September Product Update (09/23/21)

This approach allowed us to make a number of significant improvements — without disrupting student learning or instructor workflows. These changes will help both instructors and students get the most out of the myPREPcourse online portal.

And perhaps most importantly, we've taken steps to ensure that you will not need to retrain students or instructors on the software!  

Important Highlights

• The Student's To Do List is no longer featured on the Student's Menu. 

• It has been incorporated into the Student Dashboard View where it feels much more at home. There's also a new tab marked "What's New," which users can click to learn about things that are new — like that tab.

• We also simplified the To Do List Interface. You'll no longer find an endless list of scheduled assignments that aren't yet available to the student. Instead, we've chosen to follow the principle that an item must be DOABLE to get added to a TO DO LIST. Any assignment that is not yet "doable" doesn't belong on the student's To Do List.

• We added descriptions to buttons, cards (in the card views), tabs, and table headings to help users navigate the system. We incorporated a number of the icons from the workbook to help users identify the type of lesson (Challenge, Practice, or Drill). 

• We added a Score History tab to the Student's Test page and gave Instructors access to a similar view through their own portal.  

Other Features & Improvements

• Added a "what's new" pop-up to inform users of new features/improvements
• Added informative tooltips throughout the student and instructor apps
• Simplified student experience by hiding upcoming lessons, tests, and worksheets until they become available (i.e., the "assigned on" date arrives)
• Improved data visualizations on the student app
• Improved formatting and branding on practice test score reports
• Added additional SAT Tests to the test grading system
• Added additional ACT Tests to the test grading system
• Added a filter to allow instructors to search for "unassigned" lessons
• Added sort by page number for workbook lessons 
• Clarified on-screen instructions with more descriptive buttons (i.e., save avatar, submit answers, begin, review, etc.)
• Made titles of lessons clickable to improve ease of use for students and instructors
• Disambiguated assignment types by incorporating the workbook lesson icons into the app
  
  • Lessons: Challenge, Practice, Drill, Reading assignment
  • Worksheets: Test-Style, Skill Builder
• Added assignment details to student lesson/worksheet completion screens 
• Enabled key-in functionality to allow students/instructors to key-in answers on all assignments: lessons, worksheets, tests
  • For ACT: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 = A/F, B/G, C/H, D/J, and E/K, respectively
  • For SAT: 1, 2, 3, 4 = A, B, C, D
  • For SAT Grid-in Questions: key in the digits of your answer; hit tab to advance to the next answer field.

• Built out the back-end architecture for exciting new features we plan to release later this year

Bug Fixes

• General
  • Improved the Course Selector drop-down menu (top right) to reduce confusion (i.e.,  activation mistakes and "missing student accounts")
  • Added a message to display when a user arrives at a page without any data to display (i.e., no tests have been assigned, no lessons have been assigned, no worksheets have been assigned)
  • Fixed an issue relating to fonts on the student app
  • Fixed a bug that continued to count some assignments as "overdue" after the instructor had "excused lateness"

• To Do List
  • Fixed a bug that had allowed some students to see and access ALL lessons, tests, and worksheets before they should have been available on the To Do List.
  • Fixed a bug that prevented some students from being able to submit their initials to completed a workbook reading lesson (when accessing the lesson through the To Do List)
  • Fixed a sorting issue in the student's To Do List

• Email Progress Reports 
  • Converted "seconds" of video solutions watched to "minutes."
  • Fixed bug that had prevented instructors from removing email addresses from progress report emails
  • Fixed a bug that caused progress reports to misidentify the student's most improved subject
  • Fixed a bug that had caused email progress reports to announce the student's target score had been reached — even if it had not been reached
  • Fixed a bug that had prevented some users in some cases from clicking the Preview button

• Lessons and Worksheets
  • Fixed a bug that had in certain circumstances prevented instructors from removing due dates
  • Fixed bugs that had affected the search results on lessons/worksheets

• • Fixed a bug that had prevented lessons and worksheets from sorting properly in certain cases
  • Fixed a bug that had prevented some lessons and worksheets from becoming available before a scheduled session on the day they were assigned
  • Fixed a bug that had prevented instructors from being able to apply more than one filter in some cases
  • Fixed three answers that clients reported were being scored incorrectly
  • Restored missing images in some ACT Science Worksheets
  • Fixed a bug that had sometimes slowed down the syncing of lesson/worksheet status (unassigned, assigned, overdue, started, completed) between front-end and back-end 

• Course Templates
  • Numerous bug fixes relating to the course template generator.
  • Fixed a lingering issue with timezones

• Video Solutions
  • Fixed a bug that had prevented some video solutions from contributing to a student's video watched time
  • Added to indicate when no video solution is currently available for a question 

• Practice Tests Score Reports
  • Added test settings information to practice test score report coversheet
  • Added/improved the layout of company contact information to score report footer
  • Fixed bug that had caused some SAT test score reports to display the sections wrong order on answer sheet view
  • Fixed a bug that had miscalculated class averages on the Class Score Report
  • Fixed an error that had occasionally resulted in a distorted logo on score reports

• Practice Tests
  • Streamlined the process of submitting a practice test
  • Updated the links to practice test pdfs in the Help Resources
  • Reorganized list of practice tests by year
  • Fixed a bug that under certain circumstances would report student's ACT composite score as the sum of their section scores (i.e., 96)
• Classes
  • Fixed a bug that had prevented some students from receiving all previously assigned lessons when they were added to a class (with that option selected).
• Profile Screen
  
  • Fixed an issue that had prevent zip codes from saving on user profiles
  • Fixed an issue that had prevented some user avatars from saving correctly