Updating VOD Links

The new VOD player presents videos in a more attractive and device agnostic format. The old player relies on Flash plugin technology and creates problems for some users. We are encouraging all faculty with VOD links in their courses to update prior to the start of Fall 2017 courses. The video shows several common ways you might be linking to VOD items and how to update them.

Old link URL look like this:

http://www.kirkwood.edu/site/vid_player.php?id=7256

The new link URL looks like this:

http://www.kirkwood.edu/vod/7256

The highlighted segments show the difference. The number at the end of your links will also be different as this number represents the ID of the specific video.

Spring 2016 Bug Tracking

More bugs may be listed in the first bug tracking post. Or just search for "bug" in the search box.

Video Full-screen Playback goes Black -- Under the Content tool, if you have uploaded a video file to the New > Video or Audio option, when you play back the video and view it fullscreen, the video keeps playing but the screen is black. Note, this is only for video files added directly to Talon. Does not affect YouTube or VOD videos. (Fix ETA - unknown)

Draft/Published Switching -- When you change an item from draft to published or published to draft, it should change the label, but the page doesn't seem to refresh so appears stuck even though the item status has indeed changed. If you refresh the page, you will see the status is updated. FIXED!

Save Grade Item Dialog doesn't close -- If you create a grade item from the Assessment tab on a quiz for example, and click the Save button, the dialog overlay doesn't close when you save. If you try to click save again, an error will occur since you already have created that grade item.

Repeat Descriptions on Course Schedule -- Under the Content tool, the course schedule appears to be duplicating the description of items - only for Dropboxes. (Fix ETA - End of February) FIXED!

Date Displays Incorrectly for Instructor on Special Access -- If you have given a student special access to a quiz, the end-date displayed for instructors is oddly inaccurate. The good news is that is displays correctly for the student, and the correct date is enforced. It will just look odd for you. (Fix ETA - End of January) FIXED!

Quiz Retrieval from LOR Error -- If you try to retrieve a quiz published to the LOR, it will fail. Work-around is to share the quiz as an export or add the instructor you are sharing it with your course as a Course Reviewer. (Fix ETA - End of April with 10.6.0)

Completion Tracking and Bubble Numbers

Always exciting to learn something new - a little humbling when it's so obvious.

Talon has 3 different modes for completion tracking of content items in a course. The default is set to Required: Automatic. This mode checks off completion for students mostly when they click the link to the content item. For a dropbox or quiz it waits for an actual submission, but mostly click and it's marked complete. The second mode is Required: Manual - this mode let's students decide when they are finished with that content item. The student checks the box themselves to indicate (to themselves) that the item is done. The third mode is Not Required - no check box appears to students at all.

What I recently learned is that the bubble number displayed in the Table of Contents under Course Contents is different for faculty and students. For faculty, the number represents the number of required content items. For students, it is the number of remaining required items that need completing within that module. As students manually or automatically check items off, the number goes down. Once they complete everything a green check marks the entire module as complete.

With this in mind, take care on how you set completion tracking for your content items. Simply going with the default Required: Automatic may not be communicating what you intend to students.

Student view of Course Contents showing Required: Manual completion tracking.