December 2020
Harmonize Topic List Page Updates
- The Harmonize topic list page has been updated to provide more information and actions directly from the page.
Equation Editor
- An Equation Editor has been added to the text area when creating a Post or adding a Comment.
November 2020
Milestone (Multiple Due Dates) Updates
- By default comments & replies will be combined together as one requirement, allowing students to either comment on a post or reply to a comment to count towards completion of the requirement.
- Alternatively, Instructors can select the advanced mode and select comments & replies as separate requirements.
Landmarks & Regions Added for Assistive Technologies
- Landmarks and regions have been added to Harmonize for Assistive Technology Users to help orient themselves to pages and help navigate to various sections of the page.
October 2020
Import Zoom Meeting Files
- After a meeting has ended you can import Zoom meeting files, recordings, transcripts and chat transcripts.
Presence Indicator on Front of the Card
- The presence indicator is now displayed on the front of the card, making it easier to see who is online, away, busy or offline.
September 2020
Milestone Requirements Email Notification
- Upcoming Milestone Reminder: Students will receive an email reminder 1 day prior to the Milestone due date.
- Past Due Reminder: Students will receive an email reminder if they did not complete the Milestone and it is 1 day past due.
Web Links Added to Text Editor
- Adding web links in the text editor, when creating a post or adding a comment, will automatically display a preview of the website, if one is available.
Download Closed Captions File
- In the last release, Harmonize automatically closed captioned videos. Now users can download the .SRT file for review and re-upload if any changes are needed.
Grid & List Views
- We have added both the Grid & List View icons visible by default, so users can easily see that there are two different views of the discussion.
New Assignments Navigate to Edit Screen by Default
- To reduce the number of clicks an Instructor or Instructional Designer needs to take to create their assignment prompt, the user is automatically redirected to the Edit Topic screen when creating a new assignment.
August 2020
Automatic Closed Captioning
- Recorded and uploaded videos will automatically be closed captioned, to provide accessibility to all users.
Harmonize Tips
- With Harmonize Tips students and faculty will receive an onscreen notification, which will allow them to explore new features within the platform. Videos, GIFs, and text will be provided to help the user get started! Start exploring Harmonize Tips!
July 2020
Multiple Due Dates (Milestones)
- Milestones allow you to create a single assignment or topic that has multiple completion requirements/dates.
- Completion Requirements may include a specific number of:
- Posts on a topic
- Comments on posts
- Replies to comments
- Reactions to classmates’ activity
- By adding requirements as part of a Topic or Assignment Milestone, you provide students a clear indication of what must be done to complete a discussion topic.
- Additionally, you can stagger the requirements across a specific span of time. For example, as part of a weekly discussion that begins on a Monday, you may want each student to:
- Write ONE post by Wednesday.
- Comment on TWO classmates’ work by Friday.
- Reply to TWO comments on their post by Sunday.
- Resource Guide
Ouriginal Integration
- Ouriginal is an automatic text-recognition system made for detecting, preventing and handling plagiarism and can be turned on for an Assignment or a Discussion topic.
Additional Features
- When creating a meeting row you can add artifacts that pertain to the meeting, like agendas or meeting notes, keeping all documents together in one place.
- We have added a new top level help icon to link to the Harmonize support pages for easy access to learn about Harmonize.
- When adding a comment, the Advanced Commenting option is also available under the menu option.
June 2020
Online Presence
- Presence allows users to view who is online, which can lead to student satisfaction and create a more synchronous discussion.
- Harmonize now shows the users status
- By default their presence is online. The user can change their status to: Busy, Away or Show as Offline while they are in Harmonize.
Harmonize Chat
- Students and Instructors can chat with current and previous classmates where Harmonize was installed
- Create private or group messages
- Block and/or Unblock a user
- Mute and/or Unmute a conversation
- Set your status as online, away, busy or show as offline
- Mark an individual conversation as unread
- Mark all conversations as read
- Delete your own conversation
- Disable / Enable Chat
- Saved chat conversations
May 2020
Threaded Replies
- Communicating directly with your peers or Instructor is now easier with threaded replies.
- You can now reply directly to another user's comments by selecting reply.
March 2020
New Post User Interface
- Changes to adding a new post from a New Post Button to creating a Post inline.
- Clicking on Create post... opens the new post inline
Updates to Commenting User Interface
- By default, users can add a text comment or drag & drop files when adding a comment.
- Clicking on Advanced Commenting expands the comment inline to add additional options to compose your comment.
February 2020
Post & Comment Reactions
- Instructors can optionally turn on reactions per topic to engage students in the discussion topic. Students can view the reactions made by other students
- Reactions include:
- This is helpful
- Good Point
- I agree
Unicheck Plagiarism Integration
- Instructors can edit a topic and turn on Unicheck plagiarism integration
January 2020
Search
- Users can now search a keyword on posts, comments, media description, meetings, closed caption files, first or last name and email.
- Search results are highlighted to quickly find the keyword
- Search results can also be filtered by: Posted by user and Relevance or Most Recent
Posts & Comments Navigation Changes
- We have made it easier to find posts that the instructor or student have not read, by collapsing previously viewed posts and comments.
- Actions on posts (edit, delete, flag for followup, version history and get URL) that were previously links, have been collapsed to a single menu item.
- The comment button has been removed and replaced with a more prominent inline comment box.
- Actions on a topic have been collapsed into a single menu to consolidate them into one area for quick access