May 2022

Blackboard Grades & Harmonize

• Our expanded Blackboard Gradebook notifications in Blackboard Learn and Ultra make it even easier for instructors to see when a student’s work is ready to be graded!
• Instructors will now see an alert in the Blackboard gradebook to indicate that a student’s work needs grading.
• Instructors can then easily view and grade the student work in Harmonize using the Grades & Activity view.

Setting Your Preferred Name in Harmonize

Students and instructors can now easily update their Name in Harmonize to their default Display Name set in Canvas, their Full Name, or a Custom Name, by clicking on their profile link and changing the Name Source.

April 2022

Instructor can mark a comment or reply as Private

• Sometimes students need some additional guidance or help getting back into the conversation, and it’s tough to do that publicly in a discussion board. With this latest release, instructors can foster a safe and supportive environment by easily sharing feedback with a student privately. Instructors now have the option to ‘Mark as Private Comment’ when responding to a student’s post.

March 2022

Adding Comments to Grade Book

• Instructors can now add a comment in the grade book for Brightspace, Blackboard & Moodle.

Engagement Insights Notification

• Instructors can identify students that are at risk more easily with expanded notifications for Engagement Insights. Every 2 weeks, instructors will be prompted with details on students that are at risk that they haven’t viewed yet. They can easily view more details on the students’ recent activity and reach out to them from the Engagement Insights dashboard.

Chat: New Marker

• Easily identify Chats that you have not read with a New Indicator separating read and unread messages.

February 2022

Engagement Insights

• Engagement Insights makes it easy for instructors to proactively monitor student engagement and provide support for students that are struggling or at risk.

Engage & Retain More Students

With Engagement Insights, you can:

• Make it easier for instructors to focus on the students that need more support
  Ease instructor workload by giving instructors clear visibility into which students are struggling and may be at risk. With Engagement Insights, instructors can spend less time trying to figure out which students need help and more time focusing on the students that need it. 
• Promote equitable engagement
  Minimize the potential for bias by providing instructors with more visibility into their class. It can be easy for instructors to focus on the students that are interacting the most, but these students often aren’t the ones most in need of support. With Engagement Insights, it’s easier for instructors to identify and engage with students they may otherwise miss. 
• Support student retention
  Empower instructors to re-engage at risk students before they drop a course. With Engagement Insights, instructors get an early warning to alert them to which students are at risk, and why, so they can intervene before it’s too late. 
• Ensure compliance with RSI guidelines
  Avoid putting more administrative burden on instructors and ensure compliance with RSI guidelines by providing instructors with the ability to easily monitor student engagement in their course.

Here’s How it Works

• Engagement Insights uses modern AI data science to examine how students are engaging in course discussions relative to their peers. 

Engagement Insights:

• Evaluates student engagement based on factors that have been shown to correlate with positive student outcomes in Harmonize courses, such as how much time students spend engaging with the course materials in Harmonize, how often they interact with fellow students, how often they post or comment, and the complexity of the content they share
• Tracks student activity and improvement over time
• Provides instructors with a dashboard that highlights which students are at risk, why they were flagged as at risk, and how the student has performed over time
• Makes it easy for instructors to connect to students that are at risk via email, discussion, or chat

New Grid Icon in Header

• You can now easily access all that Harmonize has to offer from one click with the new Grid Icon that is in the top navigation bar.

September 2021

Canvas: Select Single Group Set per Topic

• Group sets and groups sync automatically with Harmonize
• Instructors can select a single group set to use per topic
• Filter discussion view by individual groups
• Students will only see posts from other students within their group

Items of Note:

• This feature requires LTI 1.3 to function.
• It will require the use of the Canvas API and requires an additional Developer Key to be installed with read-only permissions. Support Article

Directional Support

• Harmonize now offers Right-to-Left Text & Left to Right Language input when creating a post or adding a comment.

August 2021

Group Sets & Groups in Blackboard

• Group sets and groups sync automatically with Harmonize
• Instructors can select a single group set to use per topic
• Filter discussion view by individual groups
• Students will only see posts from other students within their group
• Items of Note:  This feature requires LTI 1.3 to function. 

