Superior engagement and further personalised learning experiences with the new Microsoft Teams integration, skills translations synchronisation, course sequential progression, and more.
Latest feature
Full integration with Avallain Magnet
Avallain Magnet Release 10 introduces Microsoft Teams and BigBlueButton as new video conferencing options, joining Zoom to continue providing organisations with robust and reliable alternatives for virtual meetings.
In the case of Microsoft Teams, organisations can set up their account as the standard video conferencing method for all of their institutions. Alternatively, individual institutions can use their own Microsoft Teams accounts if they wish.
Also, in line with our strive to integrate the best tools available for digital learning, Avallain Magnet Release 10 includes BigBlueButton as a new default video conferencing application, available to all clients.
These new applications provide organisations with extended alternatives to select and implement their preferred video conferencing tool, giving Avallain Magnet users easy access to reliable third-party video conferencing for enhanced and more personalised communication between teachers and learners.
Note: Please contact the Customer Success Team to successfully set up this configuration in your Magnet Administration.
From now on, Organisation Admins will access Magnet Administration using the same URL as for the frontend environment.
This way, in order to log in to Magnet Administration, it will only be necessary to add “/admin” at the end of the platform’s frontend URL.
Both the username and the password to access Magnet Administration will continue to work in the same way as they did when logging in via the previous URL.
Note: An individual message has been sent to your organisation with all the details about this new way to access Magnet Administration. If you haven’t received this message yet, please don’t hesitate on contacting our Customer Success Team.
New course progression and sequential locking option
Organisations will now have the option to configure courses which will only enable subsequent modules when the previous module has been completed.
Learners will be able to see all modules in the Content screen, but will only be able to access those that are enabled, while the rest will be locked until they complete the corresponding previous module.
With this new feature, organisations gain greater control over the learning sequence they wish courses to be in, giving them greater learning management capabilities.
Note: By default, all existing and new courses will appear as unlocked.
New Open and Restricted Institutional Subscriptions
Avallain Magnet Release 10 includes a new option to manage institutional subscriptions, categorising them as Open and Restricted.
Institutional subscriptions defined as Open will provide access to all users within an institution to the products associated to that subscription. On the other hand, institutional subscriptions defined as Restricted will be assigned by Teacher Admins and Teachers via Groups, providing access to the subscription products only to users that belong to the selected Group.
With this new option, Organisation Admins gain even greater control over their business model as well as the way they manage access to each institution’s products and courses.
Note: In order to simplify the implementation of this new feature for our customers, all institutional subscriptions that have already been created will be categorised as Restricted by default.
Avallain Magnet Release 10 introduces a new user categorisation, which makes it easier to identify their billing status. This increases the efficiency of product and user management as well as the detailed handling of profiles according to their current status, further enhancing the control over your business.
The new categories that can be used are:
Guest: Any active user who has never had a subscription in the past and does not currently have any subscription.
Alumni: Any active user who has previously had a subscription but currently has none.
Billable: Any user with at least one active subscription to a product at any time in a given month, which has not expired nor is a free trial.
Suspended: Any user who is reported as inactive on Magnet Administration.
With Avallain Magnet Release 10, organisations can now also manage the translation of Skills in coordination with the Language Switch feature.
This way, we further enhance organisations’ capabilities to take their digital learning strategies to a global level, with yet more tools to deliver personalised learning, as well as a refined user experience, in the language of each target audience.
In order to further simplify the categorisation of users in Avallain Magnet, the role previously labelled as Teacher Viewer will now be called Teacher, while the Teacher Admin role will remain under the same term.
This change will be reflected both in Magnet Administration and in the frontend interface, however, it will not affect the permissions granted to that role.
Teacher Admins and Teachers can now see subscriptions displaying on User’s details panel
In order to provide a more efficient user management experience and with a focus on empowering the advantages of dedicated roles, Teacher Admins and Teachers now can see the list of product subscriptions assigned to the corresponding user in the User details panel in Avallain Magnet.
Email confirmation of new subscriptions for teachers and learners
With Avallain Magnet Release 10, when a subscription is assigned to users via Groups, they will receive an email, with the details of the subscription and confirming the access they have gained to the subscription.
Watch the webinar recording
Learn more about this release’s new features by watching the recording of the webinar held by our in-house experts.
Multilingual learning platforms, specific learning feedback, and more!
Latest Features
Language Switch
Avallain Magnet 8 includes a new language switch functionality in order to launch truly global learning platforms. Organisations can now enable or disable this option for each institution and, when enabled, teachers and students can easily and seamlessly switch languages via their institution login and My Profile pages.
Avallain Magnet 8 currently includes English and German options, and admins can create as well as implement their own translation files via Translations in Platform Settings.
Now Teacher Admins and Group owners can designate other teachers in the same group as responsible to mark content submitted by students. This can be managed in the edit mode of the group panel. By default, the owner of a group is assigned as the marker of that group.
Teachers with permission to mark content will receive notifications via the Teacher Dashboard, the Course page or the Message Center. They can then not only give a manual score for this particular lesson, but also add specific feedback in written form in order to further contribute to the learners’ individual development.
