ANGEL Community Hub

Penn State’s Course Management System, ANGEL (http://cms.psu.edu), was upgraded from version 7.1 to version 7.3 during the weekend of May 16. The new version of ANGEL features enhancements to several existing tools, and several new tools will help course editors perform administrative tasks. For the most part, however, the functionality should remain familiar to users. To learn more about the new features in version 7.3, please visit: http://tlt.its.psu.edu/about/news/2009/angel-to-be-upgraded-to-version-7.3-weekend-of-may-16 . For more information, please contact ANGEL Support

Late yesterday afternoon Blackboard Inc. announced it was acquiring ANGEL Learning, Inc. The acquisition is expected to become final later this month. We are in the process of evaluating the meaning of this acquisition and how it impacts the Penn State community.

Here are links to two articles from Blackboard that provide further information:
Blackboard Press Release
Blackboard's ANGEL Page (I recommend reading the FAQ)

I would like to know where I can find more information on the things that will change in ANGEL 7.3- I saw that discussion forums will change and that there are now quizzes and assessments.

Where can we go to find out about this and any other changes so that we are prepared for the 1st day of summer courses when the new Angel version is rolled out??

Thanks!

Penn State’s Course Management System, ANGEL (http://cms.psu.edu), will be upgraded from version 7.1 to version 7.3 the weekend of May 16. The new version of ANGEL will feature enhancements to several existing tools, and several new tools will help course editors perform administrative tasks. Users will also see several minor interface changes. For the most part, however, the functionality will remain familiar to users. Learn more about the new features in version 7.3.

From 6:00 p.m. Friday, May 15 to 6:00 a.m. Monday, May 18, ANGEL will be unavailable while Information Technology Services (ITS) performs the upgrade. ITS regrets any inconvenience this outage may cause. For any questions, contact ANGEL support at angelsupport@psu.edu.

An update was applied to ANGEL during the maintenance window this morning which included the following fixes and enhancements:

• Quota Meter We've added a revamped version of the quota meter tool to help course and group editors keep track of how much space is being used in their courses and groups. For more information and instructions on how to use it, please refer to this knowledgebase article.
• New mail notifications for courses that have ended will no longer be shown to students. When an instructor set an end date for a course using Manage > General Settings, the course will become unavailable to students after that date. There was an issue that caused notifications for any unread email in that course to still be shown even though the messages were no longer available to students. This is now fixed and the new mail notifications should no longer be shown to students.
• There was an issue that caused discussion forum posts to be automatically be marked read and no email notification to be sent if a course editor and any student are both subscribed to a forum and either of them posted in that forum. This is now fixed.
• While taking a quiz with short answer, fill in the blank, or multiple fill in the blank questions, pressing enter while answering one of those questions would cause the quiz to be submitted. This will no longer occur.
• The new Student Rating of Teaching Effectiveness (SRTE) nugget is now shown on the profile page. Please note that this nugget by design cannot be removed. However, you can move it from its default location by clicking the Edit Page link in the upper left of the profile, dragging the My Evaluations(SRTE) nugget to a new location, and pressing save.
• Several bug fixes and enhancements were made to CSCS.

Questions? Comments? Please contact ANGEL Support.

Over the course of a year, ITS worked on developing a strategy for ANGEL at Penn State in the coming years. The attached ANGEL Vision document serves to explain that strategy. This document serves two distinct purposes. The first is to outline some new thinking as it relates to the overall flexibility of ANGEL as we move forward. The second is to highlight future architectural goals in anticipation of continued growth and increased demand of ANGEL throughout the university. ITS will use this document as we continue to pursue our strategic partnership with ANGEL Learning, Inc.

I got a question from a faculty member that is having trouble with the display/appearance of items in ANGEL. An example is his calendar entries for a course - when he hovers over an event, the background color of the pop-up box and/or the font of the text blend into the page background. I am wondering if it is a Firefox 3 issue? - that is his browser on a PC (Win XP, I think). Does ANGEL support this version?