Annotations Updates

• Drawing is now allowed outside of the image boundary
• Pressure sensitivity is now supported when using a touch sensitive device such as Apple Pencil or Wacom tablet
• Eraser functionality has been added to the freehand drawing tool
• You may now restrict the straight line tool to 45 degree angle increments by holding the shift key

July 2021

Improved Commenting UI

• When adding comments to a post in a discussion, we have added shortcuts for including richer content such as embedded links, video recordings or even polls.  Just click on one of the icons to begin adding content to your comments

Stand Alone Polling

• Instructors can add a Poll outside of the Harmonize Discussion as a stand alone Poll.

June 2021

Polling In the Discussion or as a Stand Alone Resource

• Get feedback and insight on a question quickly and quantifiable by using polling within Harmonize
• Assess where your students are in their learning, understand takeaways or stimulate the discussion by adding a poll

Individual Q&A Topics

• Add an individual Q&A Topic to a module to target specific questions for the material

Communication Center - Adding to all LMS's

• Add the Communication Center to a page or module to access all Harmonize products from a single location
  

Groups in Blackboard 

• Using Harmonize LTI 1.3, Blackboard users can now set discussions to  group-level visibility

Updates to Record Audio & Video

• Controls have been simplified to make recording more intuitive for all users
  

May 2021

Harmonize Communication Center

• Access all of the Harmonize products from one central location
  
• View Discussion Topics, the Q&A Board, Chat or view your Profile & Notification Settings
• If you select Harmonize from the left hand navigation (Canvas Only) it will display the new Communication Center
  
  

Enabling / Disabling Q&A Board

• The Q&A Board will be enabled by default
• Instructors can easily enable or disable the Q&A Board
• If a board was disabled and questions and answers were added, then the board will be re-enabled and the questions and answers will persist.
  

Show or Hide Harmonize Discussion Topics

• If the instructor has added a discussion topic to a module or page, they may not want the Topic to appear on the Harmonize Discussion page of topics.
• A new setting on the edit topic screen allows the Instructor to choose to show or hide the topic on the Harmonize discussion page.
  

Permanently delete a post or comment

• Instructors always had the option to delete a post or comment created by a student, but Harmonize displayed the post or comment to the Instructor with a note that it was administratively deleted.
• Now after deleting a post or comment, Instructors have the option to permanently delete the post or comment and not have it visible to the instructor.
  

May 2021

Course specific Question & Answer 

Looking for an answer to a specific question? Need help? Utilize the new question & answer feature to do that and more, now part of Harmonize.

• Instructors can mark a response as the Best Answer
• Search for a question or answer by keywords to easily find solutions
• Filter to find the Best Answer, unread questions or questions that do not have a Best Answer
• Easily find questions that you flagged for follow up
• Endorse a question or answer

Adding Harmonize Resources

• Adding Harmonize resources to a module or page (Canvas), is now even  easier.
• A new wizard is now available to help you choose the best mode of communication for your module - Discussion, Q&A or Chat.

Institution wide support

• Add your Institution's course & technical support contact to assist Instructors and Students get to the right place to help answer questions or issues in a timely manner.

Set the Default closed captioning language

• Instructors can set the default language when auto-captioning recorded or uploaded video files.

Download All Attachments

• Instructors can now download all attachments in a Topic, into a zip file, named by student

March 2021

• Never miss a chat message!
• Students & Instructors can now opt in to receive push notifications to their devices.
  
• Note:  This currently only works on Desktop and Android devices

Adding Harmonize Topics to a Page (Canvas Only)

• Harmonize Topics can now be added to a Canvas Page, by using the plug icon.
• Note:  This requires a change to the XML configuration.  If you would like the ability to add this feature, please email harmonize-support@42lines.net for assistance

Access Activity Directly From the User's Profile

• We have added another way to view student's activity.
• Click on their name and click Activity

February 2021

Student Facilitation

• Students engage more in peer facilitated discussion
• Peer modeling
• Keep discussion focused 
• Advance and deepen discussion.
• Provide opportunity for all voices to be heard.
• Leave participants challenged and willing to engage in follow-up conversations

January 2021

Auto Grading

• Take Milestone's to the next step with Auto-Participation Grading by having Harmonize assign credit to a student simply by completing the assigned tasks 
• Participation grading is done without the Instructor's intervention saving time in the grading process
  
• Support for HEIC (iPhone file type)
• Harmonize Chat email notifications for unread chat messages

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

• A Equation Editor has been added to the text area when creating a Post or adding a Comment.
  

November 2020 Release Notes

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 Technology

  • 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 Release Notes

Import Zoom Meeting Files

• After a meeting has ended you can import Zoom meeting files, recordings, transcripts and chat transcripts.
  