Students will receive a notification when their work has been marked so that they can conveniently check the individual feedback submitted by the teacher.
Level-up your learning platform with new customisations and user management functions!
Latest Features
Redesigned Magnet Administration
Avallain Magnet 7 introduces a redesigned Magnet Administration in order to make your platform management processes even more intuitive – and powerful. Among the most important enhancements are:
More intuitive and modern user interface design
New arrangement of options such as Platform Settings for a better management experience
Clean up of legacy fields no longer in use
Extended filtering and sorting of users, courses, products, and more
Further personalise headers and footers
The colours of the footer and header of your Learning Platforms can now be customised. Simply choose whichever colour scheme you want for the background. The font colour will be automatically defined as either black or white, depending on the background colour. In other words: You are able to select the background colour in accordance with your Corporate Identity and Avallain Magnet 7 will define the font colour to make sure the text is easily readable.
Define Learning Objects via Skills
Avallain Magnet 7 includes a new feature to define and categorise Learning Objects via sets of Skills. This intuitively provides teachers and learners with more individual information about progress and scores, according to the skills they’ve been working on. In addition to that, using Skills will also allow to build even more personalised learning journeys.
Avallain Magnet 7 currently features three sets of Skills:
Core competencies
Career skills
Language competencies
For more details about how to implement this feature, you can refer to the User Guide.
Find students more easily and quickly in the Markbook
Avallain Magnet 7 now offers teachers the ability to search with just a few clicks in the Markbook for specific user names, filter users by groups, by user status or sort them by user name and pending grades.
Refer users to your social media accounts
The Organisation Admin can now visit the Institution customisation page to add more social media links to the footer.
In addition to LinkedIn and Twitter, which were already available, these are the new options:
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube
Watch the webinar recording
Learn more about this release’s new features by watching the recording of the webinar held by our in-house experts.
Unleash your digital learning strategy with powerful structuring and seamless publishing from Avallain Author!
Latest Features
Powerful Structuring and Seamless Publishing
With the arrival of Avallain Magnet 6, course publishing has never been easier.
Create structures of any complexity in Avallain Author’s intuitive Structure Tool and then, at the click of a button, publish them instantly, with all of their LOs, to Avallain Magnet. You can publish either to an existing course, or to a brand new one.
Avallain Magnet 6 further streamlines your publishing, enabling you to focus on creating the very best educational content and ultimately, deliver remarkable products, even faster.
→ Available on November 17th
Token Subscription Start & End Dates
You can now set a start and end date for token batches generated in the Magnet CMS, giving you even more control over your digital learning strategy. This new feature allows you easily to decide when learners should gain access to a course, and when this access must come to an end.
Now, courses that have not yet started will be visible to learners from their dashboard in an inactive state, with the start date displayed to inform them when it will become active.
This is a highly effective way to increase learner engagement and at the same time, give you much greater control over both your business model and the lifecycle of your learning content.
Magnet Messaging
With its new messaging toolset, Avallain Magnet 6 brings the learning conversation to life.
Magnet Messaging enables your teachers, trainers and learners to chat with each other about lessons and learning tasks without leaving your learning platform. For example, teachers and trainers can send messages to each other to coordinate their work, and send reminders or information to learners about their courses, new assignments and their performance.
With Magnet Messaging, communication is seamless and easy, and it all happens instantly.
Watch the webinar recording
Learn more about this release’s new features by watching the recording of the webinar held by our in-house experts.
New student dashboards and enhanced compatibility with global standards for even better digital learning experiences
Latest Features
New Student Dashboard
We have enhanced the Student Dashboard so that you can provide your learners with more functionalities and an even better learning experience. Now, the most recent course accessed by learners will be highlighted and pinned, while other active courses will remain underneath and automatically align themselves in an intuitive grid.
Also, we have added the option to quickly switch between courses that have and haven’t been completed yet.
Extended Compatibility
One Roster Standard Compatibility
Avallain Magnet is now compatible with the One Roster standard. This new function allows institutions to easily import lists of learners into the platform using our CSV User Upload feature.
LTI as SSO
We have enabled LTI (Learning Tools Interoperability) as an SSO (Single Sign-On) mechanism in Avallain Magnet. This functionality allows making individual courses located in Avallain Magnet to be accessible from external learning platforms.
Please contact your Account Manager to obtain more details about how to correctly and safely implement this feature.
Upcoming Features
Seamless and Instant Publishing
By giving full access to Avallain Author and Avallain Magnet, the Magnet Professional package provides you with your own end-to-end e-learning suite. Content creation and structuring in Avallain Author as well as course delivery and learning, user and product management in Avallain Magnet are perfectly tuned to each other, working as one cohesive ecosystem.
This seamless integration and combination of Avallain Author and Avallain Magnet will become even better when it comes to content structuring and publishing.
Soon, you will be able to create structures of any complexity in Avallain Author’s intuitive structure tool and then, within the press of a button, publish them, together with all of their LOs, to Avallain Magnet instantly – either to an existing course or by creating a new course. With this new enhancement, we want to enable you to further streamline your publishing, structuring and course creation processes and, ultimately, support you to create marketable products even faster.
Built-in Messaging
This eagerly awaited feature will be included in Avallain Magnet’s upcoming releases.
