What's New

Dual Code is committed to continuously improving HCE Express and regularly implementing new features with each release. This page shows our release notes, organized by version.

Virtual Assistant (New Feature)

The learning environment now features an AI-driven virtual assistant designed to enhance the user experience. Tailored to meet the needs of both administrators and learners, the virtual assistant provides personalized support and guidance. Administrators can quickly access system management advice and troubleshooting tips, while learners receive help navigating the system and completing their purchases or courses. This intelligent assistant adapts to your role, making it easier to get the most out of your learning environment..

August 29, 2024 ♦ v4.1.12.1 HCE-8027

Moodle Plugin Updates (Moodle Update)

As part of our general development cycle, numerous 3rd party plugins available from the Moodle marketplace were updated. These include: auth_saml2, mod_zoom.

Learn more here: Moodle Plugins
August 29, 2024 ♦ v4.1.12.1

Moodle 4.1.12 Update (Moodle Update)

As part of our general development cycle, the HCE, which is based on Moodle, the world's most popular open-source LMS, has been upgraded to Moodle 4.1.12.

Learn more here: Release Notes for Moodle 4.1.12
August 29, 2024 ♦ v4.1.12.1 HCE-80

 

Introduction to Recertification Windows (New Feature)

When setting an expiration date for a recurring course, it is now possible to also define a recertification window. When defined, the user can only get recertified within that configuration window. As an example, it is now possible to say that the learning record expires after 1 year, and that the user can only get recertified 90 days prior to the expiration of the learning record.

Learn more here:
June 17, 2024 ♦ v4.1.11.1 HCE-6698

Certificates of Completion Now Fall Under “Certification and Expiration” (Improvement)

The “Certificate of completion” setting, which allows you to specify which certificate of completion to issue when a user completes a course, is now found under the new “Certification and Expiration” section of the course settings.

Learn more here:
June 17, 2024 ♦ v4.1.11.1 HCE-7893

Numerous Changes to Configuring Recurring Courses (Improvement)

Recurring courses (e.g. courses where the learning record expires) must now be configured in the course settings page (whereas in earlier releases, an instructor would configure them in the “Course completion” page. The new settings, which are in a category called “Certification and expiration”, also allows more options such as the ability to round up the expiration date to the last day of the month.

Learn more here:
June 17, 2024 ♦ v4.1.11.1 HCE-6698

Moodle Plugin Updates (Moodle Update)

As part of our general development cycle, numerous 3rd party plugins available from the Moodle marketplace were updated. These include: block_groups, format_onetopic, mod_checklist, mod_zoom.

Learn more here: Moodle Plugins
June 17, 2024 ♦ v4.1.11.1

Moodle 4.1.11 Update (Moodle Update)

As part of our general development cycle, the HCE, which is based on Moodle, the world's most popular open-source LMS, has been upgraded to Moodle 4.1.11.

Learn more here: Release Notes for Moodle 4.1.11
June 17, 2024 ♦ v4.1.11.1 HCE-8099

 

Activity Completion Data is Not Being Reset in this Unique Scenario (Bug Fix)

This issue appears in a very unique scenario. A course is configured with a condition of “Expiration by date”. The learner has a valid learning record. An instructor or administrator then unlocks the course completion settings and adds a new activity to the course completion requirements. The user already has a valid learning record so when they access the course, they see the banner “Congratulations. You have completed the course”. However, the learner has not actually completed the new mandatory activity, so the status of the course (and indirectly each activity within this course) is inconsistent. As part of this software fix, the status of the activities now considers this additional scenario where mandatory activities are added after the learning record is issued.

Learn more here:
April 26, 2024 ♦ v4.1.10.1 ♦ HCE-8073

Course Overview Block Doesn’t Always Report 100% Completion Even Though the User Has a Learning Record (Improvement)

The Course Overview block reports on a user’s progress in each course. For example, if a course contains 5 activities and the user completed 3 of them, the block would report a 60% completion. There are circumstances however when a user can receive a learning record without completing all of the activities. For example, a bilingual course that contains a lesson in English and French would only require the learner to complete one of the two lessons. After completing the English lesson, the user would receive a learning record, but the Course Overview block would report 50% completion because the user did not complete the French lesson. In another example, a user who has been granted an equivalency for the course would continue to show a 0% completion rate because they did not technically complete any of the activities in the learning environment. As part of this improvement, the calculation of the progress in the Course Overview block has been refactored such that if the user has a valid learning record, then the progress will always show 100% completion.

