At Macmillan Learning, inspiring what’s possible for every learner means building a platform that meets every learner where they are and supports them throughout their learning journey. As lifetime learners we understand that learning has no finish line. As developers of educational solutions, we are also never finished and must continually adapt as technology does. We are never done making learning possible for every student. Macmillan Learning’s teams have dedicated themselves to building an accessible Achieve that goes far beyond compliance checkboxes. Our efforts are constantly adapting to changing standards, new feedback from users, and industry developments. We’ve developed processes for addressing accessibility that rely not only on a network of trusted experts in accessibility but also on our users to tell us what makes our solutions accessible to them. While we were the first organization to have global certified accessible ebooks and our efforts have been recognized by the Accessible Books Consortium among others, we are not resting on our laurels.  This year, our detailed screen reader testing with assistive technology users led to improvement in backend code for everything from buttons to multiple choice questions with the goal of creating not just a compliant experience but an enjoyable and simple one. Engineering teams spent more time than ever learning about and using assistive technology in order to integrate into our testing and development processes.  We were thrilled to present Macmillan Learning Lab Simulations, which simulate experiences commonly incorporated in lab courses, at this year's CSUN Assistive Technology Conference. We wanted to highlight improvements to the experience with assistive technology, including keyboard-accessible drag and drop tools, detailed visual information for screen reader users, and a color-blind mode that preserves the accuracy of experiment results while clearly communicating color state. Just-in-time announcements for assistive technology users introduce dynamic changes: any student using the simulation knows what’s happening on the screen even as a chemical reaction is actively occurring, making the experience equally engaging for all users, no matter how they interact with the content.     Our focus extends beyond STEM, with accessibility updates to our Writing Tools as well. Numerical indicators associated with highlights and comments allow users to easily tie marginal comments to areas of the text without relying on color. An underline system to better call out text in a draft with feedback was implemented: all highlights will have dashed underline, unless there is an overlapping highlight, in which a solid underline will be used. Screen reader users now get additional notifications around whether feedback remains in a draft for review and can tab in and out of comment details.      This year also marked the launch of our accessibility principles. These five principles include “Innovation with Purpose.” As Macmillan Learning continues to create new learning solutions for students, we believe that the call to be innovative extends to embracing accessibility as an important element of every learning solution we provide. We also feel that transparency is an important part of our relationship with our users, which is why we include a Release Report Addendum to our voluntary product accessibility template (VPAT), updated monthly. Our commitment to this work is long term and ongoing, and we can’t be successful without continually talking with every user and sharing our successes with them. At the end of the day, accessibility is about individual access and opportunity, a mission we share as a team. ... View more

Achieve continues to evolve to meet the diverse needs of the educational community and enrich your teaching and learning journey. New enhancements to Achieve for Spring 2024 are designed to maximize value, augment support, and streamline processes, bringing a new level of efficiency to the platform.  Below are a few of the features you can look forward to using the next time you teach with Achieve.    Meet accessibility needs through continuous improvements  Macmillan Learning’s commitment to inclusivity and equal learning opportunities shines through continuous accessibility improvements. Recent enhancements—including updates to Writing Tools, the Suggested Search feature, radio buttons, drop-down or collapsable menus, and PDF downloads—ensure all parts of Achieve are compatible with assistive technology and accessible to all learners.   Dive deeper into each student’s performance Gain a comprehensive overview of each student's performance with Achieve’s new Individual Student Gradebook View. It provides a snapshot of a student's progress across all assignments, scores, due dates, and completion dates, proving invaluable for office hours, post-class discussions, or determining the need for additional support. Get help where you need it most Providing both self-service and live agent assistance, Millie the Help Chatbot offers just-in-time support for you and your students within Achieve.  Find Millie at the ready through the chat icon or the “Chat With Us” option in Achieve’s Help Center. From getting started to learning how to use Achieve’s wealth of resources, Millie is here to make your Achieve journey smoother. ... View more

Thanks to feedback from instructors, new features for Spring 2023 make Achieve even easier to use and offer familiar experiences for those who are moving from LaunchPad.   Available now! Reusing content across courses You can reuse the content you create and upload to Achieve (think custom assessments and writing assignments) across your courses, without having to copy the entire Achieve course.   Coming soon! Adjusting due dates from term to term When copying an Achieve course, new options will allow you to adjust due dates automatically based on the first assignment due date you set, use the same exact due dates as the course you're copying, or not copy any due dates.     Coming soon! Bulk due date extensions A new option will be added to the My Course page allowing you to create multiple due date extensions at one time for a single student or a group of students.  ... View more