And as part of your Magnet Professional package, you will be among the first to make full use of the built-in messaging tool once it is available. With it, you can enable your students and teachers to chat with each other directly and seamlessly within your learning platform.
Stay tuned!
Watch the webinar recording
Learn more about this release’s new features by watching the recording of the webinar held by our in-house experts.
Provide extended feedback to language learners with new Activity Type Options for the Activity Class
Avallain Author Release 42 comes packed with exciting features for authoring, project management and workflow automation, such as two brand new Activity Type Options for the Activity Class Input:Match:Voice (Pronunciation) to provide more detailed and personalised feedback to language learners.
Activity Classes
Extended feedback for the Activity Class Input:Match:Voice (Pronunciation)
In Avallain Author Release 42, language learners can receive extended feedback on their pronunciation with two new Activity Type Options for the Activity Class Input:Match:Voice (Pronunciation).
Enhanced Pronunciation Feedback
If enabled, after submitting their answer, learners will see a dialogue box with detailed information about how well they pronounced each syllable in their audio recording compared to the text in the activity.
Also, when enabled, the new Activity Type Option Pronunciation Score determines if a syllable should be marked as correct or incorrect.
Pronunciation Score
The Activity Type Option Pronunciation Score enables content creators to define two score thresholds for customised feedback based on the learner’s performance. In addition, learners will be presented with an overall score on how well they pronounced the text in the activity.
NOTE:The overall score presented to learners by this Activity Type Option will not reflect the points received by the learner in this activity.
With these new Activity Type Options, content creators enable teachers to provide more detailed feedback automatically and language learners get a clearer understanding of their pronunciation and what to amend to improve their outcomes.
IMPORTANT:
If you require help configuring this feature, please contact our Customer Success Team.
This feature uses the Speechace API to provide extended feedback.
Currently, this API only supports British and American English. For this reason, the Language Attribute for the LO has to be set to either en_US or en_GB.
AI
Generate keywords with AI for images in the Media Library
Avallain Author Release 42 introduces a new AI feature to generate keywords for images in the Common schema section in the Media Library.
With this new feature, content creators can open the Common schema section on the Edit screen of an image in the Media Library and simply click on the AI three-star icon to the right of the Keywords field. The AI functionality will automatically analyse the image’s content and generate related keywords.
NOTE: This feature must be enabled in the Admin Settings tab to be available in the Media Library. If you don’t have an Admin role, reach out to your project’s Admin to enable this option.
Backend
New Permissions tab in Project Settings
Project Managers can now manage access to certain functions of the current project by user role with a new tab in Project Settings called Permissions.
This new tab allows Project Managers to easily manage access to features for each role within a project.
The following options are available:
Access to Structures
Across-project LO Copy Rights
Bulk Metadata Editing Rights
LO Import Rights
LO Locking Rights
Publishing Rights
NOTE:
The options Across-project LO Copy Rights, Bulk Metadata Editing Rights and LO Locking Rights are newly available with Avallain Author Release 42.
Across-project LO Copy Rights: defines which user role can copy LOs from other projects.
Bulk Metadata Editing Rights: defines which user role can use the bulk metadata Download button or set metadata by uploading a CSV.
LO Locking Rights: defines which user role can use the Bulk Lock LOs option (introduced in this release).
Publishing Rights, Access to Structures and LO Import Rights options are no longer in the Global Options tab (or the Project Settings tab in the case of the option LO Import) in Project Settings. They are now only in the new Permissions tab.
New Bulk Lock LOs function in the Actions menu
Project Managers can now select several LOs in the Work Packages page and choose Bulk Lock LOs from the Actions menu to lock them all simultaneously instead of individually.
This new functionality allows Project Managers to prevent unauthorised changes to LOs more quickly and efficiently by locking them in bulk.
NOTE:
Project Managers can manage access to this feature by user role with the new Option LO Locking Rights in the Permissions tab in Project Settings.
UI updates and improvements
Avallain Author Release 42 continues with more interface updates and improvements per the latest UI and UX standards.
The updates to the user interface encompass, among other areas, the LO Editor screen and Work Packages, with new and more intuitive icons and buttons for tools such as Comments, now showing a speech bubble icon anywhere in the UI where it’s possible to open the Comments dialogue.
Design Package Option is now available in Content Profiles
It is now possible to add the Design Package Option to Content Profiles and enable it with Avallain Author Release 42.
The Design Packages dropdown becomes active when this option is enabled on a Content Profile. This way, Content Profiles can now be differentiated graphically by means of the Design Packages Option and the properties the selected Design Package offers.
Admins and Project Managers can search options in Product Type and Projects settings
Admins and Project Managers can now search for options when adding or removing them from Product Types or Projects, making the workflow much quicker and easier.
By inserting the full name of an option or only part of it, the results screen will show all the options that match the term, allowing Admins and Project Managers to quickly select or deselect them from the list of options included on a Product Type or Project.
Media Library now identifies the Copyright metadata from uploaded assets
In Avallain Author Release 42, the Media Library will identify the Copyright metadata from uploaded assets and automatically copy it to the Common metadata section. This way, the information added automatically can now be fetched and displayed in Learning Objects.
