News of new developments across digital education systems, software upgrades or updates, along with any associated maintenance and downtime are shared here - and summarised on the Downtime and Maintenance page to help you keep track. The official Twitter account for IT at the University of Leeds, @ITServicesUoL is also recommended for service status updates, along with the service status page on the IT website.
You can also get these updates directly to your inbox by subscribing to the mailing list. Monthly summaries which provide an overview of the new features, bug-fixes, and improvements made to Digital Education Systems can also be found on the Monthly Digital Education Systems Updates page.
Clicking on a category (shown to the right of the post date) allows you to filter this list to a specific category to help you find related articles easily.
Top Hat will undergo scheduled maintenance on Thursday 28 December 2023, from 14:00pm GMT until Saturday 30 December 2023 02:00am GMT. During this period Top Hat will not be available.
The November update brings some improvements to the content editor (for adding images), the Gradebook and Assessment tools, and a new feature in Turnitin allowing assignment settings to be copied. A known issue relating to progress tracking is also resolved.
LinkedIn Learning’s old access link in Minerva is being retired on 31st December 2023, and content that has been added to Minerva using this method will no longer work after this date.
This online training session is aimed at staff and postgraduates who are new to Minerva and need to use it to deliver or support learning and teaching.
Following on from the service disruption first reported on Monday, 2nd of October, scheduled lecture recordings should now automatically start as expected.
The October update to Minerva introduces updates to Blackboard Assignments, Tests and improved functionality to send reminders to students for Turnitin assessments. Changes have also recently been introduced to the grading interface for Blackboard Assignments and Tests.
We have become aware of inaccuracies in the membership of student groups (specifically made for communications) within School and Faculty organisations. Whilst these are investigated we advise that staff should not use these groups.
Our vendor has released a new grading interface which we will enable in Minerva w/c 18th September. This will affect the marking of Blackboard Assignments and Tests only.
We have been notified of a planned maintenance period for Vevox, which is scheduled to start at 8:00am BST on Sunday 24 September and will last approximately one hour.
New Minerva module areas for the 2023/24 academic were made available for population in June, and staff are now reminded to build their modules before teaching begins in the new academic year.
The September update to Minerva introduces updates to Learning Modules, Module Banners, Batch Editing and Progress Tracking. Additionally, a Recording Tool has been enabled and there is now the option to remove Blackboard Collaborate from the Details & Actions menu.
The University and the IT Service Desk will be closed during the Bank Holiday on Monday 28 and Tuesday 29 August 2023. During this time, you can get IT support in several ways.
Academic Personal Tutors who would like to learn about the systems that support APT meetings can benefit from attending the APT Essentials course running in 2023/24.
The August update to Minerva introduces updates to Learning Modules, Messages, Gradebook and Groups. A known issue relating to Calculated Numeric Test questions is resolved.
Improvements to PebblePad this month include: PDFs now viewable directly within PebblePad; Activity Log and Collections features now enable a specific tempate as the criteria - this template will automatically be reportable on, without the need to create an assignment for it.
There will be an eight hour scheduled maintenance window taking place on the Turnitin and Gradescope systems on Saturday 12th August 2023 between 15:00 and 23:00 BST
The July update to Minerva introduces updates to assessment, options to resize media added to Documents, copying, and progress tracking (student view). The option for students to self-enrol is now also possible in Ultra Course View Organisations.