Product Updates

Automatic Grade Recalculation for Assignments With Late Penalties Applied When Due Dates are Extended or Removed

When you extend or remove due dates for assignments that have an active late policy applied, MindTap will now automatically recalculate grades to remove the late penalty on existing submissions. The late penalty will be applied on assignments submitted past an extended due date.

• In any instance where you can extend or remove a due date, MindTap will alert you that taking this action will automatically remove the late-penalty deduction from existing assignment submissions.

Exam Playback for Students

Instructors can now configure Exam options to display Exam Playback in the Student Study Guide.

Supplemental MAC Modules for Textbook Projects

For Office 365/2021 Courses: Introductory Textbook Projects for Word, Excel and PPT include a Mac version of the module posted as a Support file for students in the SAM Project workflow. This version is written specifically for Mac users and includes Mac screen shots, language and tips for completing projects successfully.

Project Task List

Instructors can now preview and export a list of SAM tasks in the Project Preview button. This is especially helpful for instructors who want to quickly review tasks when selecting projects. It also helps instructors customize training to match skills used in assigned SAM projects.

Monitor the License Status of Students Enrolled in Your MindTap Course

• Use this feature to identify students who don’t have access or are currently using the grace period in your MindTap course so you can remind them to acquire access
• License status displays as “Licensed”, “Unlicensed”, “Trial Access” or “N/A in a new “License Status” column
  • Licensed appears when a student has access to MindTap
  • Unlicensed appears when a student does not have access to MindTap and is no longer covered by the grace period
  • Trial Access appears when a student is still covered by the grace period
  • N/A appears when a student has been dropped from your MindTap course
• Location of this new feature: Progress App → Roster tab

Build Your Own Assessments Using the New Test Bank Functionality

The all-new test bank functionality is now available for select MindTap products in Business Law, History, Political Science, Marketing and Psychology!

• Introduces an easy-to-use workflow for instructors to create completely new, unique assessments

• Enables instructors to create assessments using a bank of pre-existing questions and/or develop their own questions using the instructor authoring functionality

• Click the "+Add/Create" button, select "Activity", select "Activity Bank" and click the "+New Activity" button to begin building your custom assessment.

Contact your Cengage sales representative to learn more about this new functionality!

SAM Projects – Student Workflow Update

A simplified and improved student workflow in SAM features a NEW one-page experience.

• Easier File Downloads: Students can choose to download individual project files or download all files at once (instruction files, SAM start files and any supporting files)
• Clearer PC/MAC Instructions: Students receive improved notifications about downloading and completing projects on PC/MAC if operating system detection is enabled for a project
• Save Work to SAM: Students can save their in-progress project file directly to SAM, minimizing lost work
• Error Messages for non-SAM Start Files: SAM will alert the student if it detects that the start file was not downloaded prior to uploading the file. 
• Ease of Access to Reports: Students can easily view their most recent Graded Summary and Study Guide Reports
• SAM Upload and Download Icons for Textbook Projects: Displayed to let students know when to start and submit a Textbook Project
• View Submission History: Students can easily see their history of assignment submissions

MindTap Collections users can now add SAM Reports to their MindTap Learning Path

Once the Reports plank is available in the Learning Path, it can be deep linked into your LMS if you have integrated your MindTap Collections course.

To add this link to SAM within your MindTap course:

1. Click + Add/Create  Activity.
2. Click SAM-Assignment.
3. In the Assignments tab, click Add Reports.

Filter Reports by Section

You can now filter SAM reports to see data only for a selected section.

Session Expired Notification When Submitting a Project

If a student's session has expired when attempting to submit a SAM project, a message displays letting them know that they must sign in again to submit their project.

Updated SAM Textbook and Training Remediations for Office 365/2019

To ensure that your Illustrated, Shelly Cashman Series, or New Perspectives Collections includes the latest training/exam textbook remediations, we recommend creating a new MindTap Collections course for Fall 2021 classes or verify existing remediations in your current SAM assignments.

Learn how to Refresh your MindTap Collections course(s).