Global Options
Media Playback Limit
With Avallain Author version 42, the number of times a learner can play a media file set by the Media Playback Limit option is persistent however many times the learner resets the activity or LO.
This way, the option prevents learners from replaying media assets even if they reset the screen or LO after reaching the limit set.
Check Answers Instant
Avallain Author Release 42 extends the support for the option Check Answers Instant to the Activity Class Order:Sort:Sorting. With this update, this option now supports 14 Activity Classes, and further extension of support is in planning.
Show Transcripts/Subtitles
The option Show Transcripts/Subtitles now has two more option values. With the value Show Transcripts, you can now show only the transcript of a video or audio asset and the Show Subtitles value displays only the subtitles of a video.
Digital Books
Extended support for Solution Reveal hotspots in Digital Books
Avallain Author Release 42 extends the support for hotspots in PDF Digital Books to the hotspot types Single Solution Reveal and Progressive Solution Reveal.
Single Solution Reveal presents the viewer with all the respective solutions with one click.
Progressive Solution Reveal allows content creators to combine several Solution Reveal hotspots into one. When learners click on the Progressive Solution Reveal hotspot, it shows them each Solution Reveal hotspot after another.
NOTE: PDF Digital Books offer many advantages over Image Digital Books. Considering that they now support the same hotspot types, we recommend updating all Digital Books to PDF Digital Books.
Content Profiles for Digital Books
With Avallain Author Release 42, Admins can create Content Profiles for Digital Books to set all available Global eBook Options, including the Design Pack Options (if it’s supported by the Book Design Pack in use).
Once an eBook Content Profile has been created and added to a Product Type, it can be enabled in the Publishing section of the Project Settings and applied to Digital Books, just as with regular Content Profiles.
NOTE: In MercuryBook, the Primary colour is used for selected controls, while the Secondary colour is used for dialogue titles, the volume bar and as a placeholder for several components.
Watch the webinar recording
Learn more about this release’s new features by watching the recording of the webinar held by our in-house experts.
Release 41 features among many other improvements a new Activity class Identify:Select:Clocks and introduces with generated Alternative Text a first integration of AI into the content production process as part of Avallain’s initiative to utilize AI in a safe and responsible manner.
Backend enhancements
Backend Design
The design of the Author Backend has been updated. In many areas the more compact design allows for additional information to be displayed. This includes the menus, the tiled list pages and other parts of the UI.
Updated Author UI
Updating the Author UI is an ongoing process and future releases will continue to enhance the UI with a more modern and compact design.
Editor
Tables
Release 41 further improves working with tables by making it easier to add predefined table classes to a table. Such table classes are defined in the Design Pack and will become available through a dropdown menu in the Table Properties editor.
Table Properties with example table classes
Notes:
– If you require help in configuring this feature, please contact Avallain Support.
– This feature is not supported in Mercury.
Links
Links inserted into LOs using the Link dialogue in the richtext editor can now be adorned with a custom ARIA label. This label helps people using screen readers to find out more about the purpose of the link.
Table Properties with example table classes
Media library
Generate Alternative Text field content
Release 41 adds functionality to Author allowing content creators to use AI to generate the contents of the Alternative Text field. This is part of the Avallain initiative to integrate AI into the content creation process where it is useful and safe.
Generate Alternative Text field content
To get an AI-generated proposal for the contents of the Alternative Text field, simply click the magic stars icon at the right side of the Alternative Text field.
VTT subtitles and transcripts
With Release 41, Author completes its support of the new subtitles format. The format is called WebVTT (or Video Text Track, VTT for short). It is similar to the already supported SRT format, but supports additional functionality to style and place subtitles.
Asset Metadata
Release 41 of Author improves the functionality of custom Asset Metadata schemas.
Fields using the same name as metadata items in the Common asset metadata section can now be overridden per project using custom metadata schemas. Fields present in both the Common metadata section and in the custom metadata schema will be greyed out in the Common section of the asset metadata.
Greyed out fields in the common metadata section
If the custom Project metadata schema contains subtitle or transcript fields, asset editors can view those entries in both Common schema and Project schema from a dropdown menu, but can edit only the metadata for the Project schema.
Selecting either Project or Common schema when editing transcripts / subtitles
Structures
In previous versions of Author it was only possible to fetch the table of contents from Author Digital books (together with the LOs and assets included in each of the sections) if Structures used free key/value metadata and not a pre-defined metadata schema. Now fetching this information is possible regardless of whether a schema or free key/value metadata is used.
Project Settings
The dialogue Set for All Objects found in the Design Packages area of the Project Settings now distinguishes between regular LOs and Digital Books and allows to target them separately when applying Design Packs.
Set for all objects dialogue with normal LOs / book LOs toggle
Activity classes
Identify:Select:Clocks
The new Activity Class Identify:Select:Clocks presents an analog or digital clock to the learners tasking them with setting the clock to a different time. The correct time is validated and two points are assigned: One for the correct settings of hours and the other for the correct setting of minutes.
This Activity Class complements the already existing syntax #clock# that allowed content creators to add a non-validated watch set to a specific time to an activity.
