It’s been a long summer and the Eli team has been hard at work preparing for the new academic year. While there haven’t been many new features developed, we’ve been working hard to improve Eli’s existing functionality, stability, and general user experience.
Some of the highlights of Eli development over the summer:
- editing comments – users have long requested the ability to edit comments they make on reviews rather than delete and rewrite and now they can.
- signup process – now anybody can be an Eli user; you’ll still need to be invited to join a course if you want to turn in assignments and participate in reviews, but getting in to Eli is now simple and easy.
- password recovery – a long-standing problem in Eli, being able to get back in to the system if you’ve forgotten your password. Options to reset passwords via username or email are now fully functional.
- dashboard design – we’ve tried to make the dashboard of Eli as simple to use and understand as possible by splitting the two distinct roles users can play – students and teachers – into separate interfaces (see screenshots below).
- courses – Eli is no longer a beta product, so any user is capable of creating their own courses. In the “Eli for Teachers” tab simply click the “Create Course” button and you’re off and running.
- subscription model – one of the biggest changes resulting from Eli’s move out of beta development is the implementation of subscription models for users. Teachers can create and run courses in Eli for free, but students must be active subscribers in order to participate in assignments and reviews. This model is intended for higher ed users but we are actively working on a solution for K-12 schools.
We’ve also created a 30-day development cycle to keep Eli development going strong. Our first cycle is happening now and will last through September 15 and our development goals for this deadline include:
- graphic redesign – our talented graphic designer is at work completely redesigning the look and feel out Eli. This will include not only better graphics but also more attractive and useable typefaces and colors.
- improving assignments and reviews – right now there are a few relatively minor bugs and quirks that go into the creation of our key activities that we are eager to address that will hopefully make the experience of this work far less frustrating.
- revision strategies – one of the core components of review – the ability to develop a strategy for revision – has not been completely implemented in Eli. We intend to have this major piece of functionality in place and operational in the next month.
We have big goals for Eli and think our users will find it increasingly easy to use. Thanks to everyone who’s given us the outstanding feedback that has helped us improve Eli and we hope you’ll stick with us as we continue to make it the best review platform anywhere.
