Separate Invoice Statements for Explore Fulfilment Sales
What’s Improved?
- Fulfilment sales through the Explore platform will be reported to publishers on a separate statement, created explicitly for Explore sales.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Publisher Admins
Updated Statements and Address
What’s Improved?
- Invoice and compensation statements have been updated to show the correct VitalSource logo, billing address, and VST email addresses.
Additional Details
- Our new payment address is
VitalSource Technologies LLC
P.O. Box 746579
Atlanta, GA 30374-6579
- Physical Address Change and W-9 Information: https://support.vitalsource.com/hc/en-us/articles/1500011209541-VitalSource-Technologies-Change-of-Address-Notification
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Accounts Payable Teams
- Publisher Admins
- VLE/LMS / Institutional Admins
JAWS Script to Windows Reader
What’s Improved?
- We’ve added custom JAWS scripts to the Bookshelf reader.
Additional Details
- A JAWS script acts as a bridge between the JAWS screen reader and the Bookshelf Windows app. The script does not change Bookshelf but rather helps JAWS extract information from Bookshelf to improve efficiency and usability for JAWS users.
- Key improvements that script users can expect:
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- Landmarks and shortcuts
- Announcement of toast messages
- Sets focus and reads dialogue modals, like citations
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Who Does This Change Affect?
- Learners
- Instructors
Groups Functionality for Rostering
What’s Improved?
- Instructors can now create curated content groups using institutionally adopted content.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Instructors
Access Codes via Bookshelf Rostering Tool
What’s Improved?
- The update allows admins to generate access codes through the Bookshelf rostering tool. These codes provide learners with access to the Explore platform.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Admins
- Learners
Publisher-Level Reporting
What’s Improved?
- VitalSource and provider admins can now generate analytical reports at the publisher level. This report will provide subscription, institution, and activation data.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Publisher Admins
API Rate Limiting
What’s Improved?
- We have made improvements to how VitalSource handles Canvas API rate limiting.
Additional Details
- API rate limits previously caused items not to sync.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- VLE/LMS Admins
D2L Sync
What’s Improved?
- The update provides schools using Brightspace (D2L) API integration with more flexible options when setting up and configuring the data shared with VitalSource.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- VLE/LMS Admins
More Than One Hosted Domain per Tenant Allowed for Google OIDC Login
What’s Improved?
- Launch now allows more than just one Hosted Domain to be added to a tenant's OIDC configuration.
Additional Details
- If a user launches to us with Google OIDC and the Hosted Domain matches ANY of the configured Hosted Domains, we allow the launch to proceed.
- If a user launches to us with Google OIDC and the Hosted Domain does not match any of the configured Hosted Domains, an error will appear.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- VLE/LMS Admins
Publisher Courseware Deep Link Message Proxies
What’s Improved?
- The update allows VitalSource to proxy LTI 1.0 and 1.3 deep linking messages to publisher courseware platforms.
Additional Details
- This update allows VitalSource to remain the LTI tool installed in the VLE/LMS and use the publisher deep linking interfaces to fetch and push links back into the VLE/LMS courses for Publisher Partner Integrations.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- VLE/LMS Admins
- Publisher Admins
Top Hat Courseware
What’s Improved?
- VitalSource has added Top Hat to the list of publisher partners available for Partner Integration. This integration will include Single Sign-On (SSO), Opt Out API communication, and Course Adoption API communication.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Publisher Admins
- Instructors
- Learners
Sage Vantage Courseware
What’s Improved?
- VitalSource has added Sage Vantage to the list of publisher partners available for Partner Integration.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Publisher Admins
- Instructors
- Learners
Lock Curated Metadata
What’s Improved?
- VST Manage users now have the ability to “lock” certain metadata fields, preventing them from being updated. A user with Manage metadata permission can manually edit assets and lockdown fields, preventing their work from being overwritten by automatic metadata updates.
Additional Details
- Affected fields include Title, Subtitle, Author, First Name, Last Name, Description, and Imprint.
- Users without this permission can still view the “managed_metadata” status of their asset in the various locations below.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Publisher Admins
- Institutional Admins
Adjust ONIX Print ISBN Logic
What’s Improved?
- When parsing ONIX from CoreSource, we check many places to determine the best Print ISBN for the asset. We now prioritize an ISBN provided as a RelatedProduct with a product relation code of 13 and a product ID type of 15 over any Related Work-based identifier.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Publisher Admins
Quicker Background Jobs
What’s Improved?
- This update increases the speed of delivery of Manage generated reports.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Publisher Admins
- Institutional Admins
Removed Non-Inclusive Language from Source Code
What’s Improved?
- This update removes non-inclusive language from internal source code per the Inclusive Language in Technology guidelines.
Additional Details
- Terms such as whitelist and blacklist have changed to allow/deny.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Publisher Admins
- Institutional Admins
Platform Upgrade for Increased Security and System Reliability
What’s Improved?
- VitalSource has updated RubyRails, a community-maintained programming framework that contained low-level bug fixes and security updates. We periodically upgrade our Rails framework code to ensure our application remains secure.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Publisher Admins
- Institutional Admins
Removed Support for .xls Spreadsheets for Import/Export -
What’s Improved?
- We will be removing support for .xls spreadsheets but will continue to support .xlsx spreadsheets.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Publisher Admins
- Institutional Admins
Google Performance Updates
What’s Improved?
- We have made some adjustments to our store site to improve the user experience and improve our Web Core Vitals Score.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Learners
- Instructors
PDP Enhancements for SEO
What’s Improved?
- We’ve made enhancements to our store page to improve SEO.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Learners
- Instructors
FAQ Updates
What’s Improved?
- We’ve updated our Store FAQ pages for a better user experience.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Learners
- Instructors
Static Pages
What’s Improved?
- We’ve updated our current marketing pages to better reflect the Bookshelf redesign and our learner offerings.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Learners
Perpetual License
What’s Improved?
- As of June 15, 2021, titles with perpetual licenses will have a duration of five years for online access. This duration is also retroactive for store users who have purchased titles with perpetual licenses since 2016.
Who Does This Change Affect?
- Instructors
- Learners
Check back next quarter!