Activities using analog and digital clocks creating using the Activity Class Identify:Select:Clocks
Up to now there was no way to specify the order of items in any but the first column or row of linked lines. Now you can achieve this by using a special syntaxextension for the linked lines Activity Classes in combination with settingthe Activity Type Option Randomise to Off. The former functionality of Randomise:Off in the linked lines Activity Classes is now implemented using the option value Randomise: On except first set (LL/LLM).
To predetermine the sequence of items in all rows or columns, set Randomise to Off and add a pipe character followed by a number representing the ordinal position to all but the first item in a set, e.g.: [rain*shower|3][sun*bright|1][snow*white|2]
Linking Lines activity with predetermined positions for the items
Author Digital Books
Release 41 brings another overhaul of the eBook Options dialogue. eBook options now lists all options previously available in the main eBook editor as well as all Activity Type options activated for the Project Activity Typebased on Present:Present:eBooks. In addition the dialogue has been overhauled visually.
eBook Options dialogue listing all available options and settings.
Options
Digital Book Options
Resources
The new Activity Type Option Resources for Author eBooks enables a dialogue in eBooks that will show additional resources. The content of this dialogue is provided by the hosting platform. The option only governs whether learners will be able to open this dialogue through a button in the Author eBook UI.
Show Bookmarks Tool & Show Notes Tool
These two new Activity Type options for Digital Books allow content creators to determine whether learners should have access to the bookmarks and the notes tool.
Global Options
Timer
The new LO Option Timer allows learners to click a button to open up a dialogue allowing them to set their own countdown timer. Design Packs can choose to display the remaining time of the countdown time or can react to the moment the countdown has reached 0, e.g. by changing colours or playing a sound.
Setting the Timer and countdown timer in Mercury
Content Area Controls
This new option allows content creators to define the visibility of the content area (containing the interactive content). If set to Off, this option will not have any effect. If set to Show, the content area will be visible when the LO is launched. If set to Hidden, the content area is not visible when the LO is launched. To complement this feature, Design Packs can create controls allowing learners to hide or show the content area.
Note: This option requires Design Pack support and is not available in Mercury or AvallainBase.
Default Audio Dimension & Default Video Dimension
These two new options allow Project Managers to define a default dimension for the audio icon and video player respectively that will be used when inserting audio or video into a rich text editor in Author. Content creators can change the dimensions during insertion of audio or video assets.
Note: The size of the audio player during preview depends entirely on the Design Pack. For the video player some Design Packs use the dimension defined during insertion of the video, while others (especially responsive Design Packs) will override these as well.
Check Answers Instant
The scope of Check Answers Instant has been extended to Order:Match:Text Gap and to Identify:Mark:Marking.
Annotation Tools
With Release 41, the Text Highlighter tool already in use in eBooks becomes available through the Option Annotation Tools for regular LOs as well.
Activity with Highlighter annotations
Activity Type Options
Randomise
For activities based on the Identify:Select:Linking Lines and Identify:Select:Linking Multiple Lines Activity Classes, Randomise now has a new optionvalue called: On except first set (LL/LLM). This option implements the functionality that previously was available when setting Randmise to Off for such activities. It will use the sequence of items set by content creators for the first row or column and will scramble the order of other rows or columns in the activity.
Using a special syntax extension content creators can now predetermine the sequence of items in all rows or columns when setting Randomise to Off.
During the Release of Author 41, all activities based on Identify:Select:Linking Lines and Identify:Select:Linking Multiple using Randomise: Off have been switched to using On except first set (LL/LLM).
Mosaic: Beta
At this time, Mosaic is still in development. We are making this usable but not feature-complete version of Mosaic available to all Author users in order to collect feedback to steer its further development.
Mosaic allows content creators to drag and drop content from the PDF into a series of activities and LOs which can be exported to be fine tuned in the regular Author LO editor.
Usage
Mosaic needs to be activated by enabling the option Mosaic Editor in the Project Settings.
Once enabled you can start your Mosaic editor session using From PDF in the dropdown menu of the Create LO button.
Open Mosaic editor through Create LO button
Mosaic saves the work you do automatically in the background. If you need to return to the Mosaic editor session at a later time, you can re-open the editor through the Create LO button.
Importing PDFs
PDFs can be imported by uploading files from your computer or by selecting them from the Media Library.
Import PDFs
Once imported, the PDF needs to be post-processed to extract text and images from it.
Extracting images and text from a PDF
This will take some time, but you can leave the editor to return to it later after the process has finished.
Extracting text and images from the PDF
After the PDF has been post-processed, content creators can select it. This will open the actual Mosaic editor. It consists of three main parts.
Mosaic Menu Bar
A menu bar at the top gives access to a Page Overview of the selected PDF and controls to export the created LO to Author or to delete it.
Mosaic Menu Bar
The Page Overview allows you to preview the pages of the PDF and mark pages as complete.
Mosaic Page Overview
Content Source Area
The right sidebar of the Mosaic editor is the content source area. It allows content creators to select a page from the PDF using the paging widget. Mosaic will then display the texts and images that were extracted from that page.
Content Source Area
To select either text or images, use the two buttons below the paging widget. Source elements can then be drag-dropped into the content assembly area.