April 26, 2024 ♦ v4.1.10.1 ♦ HCE-4850

Course Completion Badges Do Not Turn to “Done: Completed” Until the Entire Course is Done (Bug Fix)

When a course that contains multiple mandatory activities is reset and the learner completes only some of the activities, the badges for the completed activities report “Done:” followed by the completion criteria. Once the course is completed in its entirety, the badges would then read “Done: Completed”. As part of this software fix, the badge now reports “Done: Completed” as soon as the activity is done regardless of whether the course itself is done.

Learn more here:

April 26, 2024 ♦ v4.1.10.1 ♦ HCE-8094

Completion Status CSV Export Does Not Show the User’s Last Name (Bug Fix)

When exporting the Completion Status report to CSV, the resulting file only contains the user’s first name instead of their full (first / last) name in some circumstances. As part of this software fix, the user’s full name is always visible in the CSV file when exporting the report.

Learn more here:
April 26, 2024 ♦ v4.1.10.1 ♦ HCE-8089

Moodle Plugin Updates (Moodle Update)

As part of our general development cycle, numerous 3rd party plugins available from the Moodle marketplace were updated. These include: block_checklist, filter_videoeasy, format_grid, mod_checklist, profilefield_file.

Learn more here: Moodle Plugins
April 26, 2024 ♦ v4.1.10.1

Moodle 4.1.10 Update (Moodle Update)

As part of our general development cycle, the HCE, which is based on Moodle, the world's most popular open-source LMS, has been upgraded to Moodle 4.1.10.

Learn more here: Release Notes for Moodle 4.1.10
April 26, 2024 ♦ v4.1.109.1 HCE-8099

Users Can Renew Their Course Licenses (New Feature)

Many organizations sell their courses under a subscription model, where the purchaser is required to pay to maintain access to the course year after year. If the purchase doesn’t renew their course license, the learners would lose access to the course. In the past, whenever someone would buy a new license, that license would be effective immediately and always result in a new license key. This meant that if someone wanted to prepay for the renewal 3 months early, there would be a 3 month overlap between the old license and the new license. This was therefore encouraging organizations to wait until the last minute to renew their subscription to courses. This new feature allows a purchase to renew an existing license. By doing so, (a) the new license only becomes effective on the date that the old license expired, thereby ensuring that there is no overlap between two licenses, and (b) the license key remains the same, thereby not requiring the purchasing to update the license key in the “OCI Course” activity or sharing a new key via email with all their learners.

March 25, 2024 ♦ v4.1.9.3 HCE-7974

Improvements to Purchases of Courses that Have a Face-to-face Activity (Improvement)

When purchasing a course that has a Face-to-face session using the “Self-enrolment (Advanced)” method, it is generally preferred for the user to select the session date / time immediately to reserve their seat before collecting their payment (and thereby reducing the likelihood that they will request a refund due to the session they wanted to attend no longer being available). However, when a user is purchasing multiple seats on behalf of other users (e.g. in bulk or even a license for their entire site), the registration process becomes more complex given that not all users who will end up registering in the course will necessarily want to attend the same session (on the same date / time). Improvements have been made to the purchasing process to (a) make it more obvious to the purchaser that the course they are buying contains an instructor-led portion and (b) the users will be asked to select the session they want to attend when they self-enrol in the course (using the key the purchaser is paying for). If a user is purchasing a course for themselves, they are given the option to select the session immediately, but are also given the option to skip the selection if they want to select the session later (after enrolling in the course).

February 22, 2024 ♦ v4.1.9.1 HCE-7811

License Keys Need to Enforce Pre-requisites (Bug Fix)

When a user is given a license key to a course that has pre-requisites, that user can still enrol in the course (using the key) even though they did not complete the pre-requisite(s). If the user completes the course, they will not be awarded a learning recorded but they are not prevented from enrolling in the course. As part of this software fix, when a learner tries to enrol in a course that has pre-requisites using a license key, the enrolment will verify if the user has completed the pre-requisites. If they have not, they will be presented with a message informing them that they must complete the pre-requisites first. That message has a hyperlink that will redirect them to the pre-requisites.

February 22, 2024 ♦ v4.1.9.1 HCE-7859

User Interface Improvements to the Face-to-face Summary Pages (Improvement)

Face-to-face sessions are summarized on certain screens, like on the sign-up screen and in the calendar. The event summarizes the session and includes information such as the method of delivery (in person or virtual), the name of the facilitator, etc. As part of this improvement, information that is not captured for the event in question is removed from the summary.

