Minor Release June 2021

Mr. WISEflow

Updated 26 June 2021 09:12

The 25th of June 2021 we will be releasing a new minor version of WISEflow, primarily addressing the continuous phasing in of the new author tool v2. It has been running in beta since the March v2021.1 release and worked as a teaser for coming functionality. With the coming minor release it will be possible to create Flow versions of assignments whereby they now can be used on flows.

This article will be updated continuously until the release. All guides regarding the new functionalities will be published after the release.

The following features will be included in the new version of WISEflow:

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FLOWlock browser versions

The new versions contain updates and is available in WISEflow. The new versions are:

Windows: 2.0.7.02
MacOS: 2.0.7.02

This version is NOT required from the 25th of June, but will be available to download.

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Author

Author Tool v2 (beta): Flow version

One of the key design improvements in the new author tool are the relational nature of assignments and sections. This is already reflected in the current beta version where sections in the content bank can be used on multiple assignments and still centrally be managed from within the content bank. This greatly reduces the amount of work needed to continuously improve your pool of high quality sections.

Figure: The new Author tool

Flow version is a new concept of making immutable versions of an assignment on a flow (replacing publishing assignments), but keeping the relation to the original assignment and thereby become a more integrated part of managing assignments. A flow version can be thought as a snapshot of the current state of the assignment and all its content. If changes or additions to a flow version is needed, you can just update the assignment and make a new flow version.

Figure: The new Flow version tool

An improvement included in the flow version is not having to manually backtrack to which assignment the published assignment originated from, to correct content. On the surface this looks like a small improvement, but it paves the track for rich item response statistics/analysis in the future. In general it is a matter of reusing all that can be reused when making a new flow version.

Flow version example

You have created an assignment with three sections from the content bank, that have not yet been used on any flow versions. Generating a flow version of the assignment thereby creates three new immutable section versions and assembles these to a unique flow version of that assignment.

This assignment is now used on a flow with 100 participants responding to it. In the assessment process it is clear that Section 3 was too easy, having all participants choosing the correct answer. Before being used on a flow again the section is improved to be less obvious and a new flow version of the assignment is made. This is placed on a new flow where 100 new participants are responding to it.

Figure: Created flow version

In the existing author tool the second published assignment would be a completely new one with no references to neither the original assignment nor the assignment first published.

In the new author tool only the altered section is made into a new immutable section version when creating the second flow version, while the two others are reused as they remains unaltered.

The flow version alone is a strong feature within the continuous improvement/quality assurance of a single assignment, but unleashes its full potential when sections from the content bank are beginning to expand into several different assignments and flow versions. Here you would be able to harvest aggregated section responses cross flow and assignment. As long as you don't alter the section it will continue to be the same section version being used. If you do alter the section and place it into new flow versions, new responses coming in will be able to be matched up against the distribution of previous versions.

Figure: Altered assignment

In this minor summer release it is a matter of being able to create versions of assignments in the new Author Tool and afterwards to attach them to FLOWmulti flows as a manager.

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Manager

FLOWmonitor: Log event on participant assignment access

As it is now WISEflow can't tell when/if the participant actually accesses the assignment. This can in certain cases be problematic if the assignment is changed late or falsely released and in other cases be an actually necessity for figuring out your rights to a re-examination.

As we now have an improved participant status engine and an async queue system for handling peaks, we have built in a participant event that is being triggered when the participant either previews or downloads the released assignment.

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Minor adjustments and improvements

Facial recognition: Easier handling of reference image cleanup

It is now possible for the Customer Support at UNIwise to easily clear the reference image in WISEflow of a given participant with a small service tool. This seeks to solve a now and here demand of quickly fixing wrongful set reference images for clients, without being dependent on development resources. It works as a low effort band aid while we are clarifying the full needs of a more elaborated licence admin tool, making it possible to self serve control over biometric data generated from FLOWrecognition and FLOWvoiceDetection.

FLOWcombine: Add participant to subflow regression malpractice

Due to some internal code changes made back in 2018 we unintentionally introduced a regression error in FLOWcombine, opening up for the manual addition of participants to FLOWcombine subflows. For reasons unknown we have not caught this change in our quality assurance processes, but in fact it leads to a number of concept breaking issues if you start adding participants manually to subflows instead of using the built in synchronisation from the main flow and down to the underlying subflows.

Figure: Synchronise subflows on FLOWcombine

This minor release is resetting the manager flow page of FLOWcombine sub flows back to its intended setting, not allowing for manual addition of participants.

FLOWvoiceDetection: General availability

The module was built and had its beginning this year by transcribing more than 14 million sentences from participants. Actually it showed to be working a little too well as a large portion of the sentences was transcribed interpretation of a cough, stressed keyboard clamping or other background noises.

With the minor release comes an enhancement of the voice detection module introducing pre-analysis of the recorded audio in order to determine the likelihood of voices being present. Thereby the transcribe is only being utilised on audio that contain actual sentences, which both drastically reduces the amount of false positives in the FLOWmonitor and the pressure on the service.

Mark Converter: Mapping grades

The mark converter has been updated with some minor improvements to its functionality. When the mark converter maps the range from grade to grade, then the number in the arrowhead will count as the grade to the right instead of left.

Figure: The score 23 count as the right sided grade

Early access on FLOWmulti and FLOWlock

We have now made it possible to use the Early access for assessors feature on FLOWmulti and FLOWlock flow types. If enabled, then it will be possible for the Assessor to give an assessment to participants that have handed in, while the flow is still in the participation period.

Figure: Early access for assessors