Those elements that have already been used in an LO are clearly marked with a checkmark. However it is possible to use source elements from the PDF multiple times.
Content Assembly Area
The Content Assembly Area takes up the largest part of the Mosaic editor. It allows content creators to drag-drop elements from the PDF into the familiar parts of an Author LO such as Activity Title, Activity Rubric and Activity Content.
It is also possible to add new activities to your LO or to edit text content.
Content Assembly Area
You can add multiple source elements to each of the LO parts, but behaviour differs slightly from part to part. Adding new content elements to the Activity Title part will replace previously placed content, while adding new content elements to the Activity Rubric or Activity Content parts will add those elements to already existing content.
Source elements placed into either the Activity Rubric or Activity Content parts will usually be placed into their own subdivision recognizable by the light background.
Activity Content part with two subdivisions
Subdivisions containing text can be edited, deleted or moved, while subdivisions containing just images can only be deleted or moved. Controls to move, edit or delete elements become visible while hovering over the respective subdivision.
You can also add new elements to existing subdivisions by dragging source elements directly onto them.
Activity Content part with one subdivision containing multiple source elements
Exporting LOs from Mosaic
Once you have all the required source elements placed into your LO, you can export it to Author. You will be asked to provide a name for the new LO.
Exporting an LO from Mosaic
Once exported, the new LO becomes available for editing using the regular LO editor.
All activities in LOs exported from Mosaic will use Activity Types based on Present:Present:Present such as Presenting. You therefore need to make sure that such an Activity Type is present in your current project and that it has layouts assigned to it. You may see error messages when trying to export if those conditions are not met.
Tip: During export, the subdivisions in the Activity Content are mapped to separate content text boxes. It might be useful to make sure that all text and image content required for interactions is placed into the same subdivision for easier access when editing the LO later on.
Exported LOs need to be edited to select the correct Activity Types, choose layouts and set the required options since this is not possible in the Mosaic editor.
Watch the webinar recording
Learn more about this release’s new features by watching the recording of the webinar held by our in-house experts.
Release 40 brings a smarter table editor, a more user-friendly media library, and advanced accessibility. Employ a new subtitle format and activity classes for engaging learning experiences.
Backend enhancements
Table Editor
Release 40 brings a new, easier to use table editor. The table editor has all the features of the previous version, but in addition allows content creators fine-grained control over display of borders and background colours both for individual cells and for the table. The new editor also allows you to select and edit the properties of multiple table cells simultaneously.
New Table Properties dialogue.
New Cell properties dialogue.
Using this new editor, you can create tables that present complex data to the learners, e.g. when demonstrating long division or when simulating a crossword puzzle.
Example of table created with the new table editor.
Media Library
Download filename
With Release 40 of Author it is now possible to specify the download name of a file by entering it into the Download filename field of the Common schema section when editing assets in the Media Library.
Download filename for assets in the Media Library.
Note: When downloading a file directly from the Media Library, the file will use the value specified in the Title field, but hosting platforms can use this new property to change the name of the downloaded file.
New subtitle / synced transcript format
With Release 40, Author supports a new format for subtitles or sync’d text. The format is called WebVTT (or Video Text Track, VTT for short) and is the new web standard for displaying subtitles. It is similar to the already supported SRT format, but supports additional functionality to style and place subtitles.
To select Video Text Track as subtitle or transcript format, simply select it from the dropdown above the subtitle editor. To use SRT, select SubRip Text from the dropdown.
Note: Cue titles are not supported in Author and VTT for Author should not contain cue titles or CSS referencing cue titles.
Video with styled subtitles in VTT format.
Accessibility
Accessibility
With Release 40, the icon audio player will also give access to the audio transcript should one be included in the metadata of the audio asset.
Icon audio player with transcript
Note: This feature is supported in the Mercury Design Pack.
Activity classes
Present:Present:Document
The newActivity Class Present:Present:Document can be used to embed PDF documents directly into an activity of an LO. The PDF will be shown in the content area of the Learning Object. Learners can interact with the PDF by scrolling through it, and they can navigate using page previews and the navigation widget or zoom in and out. In addition, users can annotate the PDF with text and simple drawings, but such annotations are not persisted.
Activity with embedded PDF file using the Activity Class Present:Present:Document
This Activity Class can be useful when you want to include a document in a course but prefer it to be treated just like any other LO incl. the same navigational buttons.
Note: This feature is supported in the Mercury Design Pack.
Present:Present:Media
Similar to Present:Present:Document, this new Activity Class allows you to add media files (image, audio or video) to an LO. It is useful when you want your audio or video to contain metadata and completion to be tracked in the normal way. The user thus has a more seamless navigation experience than with media loaded into the course as simple files.
Activity with embedded video file using the Activity Class Present:Present:Media
Note: Full support for images in Present:Present:Media will be added with the next release.
Author Digital Books
Text Search
With Release 40 it is now possible to search for text in PDF Digital Books. The updated MercuryBook Design Pack shows a search field in the menu bar that allows learners to search for text in the PDF.
Text search in MercuryBook Design Pack
The found text snippets are highlighted in the PDF and learners can navigate from reference to reference using the widget next to the search field.
