Torus v.28 Launches a New Student Interface and Many Exciting Instructor & Authoring Improvements 

The latest update to Torus v.28 brings a host of exciting features designed to enhance the student learning experience and improve instructor functionality. The update introduces a new next-generation student interface, a notes feature that allows for collaborative social annotation, and increased functionality within the instructor dashboard, authoring interface, and admin functionality. With a focus on accessibility, progress tracking, and user-friendly navigation, this update ensures that students can stay on top of their coursework with greater ease and clarity, while also allowing instructors greater control over the platform. Let’s dive into some of the standout improvements introduced in this version.

Student Interface

A New Home Page Experience

The new Student Interface Home Page in Torus v.28 serves as the central hub for students, providing a clear snapshot of their enrolled courses and course progress. This streamlined interface ensures that students can quickly access the information they need. By simply clicking on the course bar, students are seamlessly taken to the respective course’s homepage, where they can dive deeper into the course material.

Enhanced Navigation with the New Header Bar

Another exciting addition is the new Student Interface Header Bar on the course Home Page. This feature is designed to guide students through their learning journey. On the first visit to a course’s Home Page, the Header Bar prominently displays a “Start Learning” message, offering options to either begin the course or review the content. This intuitive approach helps students get started without any confusion.

For returning students, the Header Bar updates to show a “Continue Learning” message, reflecting their current progress. This allows students to easily pick up where they left off, ensuring a smooth and uninterrupted learning experience. Additionally, the “Show in Course” button provides an overview of the student’s current lesson within the overall course schedule, offering flexibility in how they navigate through the content.

New Clear and Concise Course Progress Indicator

Torus v.28 introduces a highly visible Course Progress indicator located just below the Student Interface Header Bar. This feature gives students a clear visual representation of their progress within the course. Whether they have completed 11% or 90% of the course, this indicator provides instant feedback, helping students stay motivated and aware of their advancement through the curriculum.

New Assignments Section

In response to user feedback, a new Assignments section has also been added in Torus v.28. The Student Interface Assignments section has been thoughtfully designed to help students keep track of their work. The section is divided into two tabs: “Upcoming” and “Latest.” The “Upcoming” tab highlights unfinished tasks, ensuring that students know exactly what needs their attention. Once an assignment is completed, it moves to the “Latest” tab, where students can review their scores and see how many attempts they have left for any retakes. This thoughtful design prevents students from losing track of their progress and remaining attempts.

New Upcoming Agenda 

Another powerful tool is the Student Interface Upcoming Agenda feature. It displays everything upcoming, from practice pages to scores, including additional attempts on practice quizzes. Only the next several items are shown, allowing students to focus on immediate tasks. The agenda items are interactive, meaning students can click on them to visit the relevant page and scroll through the content, further enhancing the ease of navigation.

New & Improved Learning Proficiency Features

The new release brings improvements to learning proficiency features aimed at deepening student engagement. Learning Proficiency is now a clickable link, allowing students to see how their proficiency is measured and to better understand the learning objectives associated with each page. Learning objectives are now clearly identified, showing students the proficiency they have achieved for the current page. Additionally, instructors now have the option to estimate the time required to read or go through the material on a page, offering students better time management tools as they progress through the course.

New Learn Page

The new Learn Page seamlessly integrates many of the new student interface features introduced in V.28. The Learn Page offers a Gallery view that visually represents the entire curriculum, arranged by units and modules. This intuitive view makes it easier for students to navigate the course and keep track of their progress.

Instructors can further enhance the learning experience by customizing the content displayed in the Gallery view, including the ability to add custom images and introductory videos. This level of personalization ensures that each course is tailored to the unique needs of its students, making the learning journey more engaging and interactive.

New Schedule View

Another standout feature of Torus v.28 is the new Schedule View within the Student Interface. Schedule View organizes the course content by due date, presenting it in a clear, chronological list format that progresses week by week. This layout allows students to easily keep track of their assignments and assessments, ensuring that they never miss an important deadline. Using chronological organization the Schedule View arranges course content by due date, making it simple for students to see what’s coming up and what needs their immediate attention. Additionally, it provides students with visual cues, detailed due date information, and full schedule access. The Schedule View is another tool that will help students manage their time effectively and allow for greater focus on assignment completion. 