Presence 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 Release Notes

Milestone Requirement Email Notifications

• 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 in the 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 Caption Files

• 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 takes the user to the 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 Release Notes

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 Release Notes

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 (Beta)

Harmonize Chat allows Teachers and Students to communicate in real time.

• The Chat tool will need to be enabled for your institution.  Contact harmonize-support@42lines.net to request that it is turned on
• 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

 Learn More

May 2020 Release Notes

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 Release Notes

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

Comment changes to 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 Release Notes

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 Plaiarism Integration

January 2020 Release Notes

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

Post / 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

December 2019 Release Notes

Version History

• Instructors can now see the published version history of each student's posts

Enhanced User Profile

Learn more about class participants and create a social presence in the discussion.  You can now publish your profile and background to all class participates.

Update:

• Enhanced profile picture to use as your avatar
• Email & location
• Social media links
• Biography & interests
• Office Hours (for instructors only)
• NOTE:  All profile information is optional

November 2019 Release Notes

Turnitin Integration

• Install Turnitin keys at the account or course level so students can submit assignments or discussion posts
• Teachers will also be able to see student's scores when grading

Caliper Integration

• Install Caliper keys at the account or course level to pull Harmonize data into Caliper

Annotation Tool Changes

• You can now view and image or audio in a larger view without first opening the Annotation tool.
• Click Annotate to begin Annotating

October 2019 Release Notes

• Image & Video Annotations in Draft Mode
• Word Count
• Notification Bell Activity
• Activity Reporting across the course
• Closed Captioning
• Changes to display of date & time on posts & comments

Image & Video Annotations in Draft Mode

Uploaded images and videos can be annotated before a student published their work. After the media is uploaded click on the annotation icon  to annotate.

Word Count

Students can now see the word count when creating a post and teachers can view the word count on assignment submissions when grading.

Notification Bell Activity

Notifications received are now consolidated under a new Bell Icon  to allow students and teachers to keep up to date on activity on their post & comments.

Activity Reporting across Course

Teachers can now view activity for students across the course in a dashboard view.  See all activity across posts & comments, who has not posted in the last 7 days, who has not posted at all and view the most active topic or assignment.

Closed Captioning

Teachers and students can upload an .srt file and select a language when adding a video.  When playing the video the translated text will display at the bottom of the video.

Changes to date & time display on post & comments

Date & time displays have been update to condense the view of the date.  Hovering over the date will display the actual date & time of the post or comment

September 2019 Release Notes

• Visibility of Posts
• Students must post before seeing other students posts setting
• Anonymous Posts
• Meeting Scheduler Updates
• @mentions
• Notification Settings

Visibility of Posts

Posts can be set to be the following:

• Visible to all participants
• Visible to participants in their assigned section
• Visible to participants in their assigned groups
• Visible only between the Instructor and Student

Student must post before seeing other Posts and Comments

Students will need to create and publish a post before seeing any other student posts or comments within that topic.

Anonymous Posts

There are three options for configuring how a user’s identity is displayed within a topic: 

1. Posts and comments always show user’s identity –  This is the default setting. It requires all users to post as themselves.
2. Allow anonymous posts and comments –  This setting allows users to choose if they want to post or comment anonymously or not.
3. All student posts and comments are anonymous –  This setting requires all students to post anonymously. Instructors may choose to post anonymously or not.

Meeting Scheduler Updates

If a meeting has been scheduled, a calendar icon will be displayed at the top of the topic to show upcoming and past meetings.

@Mentions in text area

Students and Teachers can @mention a student inline when adding content to a post or comment.

The @mentioned user will be tagged and receive an email notification.

Notification Settings

Harmonize notification settings can now be accessed under your user profile at the top of the Topic.

July 2019 Release Notes

Student Self Annotation

After uploading an image or video and publishing their post, students can now self annotate their own files using the annotation tools.  Instructors and Students can both annotate the same file and have visibility access to see each others Annotations.

Zoom Integration

A new meeting block can be added by selecting, Schedule Meeting.

Meetings can be added as the following:

• No Remote Location:  Add a physical location for your meeting without a remote meeting
• Add Meeting URL:  Add a meeting URL for any type of online meeting room
• Zoom Meeting:  Link to your Pro Account and automatically add a Zoom Meeting

10 minutes prior to the meeting, the host can Start the Meeting and users can join.