What’s New? We have a few new features that just released that will be, we hope, inordinately helpful for your 2022 classes.  You can learn more in our Community.    The instructor can pick the day of the week that the assignment view begins for all of their students in that class.   Achieve will remember the last My Course view any user was on and show that view when you return to My Course.   Instructors will be able to delete their unwanted custom assessment grade settings policies.   Instructors will have new options to control solution visibility.   Password protected assessments are now available.     Learning Objectives will now be visible to instructors when building or editing their assessments, as well as when reviewing students' responses. (Not in Essentials or Read & Practice courses)     Goal Setting and Reflection Responses will now be automated and available in the Reports / Insights tab.   A simple calendar view is available now with enhancements expected throughout the spring.      What came out earlier this fall?  Multi-take Assessments (as a new option as a Grade Settings Policy) allow students to take an assessment up to five times and keep the highest score.  Group Exceptions allow you to create a group of students to use for exceptions (like time extensions) repeatedly.  Course Start and End Time and Institution Name are part of the Course Details and give you the power over exactly when your course starts and ends, and what students see about your course.        ... View more

We have officially released "multi-take" as a grading setting in Achieve. Check it out!  (And yes, the team has already updated the KB with info on multi-take, if you're interested.)  Multi-Take Quiz Grading Setting Details on Multi-Take Quizzes                ... View more

Gradebook categories can be reordered Instructors can create a group of students and give that group assignment exceptions, or create group-specific assignments  Content added to the course will appear at the top of the course content view  Instructor can set time for course start and end date  On writing assignments that have MLA/APA features, instructors can now view all the components in one view and leave feedback on all features (English Only) ... View more

Recently we had one of our major releases and there is some more new functionality in Achieve that you should know about.  Students with 1 term access will be able to switch their course enrollment  Student-specific assignments will no longer be visible to those students who aren't assigned the assignment  Coordinators will be able to change Assessment grading settings at any time, from within NGA or the single assign widget, in their Section Manager Instructors can edit or create their own multiple choice, multiple select, numeric entry, free response, and math equation questions for use in their Achieve courses. See the help article here.    Instructors can “favorite” assessment items that they really like so they are easy to find for later assessments or for use in other courses. See the help article here.    Instructors will be able to grade writing assignments using the rubric score, with optional weighting for rubric criteria (only in English courses using Writing Tools). See the help article here.          ... View more

The Achieve product team is always looking for new ways to improve our systems and solicit customer feedback. One thing we’ve consistently heard from our customers is that the assessments performance overview page is challenging to navigate, and that as an instructor, you’re looking for quicker ways to determine: How the class is doing as a whole Which questions are causing problems Which students are performing poorly or falling behind   We spent an intensive month conducting collaborative design and testing with over 20 instructors from a variety of schools and disciplines to develop a brand new and improved responses page.   In the past, when we’ve introduced major changes we’ve simply implemented the change on the given day, but this time we’re going to give you a behind the scenes view! Beginning in May, inside of your assessments, on the responses page, you’ll have the opportunity to try a beta view of the new page -- don’t worry you can always opt-out if you just want a sneak peek. When you opt-in to the new page, you’ll see all of your student data for that assessment including some new data that you’ve been asking for, including time spent and activity time stamps for each student. You’ll also have the opportunity to let us know what you think. We’ll still be making changes behind the scenes so we’ll be actively monitoring your feedback and continuing to make improvements. We’re really looking forward to hearing from you and to opening up the curtains a little bit and sharing our work with you sooner than we ever have before.   Current page with toggle:     New View:     ... View more

Students whose first semester course was deleted are able to transfer their remaining multi-term access to a second semester course The gradebook export includes the "ungraded" category Instructors can select multiple resources to batch update, and then make the batch updates from one page instead of in multiple steps Instructors can select multiple resources and batch update visibility date range Instructors will no longer be restricted in batch updating due dates for assessments with late penalty and diagnostics   ... View more

Instructors can copy all resource types (except for Diagnostics and items under the content type Interactive)   Instructors can sort gradebook columns in ascending or descending order                         ... View more

