The university sent out an InBrief on Jan. 3 announcing that the Learning and Teaching Technology Environment (LATTE) is receiving a system update as well as the implementation of a course retention policy.

“LATTE, was upgraded on January 9, 2019, to a new version in order to maintain security updates, address bug fixes and introduce new features and enhancements,” Christine Jacinto, the ITS Communications Specialist, told The Brandeis Hoot in an email.

According to a handout provided by Information Technology Services (ITS), there are five specific improvements that came with the update. The first improvement is to the software system. “This is the first in a series of changes we are bringing to LATTE to improve the overall experience,” said the handout. ITS will also continue regular maintenance checks throughout the semester and “will continue to review and assess the system as it considers future requests for functionality enhancements,” Jacinto told The Hoot.

In the text editing toolbar of LATTE, students and faculty are now able to record and attach audio and video into their class pages, giving the opportunity to embed media into their assignments.

Some examples listed on the handout include instructors providing welcome/introduction videos for their classes or giving foreign language professors the opportunity to record audio for students for them to use during their coursework and to help evaluate their learning without taking up class time.

The “New Participants” and “Enrollments” screens have also been combined for faculty use only. Professors will now be able to see all the participants in the course on one screen. Different parameters can be used to show specific groups of students, such as group enrollment status. Students who have dropped the course will not show up on either of the screens anymore, in an effort to reduce the amount of confusion.

This will also allow faculty to directly enroll individuals in the course without having the trouble of first going through SAGE.

The new “Group Choice” activity will now allow students to organize themselves into groups within LATTE. While professors are able to limit the number of groups and students per group, students can decide for themselves which group they want to join.

Professors are now able to restrict their submission file types. When creating assignments, professors can limit which files are allowed to be uploaded, preventing any unwanted file formats. According to Jacinto, faculty members were originally only allowed to request certain file types, but now they are able to specifically indicate which file types are able to be submitted.

The other new major addition to LATTE is the new Course Retention Policy through ITS that became effective on Jan. 1, 2019. The objectives of the retention policy according to the handout is to “define how long course materials contained within the LATTE (Moodle) Learning Management System will be retained; Describe the best practices on how to backup and import LATTE (Moodle) course materials; Optimize performance of Latte (Moodle).”

“The course retention policy was written in collaboration with stakeholders across campus to determine the appropriate retention period for which courses should remain within LATTE,” explained Jacinto. “The policy ensures optimization of system performance which directly impacts the students by allowing for a responsive learning management system.”

The main purpose of this policy is to increase the performance ability of LATTE by eliminating previous iterations of the same course material that may be repetitive. “LATTE is not designed for unlimited course storage,” the handout explains. “And carrying materials over indefinitely can diminish the performance of the application and divert resources better used on current support and enhancements.”

The new retention period is six academic terms and any courses older than six terms will be archived and recoverable for an additional year. Any courses that were created prior to the Spring 2017 academic term will be archived and the courses created prior to Spring 2016 will be permanently removed.