will leave the exercise untouched. 

REMARK: Please note that the system is not creating a copy of the problem. It is only giving you the option of editing the problem in your problem pool and letting the exercise remain unchanged. This option is excellent when you need to make a change to problem but changing the exercise is not a feasible choice due to being too close to the deadline or past deadline of the assignment.

• If some significant changes are made, like changing the final answer type or adding the required placeholder, the system will show a dialog, offering to create a new version of the problem. In this case, all exercises and solutions currently using the problem will use the existing, unchanged version. Creating a new problem version is the only way to save this kind of changes to the problem.

REMARK: After updating an exercise, the system automatically sends a detailed notification about the change. It includes the Section, Problem title, Exercise, Assignment, Course, and the type of change that is applied. 

Below is a screenshot of an example of this notification. .  

• We can now archive inactive courses. 
  • Currently this is a U-admin functionality. Please feel free to reach out to your U-admin for the courses that you want to be archived.  Also please note that we are working towards making this functionality to be available to instructors as well. 
• Instructors can be given the access right to remove students from their courses. Please make a request from your U-admin to have the ability to remove students from your course. 

MINOR UPGRADES

• We can easily see the reference solutions containing essential steps comments in the reference solutions list view.

• We can configure exercises to allow viewing a reference solution after preferred number of submissions

• The system now gives warning signs when the number of submissions is not limited or the deadline is not set up when "Allow reference solution review" is selected as "After last submission" or "After deadline" respectively. 

• We can decide not to send a notification to students while republishing an assignment.

• "Time spent" is hidden for students by default and the student can add this feature through their "Dashboard".

We would be happy if you can share your thoughts with us by adding your comments below. 

All the upgrades have already been deployed to the instances. In fact the Release 1.54 with many great features is on the way.