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Features

• Adds the ability to select previously created Edgenotes from a list and reattach them to a new part of the text (#218)
• Redesigns the card formatting toolbar (#222)
• Allows cases to be published as “shared cases” outside any particular library. This will be the default status of user-submitted cases (#188)
• Makes it possible to list the institutional affiliation of case authors (#205)
• Redesigns the admin panel’s case index and readers index to make them fast and easy to use (#208)
• Begins tracking how long users spend answering questions on the pre and post quizzes (#198)
• Translates the UI into Spanish (#221)

Bugfixes

• Fixes a presentation bug in the content items selection view that instructors using our cases with Canvas see when creating an assignment (#190, #210, #211)
• Fixes bugs with our maps that prevented scrolling and made the pins disappear (#183)
• Fixes an authorization bug that could have allowed non-editors to change the order of case elements (#212)
• Fixes a presentational bug in the weekly report email (#215)

Improvements

• Refactors and cleans up the codebase (#209)
• Documents every ruby object 🤓 (#217)

Conversation Interface

This release adds a new “messaging-style” view to the stratified forum, which makes it much easier to follow active discussions from across a case. It is substantially more usable on mobile and more accessible to people who use assistive technologies. We brought the new design from the conversation tab to the inline discussion modals, as well.

Newly, we allow rich text comments and offer a wysiwyg editor for the initial post. This will allow instructors to write more detailed reports of their use of the cases, and lays the groundwork for the instructors’ community that we plan to connect to each case. (#173)

Bug fixes and improvements

• Enables review apps on Heroku for quicker, more “true-to-prod” reviews of new contributions (#180, #181, #182)

Search

This release adds search functionality to our case library, and lays the groundwork for the days that we host cases from libraries around the world. The full text of all the cases can be searched for any keyword; we’re using Postgres ts_vectors in a materialized view to keep that fast. The search results view is also able to handle “subindexes” of all the cases from a given library, or later all the cases from a given stack or category. (#161)

Other features

• Sends a weekly usage report to the team, keeping us apprised of how many students and instructors are using our platform, and which cases they’re using (#167)
• Updates the platform’s French, Japanese, and Chinese translations (#169, #170)
• Allows for the download of a CSV formatted report of all quiz submissions by students in a given deployment (#171)

Bug fixes and improvements

• Caches assets, greatly speeding up subsequent pages after the first (#165)
• Splits up the JS bundle to lazy load pages the user might never access (#164)
• Preserves the order of quiz questions (#175)
• Handle errors intelligently (#178)
• Updates flow to 0.60.1 (#179)
• Tweaks some visual things (#168, #172)

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• Reveals the correct answers after a user has submitted their post-quiz (#147, #148)
• Improves accessibility of the pre/post test and Edgenotes (#147, #154)
• Adds an acknowledgements field to cases (#157)
• Adds photo credits to Edgenotes (#154, #158)
• Rebrands the platform as “Gala” (#153, #159, #160)
• Upgrades to React 16 (#141)
• Upgrades to Ruby 2.4.2 (#145)
• Upgrades to flow 0.54.1 (#151)
• Improves the onboarding experience for a new dev (#144)
• Uses polyfill.io to provide new Javascript APIs on old browsers (#162)

Catalog Redesign

This release redesigns the catalog to make it easier to see what cases are available and to find one that meets your needs. We now display six featured cases with large images, an interactive map of case locations, and a readable list of the cases you’re enrolled in on the sidebar. (#113, #129, #131, #133, #136)

Other features

• Redesigns the status bar (#99)
• Adds a button to publish and unpublish a case (#89 thanks to @pearlzhuzeng)
• Adds buttons to add and remove cards without forcing a refresh (#101 thanks to @pearlzhuzeng)
• Redesigns the user account menu to include an Identicon and to be accessible (#127)

Bug fixes and improvements

• Upgrades to Rails 5.1 (#100)
• Rebases our Blueprint theme (#140)

Stratified Forum

This release creates multiple forums on every case and allows the user to switch between them to see different comment threads. All users are members of the global community, and then users are members of any communities they have been invited to, and the communities associated with any groups that they are members of. Whatever comments have been made within that community’s forum on that case are the only ones visible while that community is active. Users can change their active community from a simple dropdown. (#79, #85, #86, #87, #91, #92)

Other features

• Allows editors to change authors and translators with a simple GUI (#80—thanks to @pearlzhuzeng!)
• Adds Open Graph metadata to make shared links prettier and more informative (#93)

Bug fixes and improvements

• Dramatically speeds up JSON view rendering by caching case partials (#94, #95, #96, #97)
• Refactors status bar (#88) and keyboard accessibility helper (#82)
• Adds Scout APM (#90)

Magic Link

This release allows professors to give their students easy access to the case with their selected pre/post assessment attached. Following a magic link containing a random and unique deployment parameter, the student can enroll in a case with an account they already have, or create a new account. (#72, #73, #74, #75, #76)

Code pathways for the magic link

• User is logged in: enrollments#new → enrollments#create → cases#show
• User has an account but is logged out: enrollments#new → enrollments#create → registrations#new → sessions#new → sessions#create → cases#show
• User does not have an account: enrollments#new → enrollments#create → registrations#new → registrations#create → confirmations#create → cases#show

Other features

• Shows learning objectives in the case overview (#65) as the first step towards including teaching guide materials with cases where appropriate

Bugfixes and improvements

• Serializes translated fields with json (#64)
• Optimizes assets for quicker loading (#68, #69)
• Stops copying quizzes when they are deployed without modification (#71)
• Improves legibility of flash text and design of the mobile pre-quiz view (#77)

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• Sends email notifications to readers when someone responds to a comment they left #engagement (#56, #62)
• Fixes a problem where tests would intermittently fail for no good reason (#55)
• Reformats and refactors (#54, #57, #60)

Pre/Post Assessment

This version implements a native assessment feature consisting of a pre-case and post-case quiz.

Students who access the case via the LMS are then presented with the assessment (if the instructor elects) as an interstitial past which they can’t proceed without submitting answers, and (in all cases) as the last element of the case.

As a professor deploying an MSC via an LMS like Canvas, you are given the option to implement an assessment. You can choose among a set of suggested quizzes (if a particular case has any) to use off the shelf or to extend with a few custom questions, or you can create a completely custom assessment.

LTI Interface

To make it easier for students and instructors to access our cases, especially while a case is in beta, this release allows Gala to be used as a Tool Provider with LMSs like Canvas. This provides instructors a clear way to assign an MSC and automates the new user account creation / case enrollment workflow for their students.

How to use a case in a Canvas course

After Gala is added as an External Tool using the configuration file at /authentication_strategies/config/lti.xml, instructors can add cases as assignments. This has been done for all University of Michigan courses.

Create a new assignment:

Add a title and any details, as in a normal assignment. Then attach the case by selecting External Tool as the submission type, and choosing Find.

Select “Gala” from the list of external tools

Choose the case you want to attach. Then you can choose to administer a pre-/post-quiz—either one that comes with the case or a completely custom quiz.

Customize the quiz if you want, and then choose Deploy

Don’t forget to save the assignment!