Release Notes
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      Release Update - May 2025

      Summary of new features released.

      New Features & Improvements

      This release introduces powerful new features that enhance flexibility and control in outcome assessment workflows—especially for programs leveraging Canvas blueprint courses. Highlights include the new Flexible Assessment Planning, enhanced ILOs/PLOs auto-sync, and full support for Canvas blueprint course integration.

      This update also includes updates to how assignment pushing works, new options for results tracking, and UI cues for improved visibility into blueprint behavior.

      Be sure to check out the details below and reach out to your CSM if you’d like to enable any of the new features via configuration.

       

      Flexible Assessment Planning

      This feature is a new way to passively collect ILO and PLO results across Canvas offerings and show the results in the UI. Rather than pushing a specific assignment and rubric into a course, this feature allows Insights to listen for outcomes assessment results from designated courses and shows the results in the Assessment Plan results page. This allows coordinators to graphical data of the targeted criteria in narrative reports without having to push assignments to Canvas.

      • Select "Canvas Assessment" > "Flexible Assessment" during assessment creation (vs “Targeted Assessment,” which is the older way of planning and pushing content into a course).
      • Users can define a “frame” using filters like ILOs/PLOs, academic subject, or course codes.
      • Unlike targeted assessments, Flexible Assessment does not push outcomes or assignments. It listens for matching results. Select “Listen for Outcome Results” in the planning screen.
      • Results match any selected criteria and are query-based. Results are not tied to a specific assessment ID in the data lake.
      • Cycle Results view now includes two visualizations:
        • Targeted ILOs and PLOs results by course
        • Targeted ILOs and PLOs by Department

       

      Support for Canvas Blueprint Courses (Feature Flag Required)

      Insights now recognizes blueprint courses and supports ingesting and interacting with Canvas them for more robust planning and tracking. This gives institutions who rely heavily on instructional design more control. All content, assessments, and alignments are created in the blueprint shell and then content is copied into the Canvas course. This feature allows coordinators to also sync CLOs, PLOs, ILOs, and standards into blueprint labeled courses.

      • Blueprint course detection:
        • Courses with the Canvas blueprint setting or "blueprint" in their course code are considered blueprint parents.
        • Matching course codes are treated as blueprint associates or child courses and are presumed to inherit from a blueprint parent, regardless of sync status.
      • When Canvas users sync content, Insights creates a link between the blueprint parent and child course.
      • Courses with blueprint parents show a “blueprint” pill on the Outcome page.
      • If a Canvas user removes an associated course, Insights retains the relationship for historical reference.
      • Assessment Behavior:
        • If blueprint and CLO sync (and/or ILO/PLO sync) is enabled:
          • Approved LOs for a course will be pushed into a blueprint parent course, along with their most recently associated rating scales, but only if Insights finds no child courses.
          • If the blueprint parent course is associated with child courses, LOs will not be pushed because association of content implies a finalization in Canvas.
        • Once a course is marked as a blueprint parent (designated by the blueprint pill), that course will not show up in assessment planning as a course to push assignments or rubrics to, even if mapped in the Curriculum map. Only outcomes and their rating scales will be pushed to the blueprint parent course.
        • Best practice is to create assignments and rubrics in the Canvas blueprint course and add a Flexible Assessment Plan to listen for and collect data from the associated blueprint child courses.
        • No content is pushed to blueprint child courses.
        • Sync behavior for courses with no blueprint parent will remain unchanged.
      • If this feature flag is not enabled and there are blueprint courses in Canvas, Insights will continue to exclude those courses.

       

      ILO, PLO, & Standards Sync (Feature Flag Required)

      Coordinators can now choose to sync ILOs, PLOs, and standards to Canvas if they are mapped to the courses. This is done on the Curriculum Map pages.

      • Auto-sync settings can be configured per course offering during curriculum map creation or upload.
      • There is a new button where LOs are mapped called “Review Mapping Settings” that will open the Mapping Details modal. Within that is a new section of Mapping Sync Settings.
      • If auto-sync is selected, a new sync icon will appear on the curriculum map for that LO.
      • Users can also see in the new Mapping Details modal what other LOs are synced to that course.
      • This applies to both blueprint and non-blueprint courses.
      • Blueprint-specific behavior:
        • Outcomes are only synced to blueprint courses without existing associates.
        • Once a blueprint course has been associated, no sync will occur, preserving Canvas content integrity.