On Monday, August 19^th, we released a patch of The Education Edge. Included in the patch is an updated feature for our users. We heard you had some confusion around our shared assignments option in Faculty Access for the Web. The request came for us not to delete prior year assignments when you delete a shared assignment for the current academic year. We didn’t want you to hurt the academic data from past school years. Here are some details around the updated feature:

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• We updated the name to provide more clarity. Shared assignments is now linked assignments.
  
• From Faculty Access for the Web, under Gradebook, when you copy categories/assignments, if you copy to a different academic year or marking column, the assignments will not be linked.
  If you copy within the same academic year and marking column, the assignments can be linked.
  
• On the Assignments page, when you add a new linked assignment, we now use a link icon to show you which fields will be linked for the new assignment.
  
• If you edit a linked assignment, you will now be prompted to make the change for all linked classes or break the link and make the change to the one assignment.
  
• If you delete a linked assignment, you will now be prompted to see if you want to delete the linked assignments for the other classes or break the link and delete the one assignment.
  

Why Did We Improve Shared Assignments?

Our Product Manager, Courtney Grainger explains…

“When I joined the team, one of the most significant areas we needed to improve was the experience for our faculty using Faculty Access for the Web.  In addition to improving the experience across different browsers, we wanted to remove the confusion around a feature change that was provided in our Faculty Access for the Web 7.83  release, shared assignments!

We worked with teachers to get a better understanding of what a “shared assignment” meant to them and we learned a lot! First, we learned that the word “shared” didn’t really make sense for our users. We actually wanted to have an assignment be linked between sections of the same class.  In addition to the verbiage change to “linked assignments,” we also updated the experience to clarify what happens when you link an assignment or edit a linked assignment.  It automatically shouldn’t allow us to link to prior years and as a teacher, I should be able to easily identify linked assignments in my gradebook. I also want to see what assignments are linked before I go and make a change across my classes.

With the updates to this feature in the patch, we hope that tool is not only meeting your expectations in how it functions, but saves you time and effort from keeping track of these linked assignments.”

Helpful Patch Links -

Download the Patch:
https://www.blackbaud.com/support/downloads/downloads.aspx

Review the Issues Resolved in the Patch:
https://www.blackbaud.com/files/support/downloads/ee/ee785patch.doc

Knowledgebase Articles:

BB65385 – How to add assignments in Faculty Access for the Web to show in NetClassroom

BB144992 – How to copy categories and/or assignments