A round-up of all improvements and changes to the Buzz platform in versions v2.0.140 and v3.0.38, available on February 8, 2018.
Updates
In this release, we:
- [Accessibility updates] Updated folder landing pages to announce the folder content links as navigation landmarks.
- [Accessibility updates] Updated "activity type" icons that appear before activity titles, so that screen readers can use them to identify and read the activity type.
- [Accessibility updates] Updated button title text for screen readers, so they no longer read the word "quote" after each.
- [Accessibility updates] Improved screen reader usability by adding landmark regions to the Activities > Course Home page, Student Home page, and Teacher Home page.
- [Chrome] Updated the way audio/visual and location permissions are handled in iframes to accommodate updates to Chrome.
- Updated the Automatically assign zero scores to past-due activities function (in Course settings) to ignore due dates that are outside of a student's enrollment date range.
New Buzz UI
During the summer of 2017, we released a new Buzz UI, giving you the same features and functionality with a cleaner, simpler user experience!
The release notes in this section pertain only to those using the new Buzz UI.
New Buzz UI updates
In this release, we:
- [Chrome] Updated the way audio/visual and location permissions are handled in iframes to accommodate updates to Chrome.
- Updated the Activity Grader to reflect the new the new Buzz UI style.
- Updated the Automatically assign zero scores to past-due activities function (in Course settings) to ignore due dates that are outside of a student's enrollment date range.
New Master/Derivative activity re-sync tool
In this release, we also added a tool that allows teachers and other content authors using a Derivative course to review any changes made to an activity in that Derivative course, and re-sync to the Master course.
Learn more: How do I manage Master and Derivative courses?
- When changes have been made to an activity in a Derivative course, a Changes icon appears in the activity editor toolbar. Click the icon to review the changes.

- The properties that have been changed are listed in this window along with the Derivative course's current value and the Master course's value.
- Check the boxes next to the property changes you want to discard and re-sync with the Master course.
- Click Re-sync selected settings to re-sync with the Master course.

New Buzz UI fixed issues
In this release, we:
- Fixed an issue where changes to Agendas could sometimes not be saved if the last change made was to insert a course activity or resource link.
- Fixed an issue where image files were not being displayed in the activity editor content fields for activities linked from the Digital Library.
- Fixed an issue where some review settings would not show up in an Assessment Editor if the assessment was authored in BrainHoney.
- Fixed an issue where the enrollment drop function from the People tool was deleting instead of withdrawing student enrollments.
- Fixed an issue where, when navigating from the People tool in one course to the People tool in another with a Grading Period filter applied, the screen would display data for all periods in the Score column.
- Fixed an issue where, when navigating directly from the People tool in a course with the Score column shown to the People tool in a course with the Score column hidden, the Score column would continue to display.
- Fixed an issue where styles would get lost when copying and pasting images into the rich text editor.
APIs
Updates in version 2018.02.07.2966. Learn more.
-
GetItem
: No longer returns unnecessary empty values when usingembedmaster
. - History Query: A new, optional attribute,
requiretolist
, to filter the results to exclude any objects that do not meet the history query. -
GetAttemptReview
: Fixed an issue where a course resource may not render properly if using linked questions in an exam template. -
CreateCourses
: Change the defaultschema
from 1 to 2, when not provided. -
GetGradeHistory
: Fixed an issue that could incorrectly cause old scores to appear differently than what was actually awarded. -
GetItemAnalysis2
:ReadGradebook
is now a sufficient right to execute theGetItemAnalysis2
API. - Various performance improvements.