Found text references in MercuryBook Design Pack.
Global Options
Timer
The new LO Option Timer allows learners to click a button that opens up a dialogue allowing them to set their own countdown timer. Design Packs can choose to display the remaining time of the countdown time or can react to the moment the countdown has reached 0, e.g. by changing colours or playing a sound.
Note: This feature is supported in the Mercury Design Pack. Support for Mercury and AvallainBase will be added with the next release.
Show Transcripts/Subtitlesv
This new option allows content creators to disable transcripts and subtitles. This might be useful if these assistive technologies should only be available to those learners who require them. If disabled, audio or video players will not show a subtitles and / or transcript button.
Special Characters
The Special Characters option now offers an additional palette that allows learners to insert Italian accented characters into any text field.
An LO with Special Characters – Italian enabled.
Default Audio Dimension & Default Video Dimension
These two new options allow Project Managers to define a default dimension for the audio icon and video player respectively that will be used when inserting audio or video into a rich text editor in Author. Content creators can change the dimensions during insertion of audio or video assets.
Note: The size of the audio player during preview depends entirely on the Design Pack. For the video player some Design Packs use the dimension defined during insertion of the video, while others (especially responsive Design Packs) will override these as well.
Watch the webinar recording
Learn more about this release’s new features by watching the recording of the webinar held by our in-house experts.
Release 39 introduces two new types of metadata for images: Caption and Long Description. Together with such metadata as copyright information or alternative text, these two new types of metadata give content creators all the tools necessary to provide a rich experience for learners when working with images.
Backend enhancements
Captions and Long Descriptions for images
Release 39 introduces two new types of metadata for images: Caption and Long Description. Together with such metadata as copyright information or alternative text, these two new types of metadata give content creators all the tools necessary to provide a rich experience for learners when working with images.
Just like Alternative text, Caption and Long Description metadata are available through the metadata editor of the Media Library, but can also be edited when inserting an image into an LO.
Caption metadata, which consists of plain text, is intended to be displayed close to the image and to be immediately visible as the image caption. Long Description metadata allows for limited formatting of text (e.g. bold or italics) and is intended to be shown after the learner clicks a button. Mercury implements these new features already, but other Design Packs will have to be adapted.
Captions and Long Descriptions for images
Release 39 introduces two new types of metadata for images: Caption and Long Description. Together with such metadata as copyright information or alternative text, these two new types of metadata give content creators all the tools necessary to provide a rich experience for learners when working with images.
Just like Alternative text, Caption and Long Description metadata are available through the metadata editor of the Media Library, but can also be edited when inserting an image into an LO.
Caption metadata, which consists of plain text, is intended to be displayed close to the image and to be immediately visible as the image caption. Long Description metadata allows for limited formatting of text (e.g. bold or italics) and is intended to be shown after the learner clicks a button. Mercury implements these new features already, but other Design Packs will have to be adapted.
When updating Caption and Long Description metadata of assets in the media library (either manually or via bulk import of metadata), LOs using these assets will also be updated automatically. This is the same behaviour as already implemented for the Alternative Text metadata.
Hierarchical metadata
To better support analysis of the usage of your learning materials, Avallain Author now supports hierarchical metadata schemas. In such schemas, metadata items can be placed inside a nested hierarchy of groups. This allows you to attach arbitrarily complex metadata to any LO or activity.
For such complex metadata schemas, Author will present a new metadata editor that supports hierarchical navigation as well as search for metadata items.
HLS URL in the Media Library
Author can convert uploaded video to HLS if required. With Release 39, the Media Library can now show the HLS video URL. Contact Avallain Support to set this up for your Author instance.
Bulk LO Import
With Release 39 comes an improved solution for importing LOs into another Author. Importing LOs is not as fast as the Copy LOs feature, but it is more versatile. Importing LOs is possible across Publishing Groups or even between different Author instances.
To import LOs, simply select all the LOs you want to copy to a different Publishing Group (or different Author) and publish them using Scorm1.2 W/O Assets as target. This will result in a zip-file containing zip-files of the LOs you selected. Alternatively you can collect your LOs from multiple projects and Authors and include them all in one zip-file for import.
Once you have your zip-file containing your LOs ready, simply navigate to the target project and use the LO Import button to select your zip-file for import.
The LOs will be imported into your root Work Package.
Activity Types
New Activity Class Present:External:Non-Scorable
Activities using this new Activity Class can incorporate external dynamic and static content. Such activities will not be scored, just like some of the other Present Activity Classes such as Present:Present:Slideshow.
Similar to the Activity Class Present:External:Scorable, instead of authoring content in the content area of the LO editor, content creators simply upload zip-files containing the external content to the Media Library and then use the file selection widget in the content area to select one of the zip files with external non-scorable content from the Media Library.
Adding external non-scorable content to an activity.
In order to enable managing third party content for such such activities, the media library now has a new filter called 3rd Party Non-Scorable. Use this filter to show what assets are available for Present:External:Non-Scorable activities.
You also need to activate this filter before you upload your content. This tags your content as external content and ensures that the required post-processing of external content is taking place. If you mark already existing content as 3rd Party Non-Scorable, this will not happen and your content will not be usable.
