Cengage Explore™ Product Updates

What's New in Explore?

Explore is always evolving. We regularly make updates to improve the experience for teachers, students, and administrators. Below are highlights from recent Explore platform releases, with new improvements added as they become available. 

Along with the platform enhancements highlighted here, we regularly make updates to individual titles, including content improvements and corrections. Those title-level updates may not be reflected in detail on this page. 

Jump to:  September 22 | September 17 | September 8 | September 3 | August 24 | July 7 

September 17, 2026

Easier content discovery

Finding and adding activities in the Content Bank is now simpler, with cleaner search results, easier filter management, and a consistent + Add action.

What this improves: A more intuitive, consistent path for teachers to discover and add activities to their courses.

Assignment launch and content access

We've made improvements to the assignment experience to help students and teachers more reliably launch, open, and access assignments and content.

What this improves: Smoother access to classroom activities and fewer interruptions when launching and working with Explore content. 

Activity experience and functionality

Several updates improve how activities work across common teacher and student workflows, including answer-key visibility, printing options, student file uploads, and activity editing. 

What this improves: A more consistent activity experience and more reliable access to the tools teachers and students need. 

Gradebook improvements

Updates improve Gradebook color-coding and visual presentation, making grades easier to read and understand at a glance.

What this improves: A cleaner, more consistent view of student performance.

Platform speed, security, and reliability

Behind-the-scenes improvements strengthen content loading, platform performance, security, and browser behavior. 

What this improves: Supports a faster, more secure, and more reliable Explore experience.

September 8, 2026

Student assignment review and feedback

We’ve made it easier for students to review submitted work and understand teacher feedback.

• Students in grades 6–12 can view teacher comments together in one place when reviewing an assignment attempt.

• The attempt review experience has been streamlined to focus on results, submission status, and key attempt information.

What this improves: A clearer, less distracting way for students to review their work, results, and teacher feedback.

Clearer diagnostic assessment experience

Available in Math & YOU Grades 3–Algebra 2. 

Improvements to the Diagnostic Adaptive Progression (DAP) experience more clearly distinguish these diagnostic assessments from graded coursework. Completed assessments display “Done” instead of a numeric Gradebook score, and grade-editing options are removed for DAP activities.

What this improves: Reinforces the diagnostic purpose of DAP and helps prevent unintended changes to diagnostic results.

Easier access to standards

Standards now open in a dedicated panel within Activity View, making standards information easier to access and review while working with an activity.

Clearer LockDown Browser guidance

Improved messages give users clearer next steps when Respondus LockDown Browser needs to be updated or cannot launch.

What this improves: Helps reduce confusion and makes it easier to resolve issues when accessing secured assessments.

Additional experience and accessibility improvements

This release also includes fixes supporting search and filtering, assignment displays, activity layouts, accessibility, and other common Explore workflows.

September 3, 2026

Administrator reporting

Eligible school and district administrators can access Activity Performance and Standards Performance reports through the Cengage School portal. District administrators can review information across schools in their district, while school administrators can access information for their assigned schools.

What this improves: Gives administrators broader visibility into student performance and helps them identify strengths, gaps, and instructional priorities across their organization.

Administrator reporting is not available for districts accessing Explore through an LMS.  

District standards configuration

District administrators can configure which State Standards are available to teachers for eligible Explore titles, including keeping multiple standards sets active.

What this improves: Gives districts greater control over standards alignment while creating a more focused and consistent experience for teachers.

AI settings for LMS districts

Districts that access Explore through an LMS can now use the Cengage School portal to manage supported AI settings. This setting currently applies to Content Studio in National Geographic Learning World Cultures and Geography. 

What this improves: Expands district-level administrative control over how supported AI functionality is used in Explore.

Platform reliability

Behind-the-scenes platform improvements. 

What this improves: Helps reduce interruptions and supports a more reliable experience for users.

Recent visual updates to the Cengage School portal also more closely align it with Explore, creating a more consistent experience as administrators access Explore settings and reporting.

August 24, 2026

More flexible Gradebook tools

We’ve made several improvements to help teachers more easily organize and work with Gradebook information. 

Teachers can sort assignments, filter students by course groups, switch between points and percentages, and export Gradebook data. The Student Attempt Overview also brings a student's activity history, attempts, scores, dates, and grading information together in one place. 

Teachers can also delete completed assessment attempts when needed. 

What this improves: Makes it easier to find and understand student performance information and gives teachers more flexibility to manage student attempts in real classroom situations.

Diagnostic Adaptive Progression reporting

Available in Math & YOU Grades 3–Algebra 2.

Teachers can use a dedicated DAP Report to review overall diagnostic performance, performance by domain and topic, and individual student results. 

What this improves: Helps teachers identify learning gaps and use diagnostic results to target instruction based on student needs.

DAP and Self-Assessment activity experience

Available in titles that include DAP and/or Self-Assessment activities.

Improvements to assignment settings and activity displays create a more consistent, completion-focused experience for these activity types. 

What this improves: Better aligns the Explore experience with the purpose of diagnostic and self-assessment activities and reduces confusion around scores and completion.

Navigation and mobile experience

Students can now click anywhere on a folder row to open it, and key activity tools are consolidated into a single Action menu on mobile devices. 

What this improves: Easier course navigation and a cleaner activity experience on smaller screens.

Accessibility and platform reliability

Additional improvements address assignment display and dates, Gradebook behavior, responsive layouts, screen-reader support, navigation, course launching, and overall platform stability. 

What this improves: Supports a more reliable, accessible, and consistent experience across common Explore workflows.

July 7, 2026

More efficient assignment management

Teachers can update dates for multiple activities at once, reducing repetitive setup when adjusting pacing or managing multiple assignments. 

Teachers can also set an Unavailable Date to control when an activity stops accepting submissions. 

What this improves: Gives teachers more flexibility to manage activity timing and availability while reducing repetitive work.

Student-level accommodations

Teachers can set individualized assignment dates and attempt limits for individual students. 

What this improves: Gives teachers more flexibility to support individual student needs directly within Explore.

Secure assessment options

Explore supports Respondus LockDown Browser for supported assessments. When enabled, LockDown Browser restricts access to other websites, applications, and tools during an assessment. 

What this improves: Gives teachers and districts an additional option for supporting secure assessment experiences.

Faster content management

Improvements to the Explore Content Page support faster load times and responsiveness as teachers browse, filter, organize, and assign content. 

What this improves: A smoother experience across common content-management workflows.

Content Studio experience improvements

Available in titles that include Content Studio. 

Improvements to Content Studio make the experience more responsive across devices, simplify editing and controls, and improve the speed and reliability of content adaptations. 

What this improves: Makes it easier for teachers to adapt supported Cengage content for their students within their Explore workflow.

Gradebook, accessibility, and platform reliability

Additional improvements address Gradebook loading and display, accessibility, page load times, roster handling, and overall platform stability. 

What this improves: Supports smoother day-to-day workflows and a more reliable and accessible Explore experience.