News and Updates

The latest updates on developments across digital education systems are detailed below along with service information on our dedicated Downtime and Maintenance page.

You can also find status updates from Digital Education Systems on Bluesky at desystemsleeds.bsky.social and at the IT service status page for wider University IT updates.

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.

Results 151 to 200 of 363

Turnitin will undergo scheduled maintenance on Saturday 28 October 2023, from 9:00am to 9:30am BST.

Staff and students should now be able to access Minerva as normal.

Staff and students may be unable to access Minerva. The issue began at approximately 10.20am.

Staff and students may be unable to access Minerva.

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.

The issue with Inaccuracies with automatically created Minerva Groups in School and Faculty organisations has now been resolved.

We have been notified that some scheduled lecture capture recordings are not automatically starting as expected. Record Now is unaffected.

A new 'flexible grading' interface is now available for Blackboard Test and Assignment.

Find out how you can get involved in the 2023/24 Noteable computational notebook pilot.

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.

In Minerva, Progress Tracking is not working for Web Link content.

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.

A thirty minute scheduled maintenance window is taking place on Gradescope on Saturday 23 September between 15:00 to 15:30 BST

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.

Attend our Noteable computational notebook information event on 6 September and find out about taking part in our 2023/24 Noteable pilot.

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.

Padlet has released a whole host of new functionality available in the tool including polls, being able to schedule posts, autosave and more.

An eight-hour scheduled maintenance will take place on the Turnitin and Gradescope systems on Saturday 12 August 2023, between 15:00 to 23:00 BST.

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.

Vevox is our new institutional polling tool designed to enhance participation, engagement and feedback within a variety of settings.

A software update will take place on Mediasite, the University's Lecture Capture and Media Management System on Saturday 29 July 2023.

Sharing good practice: how module builders could enhance their Minerva Module Content Area by considering students' perspectives.

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

Learn more about what we're doing to get Vevox ready for you to use.

Essential maintenance will take place on Mediasite and VideoLeeds on Saturday 15 July 2023 between 12:00AM – 6:00AM 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.

31 accessibility improvements to PebblePad

A summary of key Minerva updates made since summer 2022 is now available.

The Digital Education Systems Team have been informed that there was an unexpected service degradation on Friday 23rd June.

The planned upgrade work to move Banner to a cloud-based platform will take place tomorrow, learn how this might affect you.

Minerva will be unavailable for up to 30 minutes on Thursday 15th June between 5:30am and 06:30am (BST) for essential maintenance.

All modules due to run in 2023/24 have been created, and enrolments have been added.

An issue has been identified with submission dates for submissions where the grades have been returned.

We are investigating an intermittent issue where the Turnitin interface is freezing, and grades and comments entered are not being retained.

If you've been set digital assessments, take a look at our tips on submitting online assessed work.

There will be a thirty-minute scheduled maintenance period for Gradescope on Sunday 11 June between 16.00 and 16.30 BST.

The June update to Minerva introduces improvements to Tests and Module Links. Announcement now also appear in the top menu and there is a new icon for Learning Modules.

Our supplier has advised that the issue with downloading digital submission receipts using the Safari web browser has been resolved.

Over the past few months, Digital Education Student Ambassadors have written blog pieces on a range of different topics.

The University, and the IT Service Desk, will be closed during the Bank Holiday on Monday 29 and Tuesday 30 May 2023. During this time you can get IT support in a number of ways.

We have received reports that some students are experiencing difficulties when opening Gradescope assignments.

Due to an urgent technical fix, the learning analytics system (StREAM@Leeds) will be taken offline for around 15 minutes between 3:30pm and 4:30pm.

PebblePad releases new features inluding ability to report on data saved in tables.

Information to help you prepare your 2023/24 module areas, including support and guidance for content copying, and a summary of key updates to Minerva functionality since June 2022.

Due to an urgent technical fix, the learning analytics system (StREAM@Leeds) will be taken offline for around 15 minutes between 4:30pm and 5pm.

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