Improvements to Present:Present:Slideshow
The Activity Class Present:Present:Slideshow is now fully supported in the responsive Avallain Design Pack Mercury (see below). In addition, Slideshow now supports full screen viewing, and will hide the additional image button if no additional image has been included.
Slideshow with all available controls in Mercury.
Author eBooks
LO Options
While Author eBooks are LOs, they differ from regular LOs in many ways. One major difference is that they do not consist of multiple activities. Instead their only activity usually consists of multiple pages. Because of that, Author eBooks do not support many Global Options. But there are a number of LO Options that would be useful in the context of Author eBooks. With Release 39, selected LO Options are now available in Author eBooks. The button to open the LO Options can be found in the top right corner of the eBook editor.
Among the options now available is the option Design Package Options which allows one to customise the colour scheme of the Author eBook when using the MercuryBook Design Pack.
LO Options in an Author eBook.
Textbox tool
In order to enhance the usefulness of the annotation tools in Author eBooks, a new Textbox tool has been added. It functions similarly to the sticky notes tool, but the text is not placed over a colourful background, but rather is placed directly onto the pages of the eBook. The Textbox tool offers limited formatting options such as selecting a text colour and a text size.
New Textbox tool in an Author eBook.
Options
Resources
The new Activity Type Option Resources for Author eBooks enables a dialogue in eBooks that will show additional resources. The content of this dialogue is provided by the hosting platform. The option only governs whether learners will be able to open this dialogue through a button in the Author eBook UI. This feature needs Design Pack support and is not yet available in MercuryBook.
Passing Score
Release 39 introduces a new LO Option: Passing Score. Content creators can use it to assign a passmark, or mastery score, to a Learning Object. In order to successfully complete the LO, the learner needs to score higher than the Passing Score. Setting Passing Score only affects reporting. Learners will not be informed about whether or not they have passed. To inform learners about whether they have achieved a passing score, content creators can use the #passmark# syntax on the End Result Screen.
Publish Activity Thumbnails
The new project-wide option Publish Activity Thumbnails allows Project Managers to define whether published LOs will include activity thumbnails. The option can be disabled (default) or set to First Activity or All Activities. If set to First Activity, thumbnails will only be included for that activity, otherwise for all activities.
There will be two thumbnails per activity: one showing the activity on a desktop computer and the other showing a mobile view. Hosting platforms can use the activity thumbnails to show a preview of the LO / activity.
In addition, the thumbnails will be automatically generated and no longer rely on user action (editing and previewing the LO). The thumbnails will also be versioned so that published content can still access older versions that were current at the time of publishing.
An LO published with Publish Activity Thumbnails set to First Activity.
Mercury
Font selection
The LO Options Design Package Options for Mercury now includes a font selection widget that allows one to select the font to be used in the LO. Content creators can choose from the following fonts: Manrope (default), Lexend, Montserrat, Roboto, Open Sans, Quicksand, Hahmlet, Sora.
Font selection in Mercury and some font examples.
Newly supported Activity Classes
With Release 39, Mercury supports two new Activity Classes: Present:Present:Slideshow and Identify:Select:Catch.
Present:Present:Silideshow in Mercury.
Identify:Select:Catch
Present:Present:Silideshow in Mercury.
Watch the webinar recording
Learn more about this release’s new features by watching the recording of the webinar held by our in-house experts.
Pro editing features, more accessibility, and better interactivity!
Release 38 focuses on improving performance, accessibility and customisation but also brings you a new mobile-friendly version of Avallain’s gamified Crossword activity type as well as new video player options, improved source editing and other exciting features.
Backend enhancements
Source formatting
The HTML source view of any rich text area in Avallain Author will now show a formatted source with syntax highlighting. This makes it much easier for skilled content creators to work with the source view. Furthermore, syntax highlighting will allow content creators to spot errors more quickly.
Remember to enable the option Source Button in Project Settings – Global Options to be able to see the HTML source in any rich text area.
Reports
In order to provide a fuller picture of the LOs in your project, both the Project Report and Full Project Report now contain an additional column listing the selected Design Pack of the LO.
This will allow Avallain Author users to filter and sort the reports by Design Pack and quickly find all LOs using a specific Design Pack.
LO & Global Options
New option: Video Speed
The new Global Option Video Speed works similarly to the existing option Audio Speed. If enabled, learners can adjust the playback speed of the video.
Using this option might require changes to custom Design Packs.
Extended coverage: Try Again with Free Writing
The option Try Again has been extended to also work with Free Writing (Activity Class Input:Creative:Free Writing). If enabled, learners can use the Try Again button to change their answers in a Free Writing activity after the LO has been submitted.
Content creators should choose Clear all to remove learners’ answers from Free Writing activities when pressing Try Again. Other option values will keep learners’ answers.
Try again with Input:Creative:Free Writing
Design pack
Mobile-friendly version of Crossword
Avallain’s Design Pack Mercury now features a mobile-friendly version of Crossword (Input:Completion:Crossword). If you are using a custom Design Pack, contact our Customer Success Team to find out how to opt into using this mobile-friendly version.
Mobile-friendly version of Input:Completion:Crossword.
