Release Notes 2024

04-02-2024 RemindoToets Release 24.1

Version: 24.1.00

General

Since Release 23.6 it is possible, with the linking of an external engine, to influence the progress of a test and take adaptive tests. For example, during the test administration, after each question the external adaptive engine decides what the most appropriate next question is, based on the candidate's score on the previous question. Prerequisites for this are that the item bank is calibrated and an adaptive engine is available in combination with a configuration file.

During the Examencongres 2024 of the Dutch Association for Exams, Paragin and Cito will present this way of testing. The Examencongres will take place on Thursday March 14 in Druten, more information about this interesting congress can be found on the website of the NVE.

Updates RemindoManager

Questions

• For a Matching/Matrix question with the "one connection per row" or "one connection" setting, the default score was set to '-1'. For these 2 options, we chose to change the default score to '0'. If changed to the 'multiple connections per row' option, the base score did default to '-1'.

Keys

• Open worksheet questions are now also added to the PDF of a test matrix.

Updates Remindo Afname

Inzagemomenten

• As of this Release, by popular demand, it is now possible to use the BOYD security software Schoolyear at inspection times. When planning a new assessment moment, this option is available at the bottom of the page. The operation is exactly the same as for a test moment where Schoolyear is used: the candidate can only start this inspection via Schoolyear.

Taking

• In case of a test with feedback items, where it is set that these feedback items should not be shown to the candidate (feedback report), but the answered questions should be shown, the button to the result page was not shown after finishing the test. This button is now available.

• When a candidate received a notification (via e-mail and/or in the widget) about the availability of a new test moment, the text suggested that the test could be taken today. We have made this text clearer, by including the specific date and time of the test moment in this notification.

Results

• An open worksheet question is now also included in a paper test, so that this question can be checked via a correction round. The procedure in terms of checking and scoring is the same as for a regular open question.

Correction rounds and answer model adjustments

• In the last Release of last year (23.6) we changed the word 'Answer model' to 'Elaboration of the answer' in the administration environment. We have now implemented this consistently in the administration environment as well, for example, when adjusting the answer model and when reviewing the open-ended question.

Management

• When an import of candidates is done, where the password of the candidate is changed, a candidate who happens to be active at that moment will always be logged out at the next action. For this reason, we have added an additional warning text when selecting the appropriate columns.

• In the API call to activate or deactivate a user, it is now no longer necessary to include the specific user type. For more information, the API documentation can be downloaded, via Administration > Settings > Tab "API".

Updates Technology and Infrastructure

Infrastructure

• In this Release, we have made a number of optimizations in the operation of auto-scaling: through auto-scaling, Remindo scales in capacity even better with very busy peak times, so that there is always enough capacity regardless of the number of candidates.

• We also made a number of improvements to the OTAP street for Remindo: until now, the load-balancers in our infrastructure were the only component shared by the entire infrastructure. As of this release on Production, these components have been further split, so that in our infrastructure there is no longer any overlap or infrastructure interconnection between the Intern, Preview, Staging and Production environments.

• Processing background processes: a new mechanism for processing lengthy background processes is introduced with this Release. The previous workflow did not grow with our needs and requirements, and so it was chosen to replace it in its entirety based on so-called Redis Streams. This offers us more stability and flexibility when developing new features and provides a very robust improvement in these processes into the future.

Maintenance

• The SimpleSAML software component, responsible for the SAML SSO links, within Remindo, has had a 'major' update to version 2 in 2023. The teething problems have since been removed from this, making this a stable release, reason for us to upgrade to this new version. This puts us fully back in line with the update schedule of this package.

• Remindo has been further optimized in the infrastructure to improve performance for customers with very large (> 1 million purchases per year) numbers of candidates/results.

Annual planning 2024

We are planning 6 smaller releases for the coming year, with relatively smaller amounts of customization per release. Each release will be available on Preview 2 weeks before the Release to be viewed and tried out. The moment a release becomes available on Preview, we will of course inform you by sending Release Notes to see what is new in that release.

The following times are noted in our calendar:

RemindoToets Release 24.1
Release on Preview: Saturday, January 20, 2024
Release on Production: Sunday, February 4, 2024

RemindoToets Release 24.2
Release on Preview: Saturday, March 16, 2024
Release on Production: Sunday, March 31, 2024

RemindoToets Release 24.3
Release on Preview: Saturday, May 11, 2024
Release on Production: Sunday, May 26, 2024

RemindoToets Release 24.4
Release on Preview: Saturday, July 20, 2024
Release on Production: Sunday, August 4, 2024

RemindoToets Release 24.5
Release on Preview: Saturday, September 14, 2024
Release on Production: Sunday, September 29, 2024

RemindoToets Release 24.6
Release on Preview: Saturday, November 9, 2024
Release on Production: Sunday, November 24, 2024

Disclaimer: This text was automatically translated from the Dutch version.