Educational Technology at IU13

As of September 30, 2021, the web certificate provider Let’s Encrypt no longer supports certain older operating systems. Certificates from Let’s Encrypt are relied on for secure connections for websites and apps including Sora and OverDrive. As a result of this change, the following is now in effect:

• Sora’s minimum iOS version is now iOS 10. To use Sora on an iOS device, users are required to update their device’s operating system to iOS 10 or newer. These are the steps to help iOS users update their operating system version.
• The legacy OverDrive for Mac desktop app is only supported on macOS versions 10.12.1 through 10.14.
• Users on legacy web browsers may experience issues loading sorapp.com and should upgrade to a newer browser version, if possible.

The expectation was that affected users would receive a security warning after the Let’s Encrypt change, but we’ve since learned that a warning is not always displayed. Users may experience issues with signing in, borrowing, loading the app’s content, etc.
For more information and troubleshooting tips, check out Sora Help and OverDrive Help. If you have any questions, please contact your Account Manager.

OverDrive recently redesigned and added new settings to Sora’s main menu, allowing students to further customize their reading experience. These settings include:

• Adjustable default lending periods: Students can select their preferred lending period for titles they check out in Sora. Once changed, this setting will apply to all future checkouts until changed again. Note: The options displayed are determined by the lending periods enabled in Marketplace settings.
  
  
• Continue Reading Orb: A new toggle allows students to show or hide the shortcut orb that takes them to their most recently read book.
  
  
• Tab Bar Labels: Students can now enable text icon labels for Sora’s four main tabs.
  
  
• Search All Libraries: We moved this setting to the main menu. When enabled, this setting shows search results from all libraries a student adds in Sora. To help students discover more books, we automatically enabled it for any student who hadn’t disabled it previously.
  
  

Additionally, students can now see their checkout and hold limits for their main Sora collection.

• Showcase your digital collection in high-traffic areas of your school
• Feature kid-friendly titles for elementary students
• Highlight nonfiction titles in the research section of your library
• And more!

Your school has unlimited access to the Sora Showcase software. Set up as many locations and devices as you like! Note: Your school is responsible for providing the hardware and internet access for Sora Showcase. You can review the Sora Showcase overview, setup guide, and video tutorial for staff to learn more.

We are very excited to announce that our IU 13 OverDrive "book shelf" has just gone live!  All IU 13 employees can log on using your IU 13 username and password information.  As we speak, a number of our districts have connected to our OverDrive account as well.  Throughout the next couple of weeks, the rest of our districts will connect to our shelf.

This Spring has been a very exciting time for our newly revised IMS 2.0.  Please make sure that you have read about our IMS 2.0 changes that we have been making for next year.  Here are a few highlights to keep in mind: