Welcome! This page is a record of key customer-facing changes in the Packback platform and AI.

You can suggest features and changes at feedback.packback.co (and vote on other ones you like!).

December 3, 2024
“Originality Report” is now “Originality Fingerprint”!

• In Deep Dives, the Originality Report, currently found within the AI Grading Assistant Tools tab of a submission, is now labeled “Originality Fingerprint”.
• The “Originality” score will now be known as the “Uniqueness” indicator, which provides a percentage of the student’s assignment content that is not matched to other sources.
  • This change will be reflected on the Submissions table in Deep Dives and within the Originality Fingerprint.

December 2, 2024
Originality Review, Packback’s newest writing assignment type, is now available!

Administrators and educators with access to Deep Dives or the bundle will now have access to Originality Review, a new writing assignment type. This assignment is quick to set up and does not require students to write in the Packback platform. When students submit an Originality Review, they will be asked to upload a file. When they do, they will receive feedback about their writing and be able to view their Originality Fingerprint. Providing feedback prior to submission will allow students to submit their best work!

• You will notice a Beta label on Originality Review assignment type. While we don’t expect to have a lot of bugs, it is certainly possible, and we will also be iterating on the feature as we get feedback.
• Students will not see the Originality Review assignment type unless an educator creates this assignment type in their community.
• Along with this change, some “Deep Dives” menus are now labeled “Writing Assignments” in several places on the platform.
  • Some areas, like Match & Message and Insights, will continue to say Deep Dives and only display information that pertains to Deep Dive assignment types.

December 2, 2024
The Content Library now has a template tagging and filtering system

• Note: the Content Library is live for Superadmins/Packback admins and available to Faculty via direct link. The below features will be available to all instructors and admins when the Content Library is formally launched in early 2025.
• When users publish of a template to the Content Library, they can view, add, and remove structured tags for a template
  • Structured tags include subject and grade level
  • Tags are shown on the template info page and the published template
• Users can browse for templates by subject and grade level from the Content Library homepage

October 22, 2024
In Deep Dives, instructors now see students’ Originality score and AI Risk level in the Submissions table when assignments are submitted.

• The Originality Report, containing student’s Originality score and AI Risk level, was already available to instructors in the AI Grading Assistant Tools tab of Deep Dives when they grade a student’s assignment. Now the information is more readily available within the Submissions table!
• These two indicators are independent of one another:
  • Originality is checking for content that matches other sources
  • AI Risk is checking for the likeliness that content was written by generative AI

October 10, 2024
New Poll Reports downloads are now available to users:

• Single Poll reports are (as before) single .csv’s that contain all poll results for a single poll
• Poll Assignment Reports are single .csv’s that contain all polling results from each poll in a given poll assignment
• Community Poll Reports are single .csv’s that contain all polling results from the entire community
• When the user seeks to download one of these reports, a pop-up will appear:
  • The user can select if they would like this report to include the submitted at date and time for that poll or not; single reports always have this column
    • We have updated this column on ALL relevant reports to translate the submitted at time and date to the appropriate time zone
  • Once the user selects “Download”, the report will be generated and sent to the user in a notification and an email once complete

October 8, 2024
Students now see a Post-Submission pop-up when they publish a post in Packback Questions!

• The pop-up contains the curiosity score, and information on the student’s progress on the given assignment
  • Students see  the curiosity score of their submitted post, and how many questions/responses they’ve posted for the assignment
  • The pop-up for when students don’t meet the curiosity score minimum still exists and now includes this additional context
• The pop-up provides students with exploration options so they can keep exploring and posting
  • Options to “check out hot posts” and “check out undiscovered posts” will take the students to a presorted view of the Explore tab
  • Students have a “Surprise Me” button that takes them to a random question they haven’t written or responded to

October 8, 2024
On the Packback Questions Discussion Feed, the Guide Post and What’s Due? components are now combined.

• Guide Posts now have a preview modal that allows users to read the contents of the post without navigating away from the feed
• The Guide Posts and the What’s Due? items of this component have the same display logic as before
• Instructors can edit or delete Guide Posts by clicking on the gear icon (only visible to them) on the upper right hand corner of the component
• This component was designed to clean up the top of the Assignment Feed and match the look of the explore tools on the Explore tab

October 7, 2024
It is now easier to create new courses from templates through the Content Library!

• When creating a new course, users can now enter in their course details as part of the community creation flow. Previously, courses created from templates used the details from the original community, requiring users to go back and edit their course details post creation.
  • When creating a new course from a template, we are also skipping the product selection page to help reduce confusion/concern with seeing a price
  • When creating a new community from a template in an account that doesn’t have a contract, we default to using the bundle for the community
• If there is a contract, we create the new community using all of the available products under the contract

September 6, 2024
The Content Library is now LIVE for Superadmins/Packback admins and available to Faculty via direct link!

• The Content Library is a new tool on our platform that enables instructors to use content from other Packback users in their own courses.
  • Users can also choose to publish content to make it available for other instructors.
  • The Content Library consists of templates, which are containers for assignments.
  • A template can be imported into a new or existing course. This will copy the template’s assignments and their basic attributes such as titles, due dates, question/response counts, Deep Dive prompts and rubrics, and poll options into the destination community.
  • Single assignments can also be imported.
  • Templates don’t contain instance specific content, such as students questions, responses, poll submissions, or Deep Dive submissions.
• What can Faculty users do with Content Library today?
  • Starting today, faculty users can now import templates with a direct link! If they are provided with a link for either a public or private template, they can now import the template or its individual assignments into one of their communities. They will see a dropdown of the current courses from which they can choose their destination community.
  • Note: Faculty users are still not able to publish their own templates or “see” the main Content Library homepage. These will be available in subsequent updates.

September 4, 2024
Discussion Feed Improvements & Continuous Discussion are now LIVE 

• When accessing a Packback Questions Discussion Assignment, user will see two tabs:
  • The Assignment Feed, where they will see all questions posted to the assignment (and posts from Past Assignments if Continuous Discussion in ON)
  • A new Explore tab, where sorting, filtering, and searching tools will help users discover thought-provoking questions from all assignments.
• Continuous Discussion is a setting that allows students to respond to posts from earlier in the term for credit on an open assignment. This Feature is ON by default in new communities, but can be toggled ON/OFF on the PBQ “Manage Assignments” page.
• How does this affect grading?
  • Students can only ever receive credit on open assignments, and their responses will be intuitively assigned to the appropriate assignment. When Continuous Discussion is ON and there is more than 1 open assignment, students will be able to choose which open assignment their post will be applied to. When Continuous Discussion is OFF, there are no significant changes to users’ previous experience with Assignment Based Grading.
  • Instructors can reassign any post by clicking on Options on the post footer and selecting Reassign.

July 24, 2024
We have shortened the Community Lookup Key (CLUK) for each community

• CLUK Format: The CLUK is now a 9 alphanumeric character code. It is presented to students as XXX-XXX-XXXX.
• Presentation: Instructors can present the CLUK to students from the homepage where students can manual input the CLUK or scan a QR code to join a community.
• The Invite Students Page now dynamically prioritizes the appropriate options for instructors to invite students depending on their segment and LTI status.

July 11, 2024
Packback communities now have a homepage and a streamlined sidebar menu

The new sidebar provides clearer organization of available products and supports the release of a new community homepage.

• This UI change makes platform navigation consistent with the user experience in Writing Lab.
• Instructors will now have a view of our different tools organized by product.
• Students will not see the community management, Match & Message, or Insights tabs.
• The Community Management pages now have individual Save buttons.

The new homepage provides a central landing spot for students and instructors that will enable them to quickly access any of their enabled products or open assignments.

• Instructors will be able to quickly view insights for PBQ and DD on the footers of the product cards on this page.
• Instructors and students can access our Help Docs directly from each of the product cards.
• Instructors and students can see a list of open assignments for each of our products (PBQ, DD, Polls) on the new homepage, providing a comprehensive overview of activity.

June 11, 2024
Sandbox communities are given to instructors upon account creation

When an instructor’s account is created, their account will get a blank bundle sandbox community that expires are 120 days

• If an instructor has a current sandbox community and they are on the product selection page during community creation, they will see a message encouraging them to visit their sandbox if they’re not sure which product to use
• Sandboxes are transformed into regular communities when students are added to them (roster upload, add student by form, LTI connection, or CLUK access).

May 21, 2024
Our new Polls tool has been released!

• Polls now have their own assignment structure that are similar to but separate from Packback Questions assignments, following the same “Open”, “Closed”, and “Past” logics. Instructors can quickly open and close poll assignments from the Poll Assignments page.
  • Poll assignments can be managed via a “Manage Assignments” page where users can add new poll assignments as well as reorder, rename, and access more editing options for each assignment
  • While editing a specific Poll assignment, users can set start/ends dates for an assignment, edit the assignment’s title, reorder the assignment’s polls, add polls to an assignment, edit polls belonging to an assignment, and view a preview of each poll
• Polls have several improvements since their transformation from in-class discussion polls
  • Quick response: students can now respond to a poll directly on the poll feed and do no have the option to input text with their selection
  • Instructor view of poll responses has an improved list component while student users can only see numerical results
  • Poll titles do not need to end in a “?”

May 8, 2024
Copying Professors Questions and Polls for Packback Discussion

When you or an instructor goes to copy a community from a template, you will see a field called “Instructor Questions”. If checked, the following will happen upon copying:

• Instructor Questions (that includes Questions with Choices) will be cloned and populated in their respective PBQ assignments
• These Question style posts will have a publishing timestamp that corresponds with the moment a community is copied
• If a post is pinned in a community’s assignment, that post will retain its pinned status in the new community
• Only published posts will be copied; drafted and scheduled posts will not carry over to the new community

When you or an instructor goes to copy an existing community, you will see the option to  “Copy Poll Assignments”, and the suboptions to copy the  “Start & Due Dates” as well as the  “Professor Content (Polls)”. If checked, the following will happen upon copying:

• Polls will be cloned and populated in their respective Poll assignments
• These polls will have a publishing timestamp that corresponds with the moment a community is copied

Apr 30, 2024
Due Date Extensions for Deep Dives

This feature allows users to set deadline extensions for students for Deep Dive assignments.

A few notes on functionality:

• A user must set a Due Date and Time for a Deep Dive assignment in order to add an extension.
• Just like the deadline extension feature in Packback Questions, a user can add a student’s name or email and choose an extended deadline for the Deep Dive.
• This process can be repeated for multiple students in the community.
• Removing a deadline will delete any extensions that were previously added.
• The extension deadline must be after the original due date.
• Users can add deadline extensions for new and existing Deep Dives.

Mar 29, 2024
Easier Assignment Management for Deep Dives

Exciting news! Instructors can now manage Deep Dive assignments in one centralized location, just like in PBQ. Here is what instructors can do on the new Manage Assignments page:
 Add and edit assignments
 Delete assignments (cannot delete if there are submissions)
 Utilize drag-and-drop functionality for easy reordering, shaping the assignment order within the open/closed view and DD instruct.
 Inline title edits for quick adjustments.

Feb 8, 2024
Match & Message for Deep Dives

The powerful messaging tool originally built for Packback Questions is now available for Packback Deep Dives users! Professors now have access to a powerful comparison tool so they can more easily reach out to students who have shown growth between two assignments, students who have NOT shown growth between two assignments, or students who scored below a certain threshold for any given assignment.

Dec 22, 2023
Improvements to Assignment Copying

Instructors can now select specifically which attributes they want to carry into a new community, such as assignments, due date, titles, Guide Posts, and more.

Dec 2, 2023
NEW! Insights into Deep Dive Assignments

Instructors can now view insights into:

Student Participation: See how engaged students are in specific assignments.
Rubric Insights: See criterion averages in a given assignment.
Overall Stats: Get quick assignment performance insights (participation, average score, and % graded).

Oct 3, 2023
Due Date Extensions for Individual Students in PBQ

Instructors can extend the deadline of a discussion assignment for an individual student. They can choose to add the extension in just one assignment, or in multiple for recurring extensions.

August 31, 2023
Separate Deadline for Questions

Instructors can now require that Questions be posted midway to an assignment’s due date.

August 1, 2023
Assignment-Based Grading in Packback Questions

Instructors can now create assignments by module or topic, with flexible due dates, assignment naming, and re-ordering.

June 22, 2023
Gradebook Sync for Deep Dives

Instructors connected to Packback with LTI version 1.3 can now automatically sync grades back to their LMS using Packback’s Gradebook Sync.

April 3, 2023
Hiding and Posting Grades in Deep Dives

Teachers now have the ability to keep grades hidden in Deep Dives until they choose to release the grades to students.

February 28, 2023
Smart Highlighting for Deep Dives Guiding Questions

This feature helps instructors more easily find where in students’ essay the student attempted to answer the guiding questions as per the assignment.

February 16, 2023
Plagiarism Diffs in Deep Dives

Instructors can now more see a side-by-side diff comparison of the student’s text to the matched text.

February 15, 2023
In-line Commenting in Deep Dives

Instructors and TA’s can now mark-up students’ essays with comments, giving our instructors yet another way to provide quality feedback to students!

September 13, 2022
Packback Deep Dives

We are thrilled to announce that our newest product, Packback Deep Dives, is now available to add to your Spring 2023 classes. We are currently running a closed early-access program to the product. Open access to all our users will start on January 1, 2023!

August 5, 2022
LTI Roster Imports (IN BETA)

Schools using LTI 1.3 now have the ability to import course rosters into Packback. Note: this is in beta form and will still require testing in different LMSes.

July 18, 2022
Google Classroom

Packback now supports Google OAuth Single Sign-on and roster importing through Google Classroom for K12 users.

July 14, 2022
QR Codes

QR Codes are now available to teachers on each Question in a community.

June 13, 2022
Community Copying Enhancements

When copying a community, users can now edit fields before creating it. Previously you’d have to copy over everything and edit it later!

May 12, 2022
New filter for Match & Message

For instructors who use Packback Instruct, they can now optionally filter their messages to students who belong to a particular section in a Packback community.

Apr 12, 2022
Roster Upload Email Domain

When uploading a roster, a professor can now directly edit the email domain of all students on their file.

Apr 6, 2022
Updated Mobile Styling

The community feeds and post pages now have a sleeker UI when viewing on a mobile device.

Apr 5, 2022
Copying Communities

Professors now have the ability to copy their Packback communities semester-over-semester. It will retain the settings of whatever community you are copying!

Apr 5, 2022
Scheduled Questions

Professors and TAs now have the ability to schedule their questions ahead of time!

Apr 1, 2022
Enhanced Gradebook Sync in LTI 1.3

We have enhanced our gradebook sync capabilities in communities that use LTI version 1.3. The most notable difference is that Packback makes grading columns automatically in the LMS gradebook now. Students also do not need to access each assignment link to get a grade!

Mar 18, 2022
Filtering the Community Feed

Students and instructors now have the ability to filter the Community Feed to questions from a specific assignment or deadline.

Feb 15, 2022
Packback Polls Improvements

We’ve made some UX/UI improvements to our Packback polls in Packback Instruct! Students will now see a more seamless way to answer in-class polls without leaving the feedback. Instructors can now download multiple poll CSVs with results in one email.

Jan 1, 2022
Packback Instruct Launch

Packback Instruct is now LIVE and available to add to your Packback communities!

Dec 22, 2021
PayPal

You can now check out your purchase for a Packback community with a PayPal account.

November 10, 2021
Upload your roster into sections

We’ve added the capability for instructors to put a CSV file of students into a Packback section, if they use them!

November 1, 2021
Coach/Praise Feedback

We made some cosmetic improvements to the way instructors give coach/praise feedback on posts so that you can view the entire contents of the post while you write your feedback.

October 19, 2021
Previewing Posts

We made it easier to read an entire post without leaving the community feed. Try clicking on the “Preview Post” link on each question and check it out!

October 12, 2021
A behind-the-scenes update…

We know this page has been quiet! It’s because our engineers are hard at work building our new add-on product, Packback Instruct, which will go live in January 2022. Check it out!

September 10, 2021
Delete praising or coaching feedback on a post

Today we added the ability for professors and TAs to remove any feedback they’ve left on a post!

August 30, 2021
Packback Communities have a fresh new look!

We have revamped the look of your Packback communities with a new look! We’ve cleaned up all the links and added them to a sleek sidebar. You can still access all the tools you are used to in the sidebar. You can also collapse it down to make more room on the page.

July 21, 2021
LTI Gradebook Sync

Instructors can now automatically send their grades from Packback into the LMS gradebook if the course is integrated via LTI. Packback supports this feature in Canvas, Blackboard, D2L Brightspace, and Moodle.

July 16, 2021
Unsubscribe to Specific Emails

All users can now unsubscribe from specific types of emails! That means you can remove yourself from “reply” emails if you have a popular post that is blowing up your inbox. 😉
The only emails you CAN’T unsubscribe from are account verification, password reset emails, and alerts when your homework post has been moderated.

Message help@packback.co at any time if you want to opt back in to certain emails.

July 8, 2021
Gradebook Override: the whole class!

Professors and TAs can now override the grade for the entire class in the gradebook. Click the Override Grades button at the top of the gradebook. You can choose between changing everyone’s grade, or just those students who have zero credit so far. A dot indicator next to the grade means that it’s been overridden!

July 2, 2021
Gradebook Override

Professors and TAs can now override the grade for each individual student in the gradebook. Click the pencil icon next to a grade to change it – a dot indicator next to the grade means that it’s been overridden!

June 14th, 2021
Community Start Date

Once your community has started, instructors will no longer be able to change the community’s start date if you’ve decided to use Packback’s automated grading deadlines. This is to cut down on grading mishaps and confusion! You can always use our “skip deadline” functionality if you want to skip the first few grading periods on Packback.

Edit Your Posts Any Time!

Students can now edit their post content ANY time – yes, even after someone has replied to it! Packback used to lock down the edit button once another user had replied to your post, but we realized that was hurting more than helping!

May 19th, 2021
Presenter Mode Privacy Change

When you turn on “Presenter Mode” it will work as usual, but will also now remove the campus associated with a user or post.

April 29th, 2021
Explore Mode Privacy Change

As of this evening, any user who is trying to view a community or a post of a community that they are not a member of, they will not be able to see it. Admins will continue to be able to see any post or community.