2021 Product Release Notes

Accelerated Reader

• Improvements to Student Goal Messaging for students using the 3-5 (rocket) and 6+ (line graph) goal models
• New preference that allows administrators to set whether teachers at a school can perform certain actions for student quiz records: edit quiz dates, review/rescore student quiz responses, transfer quiz records from one student to another, and deactivate/reactivate. (These actions were previously controlled by user permissions.)
• Students using the K-2 goal model will see a new “Boundary Wilds” area on their My Goals page for books they have read above/below/beyond the point value(s) their AR Friends goal is tracking.

Star Assessments

• Removed the “Growth Score” column from the remaining 2 Star reports that it was included on – Star Screening Report and Star Test Records Report.
• Star CBM:
  • Administrators and teachers use the Star CBM Data Insights Dashboard to get answers to their questions about screening progress, proficiency, and growth. Now when looking at proficiency reporting, they will have the flexibility to view data at any grade level for the recommended screening measures only and/or all other measures.
  • After assessing students, teachers often ask themselves, “What’s next? Which skills do students need to develop to grow? How can I help them meet and exceed expectations?” To answer those questions and more, teachers have historically used computer-adaptive Star Assessment results to point them to appropriate skills students are ready to learn next. Now, teachers can also choose to use results from Star CBM measures to identify suggested skills and personalize instruction for their students who need to raise their proficiency in the foundations of literacy. In just a few simple clicks right from Star Record Book, you’ll get useful information for effective instructional planning.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• Administrator Reports: CSV added to Several Consolidated Reports
  • Consolidated Ranking Report
  • Consolidated Status Report
  • Consolidated Implementation Status Report
  • Consolidated Assessment Proficiency Report
  • Consolidated State Performance Report
  • Consolidated Summary Report

myON

• The current version of the app requires users to know their username and where they access myON (US, SG, etc.). And, with the way that RGP users are authenticated to myON, that wasn’t feasible for those users to get logged into the app. Now, users will automatically be authenticated to the app by accessing myON via web browser, then clicking a new “Sign in” button in the PIN that takes them straight to the app, logs them in and links them to the correct domain.
• Once a user is logged in, they are able to toggle between languages on the bottom menu bar. This language selector translates book categories. Languages available to any user are based on language availability that they already have in their myON.com account.
• This release introduces the partial download of books and high/standard definition books. For users that had a long wait time to download books before should experience improved speeds.
• We’ve updated the overall look of the app.
• Added an additional 76 Spanish books to myON

Accelerated Reader

• A new option was added to the Quiz Retake Restrictions preference for using the Monitor Password to allow students to retake quizzes.

Star Assessments

• Star Computer Adaptive Test
  • The Star Family Report (made initially to support our CA customers, and currently only available to customers in CA), will be made available to all customers.
• Star Custom:
  • The Monitor Student Mastery Dashboard (Reading) will have a new dropdown that you can select Comprehensive Mastery, Assessed Mastery or Probed Mastery.
    • Comprehensive Mastery includes Assessed (CAT) and Probed (Star Custom)
    • Assessed Mastery includes Assessed (CAT) only (Domain and Standards and skill area)
    • Probed Mastery includes Star Custom only (Standard, skill and sub-skills)

Renaissance Growth Platform

• The Consolidated Progress Report will get a new CSV option, in addition to the already existing PDF option.

myON

• More Titles added in myON! 19 new titles added to core collection, bringing the total myON core collection count to 7,119 titles.

Accelerated Reader

• Accelerated Reader Independent Reading customers now have the ability to deactivate Article Quizzes.

Star Assessments

• Star CBM
  • Customers using Star CBM Reading (EN) will see two additional Rapid Automatic Naming measures:
    • Rapid Letter Naming Field Test (K-3)
    • Rapid Number Naming Field Test (K-3)
  • Benchmarks won’t be available for these measures during the field testing
  • RAN Field Test data will show on the CBM Assessment Report

Star Assessments

• Star Computer Adaptive Test
  • Updates will be made to the Student Progress Monitoring Report to help us better align with our efforts to transition all customers to the Unified Scale.
  • If the ‘Star Scale Transition Preference’ is set to ‘Show Enterprise and Unified Scales’, users will continue to be able to base goals off either scale (Enterprise or Unified). Regardless of which scale the goal is set for, the Student Progress Monitoring Report will not convert Unified Scaled Score goals to show as Enterprise Scaled Score goals.