New Notes Feature

Torus v.28 continues to build on its reputation as a leading platform in online education by introducing key updates designed to enhance both course organization and student engagement. One of the most notable additions in this version of Torus is the innovative Notes feature. This update is tailored to provide a more interactive, and personalized learning experience, making it easier for students to collaborate effectively. The Notes feature empowers students to interact more meaningfully with course content. Whether a student is studying alone or collaborating with classmates, this feature is designed to make note-taking more targeted and relevant.

Key Functionality of the Notes Feature:

• Targeted Note-Taking: Instead of taking general notes for an entire page, students can now add notes in line with specific sections of content. This allows for more precise note-taking, helping students focus on the most important parts of their study material.
• Two Types of Notes:
  • My Notes: These are private notes that are visible only to the student. They allow the student to document their thoughts and insights on particular sections without sharing them with others.
  • Class Notes: These notes are shared with the entire class, including the instructor. Class Notes can be interacted with by others, allowing for comments, reactions, and replies, creating a collaborative learning environment. There’s also an option to post anonymously, giving students the freedom to share their thoughts without revealing their identity.
• Instructor Control: By default, the Notes feature is turned off. However, instructors can enable it and customize how it functions, including whether anonymous commenting is allowed. This ensures that the feature is used in a way that best supports the learning objectives of the course.

Instructor Interface

The v.28 update brings a fresh, user-focused reorganization to the Instructor Interface, designed to improve navigation and clarity. These changes, driven by new functionalities and insightful user research, are aimed at making the instructor experience smoother and more intuitive.

Updated Menu Structure

One of the most noticeable changes to the Instructor Interface is the reorganization of the menu structure. The overhaul primarily focuses on the Overview and Insights sections, making it easier for instructors to access critical data and tools. The Manage section remains largely unchanged, maintaining its familiar layout and functions. Additionally, the Discussion Activity section now includes access to Notes, reflecting the integration of new note-taking features across the platform.

Authoring Interface

New Customization Functionality in the Student Interface

The Authoring Interface now comes with enhanced customization options. These features empower the author to tailor the student interface, ensuring that your course material is presented exactly how you want it. Whether you’re adjusting text, uploading custom images, or embedding videos, the new interface makes it easier than ever to create an engaging learning environment.

On the Project Overview page, the author can now add a personalized “welcome message title” and an “encouraging subtitle,” offering a warm introduction to their course. These messages support rich text formatting, allowing the instructor to include links and other enhancements to better connect with their students.

Updated Customization Functionality in the Curriculum Page

Torus v.28 also introduces updated options for customizing the Curriculum Page. The author can now edit the title and introduction text for each container, ensuring that their materials are clearly presented. Additionally, the ability to upload poster images adds a visual element to the gallery view on the student page, making courses even more engaging. 

Another noteworthy addition is the suggested duration feature. This allows authors to indicate the estimated time required to complete each activity, helping students manage their time more effectively.

New Page Progress Gating

Another new feature is gating by page progress. Previously, progress-based gating was limited to scored pages. Now, authors can apply gating to practice pages as well, giving them greater control over how students progress through a course. This feature allows authors to specify a required completion percentage before students can access the next section, ensuring that they are adequately prepared before moving forward.

Admin Functionality

For system admins, v.28 also brings several key updates. The “Manage Open and Free” option has been consolidated into the browse all course sections page, streamlining course management tasks. Additionally, a new tool allows admins to generate password reset links. This feature is particularly useful when a user has lost access to their email account, ensuring they can regain entry to the course without unnecessary delays.

The updates in Torus v.28 are a testament to the platform’s commitment to continuous improvement, instructor support, and student success. By prioritizing user feedback and integrating thoughtful, user-friendly features, Torus v.28 offers a more streamlined, engaging, and effective learning experience. For more information about Torus v.28 please refer to the Torus v.28 User Guide as well as Torus v.28 Video Demo.

Stay tuned for more updates and enhancements as we continue to evolve our platform to meet your needs!