February 22, 2024 ♦ v4.1.9.1 HCE-6511

Usage Report (New Feature)

This report summarizes various statistics about the usage of the system over time. The initial web page (the “Summary”) displays the number of courses, number of users, number of recently active users, number of role assignments, number of posts, number of questions, number of resources, average number of participants, average number of recently active participants, and average number of course modules. The administrator can then click on each tab to get more details broken down over a time period. The information is available in a graphical format as well as a table format. A similar report is available within individual courses to provide data about the course in question..

Learn more here:

February 22, 2024 ♦ v4.1.9.1 HCE-7764

Moodle Plugin Updates (Moodle Update)

As part of our general development cycle, numerous 3rd party plugins available from the Moodle marketplace were updated. These include: block_checklist, format_grid, mod_checklist, mod_hvp, mod_zoom, reported_extendedlog.

Learn more here: Moodle Plugins
February 22, 2024 ♦ v4.1.9.1

Moodle 4.1.9 Update (Moodle Update)

As part of our general development cycle, the HCE, which is based on Moodle, the world's most popular open-source LMS, has been upgraded to Moodle 4.1.9.

Learn more here: Release Notes for Moodle 4.1.9
February 22, 2024 ♦ v4.1.9.1 HCE-7886

Statement of Remittance Includes More Details on HST/GST (Improvement)

The Statement of Remittance, which provides a detailed breakdown of your online sales, now includes more details on the HST/GST collected. The improvement is meant to help your accounting team more easily track and report on the sales taxes.

January 23, 2024 ♦ v4.1.8.4 HCE-7656

The maximum on “License key expires after” Has Been Increased From 1 Year to 3 Years (Improvement)

When selling course licenses, there is a limit on how long licenses can be valid for. The limit has been increased from 1 year to 3 years to encourage purchasers to buy site licenses even though they may not consume all licenses in a year. Note that the actual value (that you already set) in your existing courses has not changed. This improvement does however allow you to increase the duration of a license if you want.

Learn more here:
January 12, 2024 ♦ v4.1.8.3 HCE-7756

OCI Network Presents Suggestions to Users After They Complete a Course (New Feature)

When a learner completes a course, the OCI network may suggest other courses to the user that are related to the one they recently completed. The notification comes in the form of an email. The body of the email contains a direct hyperlink to the suggested course’s description as well as an “unsubscribe” link in the event that the user wants to stop receiving suggestions in the future.

January 9, 2024 ♦ v4.1.8.2 HCE-7738

Course Completion Conditions May Be Ignored under Specific Circumstances (Bug Fix)

If a course is configured with “Activity completion” criteria, “Expiration by date” criteria and any other criteria (e.g. Course Grades or Manual Completion by Others), provided that the learner completes the activities, the user will be awarded a course completion. In other words, the user is not required to meet any of the other conditions with the exception of the activity and retake conditions.

Learn more here:
January 6, 2024 ♦ v4.1.8.2 HCE-7719

"Expiration by date" is Marked Complete Even Though Other Conditions are Outstanding (Bug Fix)

When viewing the Course Completion report, a condition of “Expired by date” is marked as completed when the learner completes the 1st activity. On the other hand, the “Expiration by lapse time” is marked as completed when the learner completes the course (e.g. the last activity). For consistency, the “Expiration by date” is now only marked as complete when the user completes the entire course and receives a learning record.

Learn more here:
January 6, 2024 ♦ v4.1.8.2 HCE-7720

To Order of a Result Set Can Prevent Completions from Being Awarded (Bug Fix)

The order of the result set in the database query to aggregate all of the course completion criteria can result in a situation whereby course completions are not awarded. Unlocking the course completions settings does not resolve the issue. As part of this software fix, the logic to calculate whether the system should award a learning record has been refactored and the order of the result set no longer matters.

Learn more here:
January 6, 2024 ♦ v4.1.8.2 HCE-7722

BigBlueButton 2.7.3 Update (BigBlueButton Update)

As part of our general development cycle, the web conferencing system, which is based on BigBlueButton, has been upgraded to version 2.7.3.

Learn more here: Release Notes for BigBlueButton 2.7.3
January 3, 2024 ♦ v4.1.8.1 HCE-7710

Moodle 4.1.8 Update (Moodle Update)

As part of our general development cycle, the HCE, which is based on Moodle, the world's most popular open-source LMS, has been upgraded to Moodle 4.1.8.

Learn more here:
January 3, 2024 ♦ v4.1.8.1 HCE-7699