Accelerated Reader

• Added a link to the Accelerated Reader Smart Start landing page at the top of the AR Record Book so teachers can easily discover just-in-time resources, in just the right place.

Star Assessments

• Star Computer Adaptive Test
  • New Indiana Star Assessment
    • Students in Indiana (grades 1-8) will see the new Indiana Assessments (fixed form assessments) by default if testing during a district screening window.
    • These fixed form assessments will have new item types including multi-select, multi-part, and graphing.
    • Two new preferences will be released to control who see’s this test:
      • Indiana Star Assessments – School Preference
      • Indiana Star Assessments – Individual Student Preference
• Star CBM
  • On the Student Details page for Star CBM, you will no longer see current and prior school year data by default. Instead, you’ll see the current years data with an option to view prior years data if desired.

myON

• Enroll v3.5.0: Auto Refresh is a new enrollment session method which allows Renaissance data sources to run refreshes nightly.
• 4.3.0:
  • Adds the “Add to MyList” button to the book player control bar
  • Adds a new “Welcome to myON” panel for faculty users
  • Adds “myON Quiz” availability to book info modal
  • Adds over 100 new avatars for users to choose from
  • The page footer will now always remain accessible without needing to expand it

Star Assessments

• Star Computer Adaptive Test
  • New Custom Date Range – Introduction of the ability to generate the Growth Report for custom data ranges in addition to SGP windows to allow you to view change in score between two tests.
  • New Star Family Report – The California Department of Education (DOE) approved Star Reading and Star Math as alternate summative tests for the 20/21 school year. As such, additional reporting capabilities were needed to help support this. This report will be made available to customers in CA only at this time.
  • Paused Test Indicator added to Star Record Book
    • A new ‘Finish by [date]’ indicator will show on the Latest Tests tab of the Star Record Book when students have a paused test.
    • This change will allow educators to more easily see which students have a test that they need to complete and the date that it must be completed by.
  • The bulk of the 2021-2022 learning progression updates deployed the evening of 7/23/21. The following states will receive updated learning progressions the evening of 8/6/21: Texas, South Carolina, Indiana, Arizona, Arkansas, and Alberta.
• Star CBM
  • New Rate of Improvement (ROI) metric is now available in Star CBM.
    • For students with Goals, ROI shows you how much the student’s score has improved per week between the first assessment in the goal time period and subsequent assessments.
    • Available on Student Details page in Historical Extract
    • Goal charts for prior goals and setting goals for multiple measures
      • Gained the ability to view goal charts for all goals, current and prior.
      • Gained the ability to set multiple goals – one for each measure instead of one for each subject
    • Star CBM Green Checkmark
      • A new green checkmark will be available on the CBM Assessments tab of the Star Record Book along with the Student Details page of the Star Record Book.
      • This checkmark will help show how students that are working above/below grade level are performing.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• The main Subscription & Capacity page, as well as the Purchase Additional Capacity page now include help file links.

myON

• More titles added to myON
  • 19 new titles added to core collection
  • New count is 6,926 titles

Freckle

• Starting July 2021, teachers at Renaissance-managed schools will only get access to premium content if Freckle has been assigned to at least one of their classes in Renaissance. Existing Freckle teachers who have affiliated with a Renaissance-managed school, but who do not have any classes in Renaissance with Freckle assigned, will now experience Freckle’s free edition.

Star Assessments

• Star Computer Adaptive Test
  • The PARCC and SBAC scale option has been removed from Star Assessments reports as we prepare to transition to the Star Unified Scale for Back to School 2021. The Star Unified Scale powers a seamless transition from Star Early Literacy to Star Reading and provides a consistent scale for all Star computer adaptive assessments (English and Spanish).
  • These scales continue to be available on the consolidated reports along with the mastery dashboards.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• Renaissance Growth Platform welcome pages will be revamped to add increased accessibility (tools, screen readers, contract, etc.)