We added new "Average Time to Complete" data to the top of each LearningCurve Adaptive Quiz. This data (as shown below on the right) is just calculated for your class for this particular assignment. The data is only calculated started on 4/15/21, so you will not see data for any assignments completed in say January of 2021; this is only for assignments from here on out. (And teaser...we have more data coming for instructors assigning adaptive quizzes in Achieve for the Fall of 2021...) Enjoy!  ... View more

Foundational Experience Instructors can rename Adaptive Quizzing assignments and Instructor Activity Guides When instructors update due dates in batch using the option in the preview table, it will default to 11:59 p.m. Section Management Instructors can edit the target score and topics of a Adaptive Quiz or Read & Practice activity even after they've created section courses. When instructors create section courses, they will immediately become accessible to all instructors enrolled in them. Improvements Assignments with custom visibility settings will have the "hidden" indicator and tool tip Assignments with custom visibility settings or are hidden until # days before the due date will display in student preview Sapling migrated assessments will display in the Resources tab in the order that they display in Sapling Filtering by learning path designation will be sorted in pre-class, in-class, post-class order Due date exceptions will no longer display to all students (not just those with an exception) in their institutional LMS courses Instructors who want to override the lack of a grade and give their students a 0, will be able to save that 0   ... View more

2021 is off to a great start and we have improvements to Achieve to note already!  Students with multi-term access will be able to transfer their enrollment to a second semester deep integrated course Deleted iClicker sessions will no longer be included in the Achieve gradebook From within the Achieve e-book, students and instructors can access "read aloud" text to speech features from within course readings. (Note, available on iOS outside of the Macmillan app) From within the Achieve e-book, students and instructors can access content formatting options like font size, font type, line height and background color from within course readings.   ... View more

We just added a number of new features to Achieve in order to make your experience (and that of your students) even better in 2021. Here’s a quick recap of the changes. Foundational Experience Instructors can set an assignment to be worth 0 points or ungraded, which means it has a due date, but doesn't report to the gradebook Instructors can make an assignment extra credit   Updates to completion status indicators in the item for instructor and students   Instructors migrating from Sapling can surface their assessments in Achieve (if they have a course in Achieve) If you integrate your Achieve course with your LMS, nongraded content can now be integrated in addition to any graded assignments you have integrated.  Reporting and Insights Instructors can view time-on-task data for assignments   Writing Students are now able to meet MLA and APA style guide requirements (e.g. page numbers, headers, and works cited) and access in-tool support to ensure proper documentation; instructors are able to view properly MLA/APA formatted documents as well.   Diagnostics Students can take practice and final tests past the due date without instructors having to set a late penalty. Students submitting past the due date will receive 0 in the gradebook but they will no longer be blocked from moving on to the study plan. Instructors can still customize the late penalty in diagnostic settings.   Gradebook New gradebook categories added to a section manager will be reflected in restricted access sections   Help The help has been improved and expanded (and moved to the bottom left of your screen) to make it easier to get point of service help when you need it.      (And if you want to know what else has happened this fall, check out this earlier article.) ... View more

Keep track of all the updates to Achieve throughout the semester! I will update this as releases occur--and there will be a different blog post for Spring 2021 releases.  New Features: The session timeout duration has being extended to 8 hours from 4 hours Instructors can view students' individual results for a diagnostic pre-test, study plan, or post-test Instructors can download LearningCurve student data to a CSV file "Master section" is now renamed to be "Section Manager" The confirmation banner that displays when admins and customer support copy a template for an instructor course so that the banner will include a link to the course. New insight cards available for student login activity and assignment score snapshots Changes:  Instructors will be able to preview and view results for diagnostic study plan items Added a message that tells students when they reach the target completion threshold in a diagnostic study plan Updated LearningCurve challenge question feature so users can identify the issue type and add an email if they want to be contacted Updates to assessments made in the section manager will flow down to section courses Students will no longer be able to access hidden assignments from the gradebook Copying a course will retain the weighted gradebook categories of the source course Empty gradebook categories won't be considered in the total course calculation Draft due dates will push from the manager section to restricted access sections (right now only the final due date is reflected) - (Writing Tools Only) Instructors will be able to edit a writing assignment up until the moment a student starts drafting a paper - (Writing Tools Only) ... View more