MyAccountingLab®, the leading accounting technology, is about to get even better!  On June 27th 2010, MyAccountingLab will be updated with the new features that you have been asking for!  Read below to learn about the new features and the release details. This new release is filled with easy-to-use features that give students more "I Get It" moments, while providing you more options and flexibility for your course!

Mark Your Calendars

To add these new features, we have scheduled a release starting on: Saturday, June 26th, 2010
Estimated downtime: Saturday, June 26, 12:01 AM to Sunday, June 27, 11:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time 05:01 26 June to 04:59 28 June BST (GMT +1)

The actual downtime may be shorter. Please do not schedule any tests or other assignments during this time. MyAccountingLab courses will be temporarily unavailable during the upgrade.

Note: CourseCompass will also be unavailable during this upgrade. Engineers will make improvements to ensure consistent and reliable system performance and availability. More information will be announced on the CourseCompass website as we get closer to the release date.

New Features

• Freeze Correct Answers
• When choosing the settings in homework, instructors now have the option to freeze the correct answers, so that after each try, the student will only have to edit what they have answered incorrectly.
• New “Dashboard” Display for Students
• A new home page – based on the current Announcements page – uses simple bar charts, an improved calendar, and other visual motivators to let students know their current grade performance in the course, how much work they still need to complete, and when their upcoming assignments are due. Instructors decide to show or hide depending on their preferences.
• Automated Late Due Date Grading
• Allow students to submit homework past the due date by setting a penalty for late submissions. Deductions can be applied in points or percentages and per day from the final score. Instructors can specify a final submission date, beyond which assignments can no longer be submitted. Assignments submitted late with a penalty will be clearly marked in the Gradebook.
• Enhancements to Media Assignments
• Instructors can now include multiple media resources (Demo Docs, Videos, Working Papers, etc.)  with any homework assignment.  Students can be required to access the media before answering any questions or can simply link to external media (such as your word doc or video link) at any time during the assignment.
• Personalized Assignment for Mastery
• To help students achieve mastery, MyAccountingLab can now generate a personalized assignment based on an individual student’s performance on a test or quiz. This personalized assignment includes questions from the learning objective that the student missed on the test or quiz.  Students are awarded credit based on what they answered correctly in the test or quiz.
• Assign Multiple Prerequisites per Assignment
• Instructors can assign more than one prerequisite per assignment, with or without a minimum score.
• Batch Options for Creating Assignments
• Sample homework assignments and sample tests can be copied and assigned in batch mode rather than one at a time. If desired, instructors can also specify a date range within which the assignments are made available to students. MyAccountingLab calculates and evenly spreads out the assignment due dates, which can be modified by instructors at any time.
• Course Access Control
• In MyAccountingLab, instructors can set up “Section Instructors’ to access and help manage their course, which  is generally used for Teaching Assistants.  Instructors can define the type of course access section instructors have by default, such as read-only, manage student results, change individual student or class assignment settings, add announcement, create and edit own assignments, edit all assignments in the course. The ability to specify the level of access will benefit both Coordinator instructors as well as instructors of large, standard courses taught by section instructors.
• Custom Question Builder- Available in August 2010
• In time for Fall classes, instructors will be able to  create their own questions within MyAccountingLab, or edit and customize the existing questions.
• Improved Ways to  Manage Incompletes in Gradebook
• When instructors access the Manage Incompletes feature in the gradebook, they will see any extension dates that have been given to students and be asked whether they want to submit zeros for those students. A “Select All Past Due” option will select all students who have missed the deadline for any assignment and leave unchecked students whose assignment due dates have not yet passed.