Accelerated Reader

• Due to inappropriate/offensive content, the Nonfiction Article (Quiz #800495 RP EN Distracted Driving: We’re All Guilty, So What Should We Do About It?) and its associated AR quiz have been pulled from all Accelerated Reader sites.

myON

• v4.0.0 has been released:
  • Introduces the concept of “One myON”, which decouples student Lexile from the core myON experience, incorporates the myON placement test (powered by Star), and replaces student’s Lexile scores and ranges with a Star score and ATOS ZPDs.
  • Significant visual re-design of the DA/BA Settings page!
  • Visual improvements made to book cover displays.
  • Book thickness is now based on book size (short, medium, long and epic)
• 43 titles were removed from myON. If a student was reading the book, the next time they login they won’t be able to find it. If an educator used the title in a project, the project remains but that title isn’t in the reading task anymore.

Star Assessments

• Star Computer Adaptive Test – closed captioning was made available for “part 2” of the Star assessment for all grades in Star Reading and Star Math.

Star Assessments

• Star Computer Adaptive Test:
  • In addition to viewing test locations on the Star Test Record Report, Star Summary Report and the Star Screening Report the Historical Extract will now show test locations in the new ‘TakenAt’ column.
  • Students will continue to see the question ‘Are you inside your school?’, and that data will show on the Star Test Record Report, Star Summary Report, Star Screening Report and the Historical Extract (under the ‘TakenAt’ column).
  • Educators will be able to see test locations based on the IP address of where the student tested on the Historical Extract (under the ‘TakenAtByIPAddress’ column), if IP addresses have been entered.

Renaissance Growth Platform

• Capacity numbers will no longer show for myON or Freckle on the Subscriptions &s; Capacity page to help alleviate confusion around myON and Freckle capacity usage. Instead, users will be directed to help pages for more details on how to view capacity information in each product.

myON

• v3.32.0 has been released:
  • We migrated the myON dictionary to a new provider, Oxford University Press. This explicitly adds a China dictionary as well!
  • Removed support for IE 11
• v3.32.1 has been released
  • New “topics” search results produced

Star Assessments

• Star CBM:
  • Two new preferences will be added for Star CBM which will allow you to record Star CBM audio should you decide:
    • District Level Preference named Star CBM – Audio Recordings
    • Student Level Preference named Star CBM – Record Audio
• Star Computer Adaptive Test:
  • The Instructional Planning Reports will have two new customization options when Reading Spanish is selected from the Subject dropdown:
    • Identify English/Spanish Transferable Skills
    • Show Only the Focus Skills

myON

• We offered free access to myON digital books and news articles for grades K-12 for a full week!
• New version of myON Android app, v1.3.0
• PINs in myON will be migrating from 4 to 6 characters for increased security

Star Assessments

• Star Computer Adaptive Test:
  • After finishing a Star Reading or Star Math assessment, students in grades 1-8 will be given two or three new, additional trial questions. Depending on the students grade level, they may also see a brief video tutorial explaining how to answer questions in part 2.
  • Note, these results are used to develop new item types and are not included in assessment results.

myON

• With this release we introduced the integration of Star Early Literacy scores in addition to the Star Reading integration for myON with Star Connection customers.
• v3.29.0 has been released:
  • New ‘book loading’ animation that displays while pages are loading
  • Removed “AVG Lexile” column from the District Admin Dashboard
  • Introduces Star Early Literacy integration for myON with Star Connection customers.
• 141 titles were removed from myON. If a student was reading the book, the next time they login they won’t be able to find it. If an educator used the title in a project, the project remains but that title isn’t in the reading task anymore.
• v3.30.0 has been released:
  • This small myON release is focused on the addition of collections in myON to support the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project (TCRWP). TCRWP has curated thematic, leveled booklists from the myON library that are intended to provide students with lists of engaging books for independent reading. These “digital collections” are replacing physical libraries, that TCRWP sold to schools. This update will only be available to customers that participate with TCRWP, which are primarily in NY, NJ and CT.