Version 1.2, Milestone 7
Download
in pdfDownload
in pdf Release Notes, By Vivie Sinou, Etudes,
Inc.
Friday, November 26, 2009 10:30 PM
New Feature
Enhancement
Fix
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Move "Assessments" action link to first
place in menu bar |
Authoring pools is not a prerequisite to
publishing assessments; thus, "Question Pools" is now moved to second place
on the menu bar. Assessments, where you land, is listed first.
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Rename tool label from TT&S to "Assignments,
Tests and Surveys" (AT&S) |
As there will no longer be two tools
overlapping in functionality, TT&S has been renamed "Assignments, Tests and
Surveys" (AT&S). This is an intuitive label for students to find quickly
where they have to go to submit assignments, take tests or complete surveys.
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Add ability to author and add questions to
assessments from the Assessments view
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Instructors can now author questions
on-the-fly when adding assignments, tests or surveys under Assessments, by
clicking on 'Add' questions. No need to author questions in pools first.
Note that the ability to select questions from existing pools or to draw questions randomly from pools has been preserved. You now have a third option: to author / add questions. |
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Auto-pool for assessments
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When you author questions for brand new assignments, tests or surveys from the assessment view, AT&S creates a pool for you, automatically, and places them there. The title of the auto-pool is the same as the title of your assessment. |
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Default question type selected based on assessment type | When you click on "Add" to author a new
question in your assessments, depending on what assessment you are working
with, AT&S will present you with default choices that hopefully will make
your workflow more efficient.
Upon clicking "Add another" question, AT&S knows what you authored just prior to it, and will present you with the same question type. You may change a question type at any time. |
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Combine "Manual" and "Draw" assessment parts
into a single "Hybrid" part
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Previously, instructors could have two parts
in assessments: a) manual (where you picked specific questions from pools)
or b) draw (where you selected a number of questions in one or more pools to
be presented randomly to students). In AT&S, you may author new, pick
manually specific questions from your pools, and have random draws from one
or more pools - all in one part.
In the below example, I am asking AT&S to draw randomly 5 questions from two different pools and to present all students with two specific questions. Also, note that you can tell AT&S the order (see drop-down digits) that you want the draws and specific questions to be presented to students.
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Allow changing the point value of questions
for a specific assessment |
If you have authored questions in pools and
you have assigned them point values, when you use these questions in your
assessments, the point values from your pools are assigned to the questions
by default.
However, in AT&S, you can now set or change the point value of questions for a specific assessment, overriding the point value you had set originally in pools! Note that the fields in the "Points" column for questions OR draws are editable. As long as your assessment is not published / locked to changes, you can change the points for your questions.
Questions may have different point values in the various assessments where they are used. If you override point values in questions or draws and change your mind and delete them, the default points from the pools will auto-populate the points field of the questions or draws. |
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Allow modifications of questions in Edit Assessment if not locked | Notice that questions under Edit Assessment
are now hot links, like in Question Pools. You may now click on a question
and make modifications without having to find it under pools. The changes
that you make will propagate automatically in its pool, and in all other
assessments where the question is used (if these assessments are not
locked).
Important Note: To make changes to questions in assessments, it must not be locked / published. Until locking is relaxed (in a future release), please be sure to ALWAYS preview your assessments closely (i.e. use the preview assessment option or test drive) prior to publishing. |
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Add ability to move one or move questions
(in bulk) from one part to another |
You may check individual questions and / or
draws and choose to move them into another part. It could be that you
designed an assessment without thinking in terms of 'parts' but later wish
to group the questions into distinct parts by topic, chapter, difficulty,
objective versus essays, etc.
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Combine question type selection and editing into a single view | Previously, when you authored questions, it
was a two step process. First, you had to choose the question type, and then
you were taken to a view to author it. These two views are now combined into
one.
When you click on Add a question (under Assessments OR in Question Pools), you get to choose a question type and author it right there. The second half of the screen is populated with the fields for you to author / add it.
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Ability to change question type | You may now change a question type (see radio
buttons in above screen shot).
Please be careful when using this feature as you will lose details from components of an authored question if the new question type does not have the same components (i.e. when changing a m/c question to essay, the feedback, hints will be preserved but the 'choices' will be lost, as essay questions don't have choices). |
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Introduce "Edit Instructions" view | Allows instructors to add instructions for the
assessment and parts.
You get ONE convenient view to add instructions for the assessment and its parts, if needed.
and so on... NOTE: If you have 1-question assessments (i.e. assignments) where there is no need for part instructions, just leave that field blank. No mention of parts will be made in delivery / student view, as a result. |
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Offer ability to add / select / or draw questions and add them to existing or new parts | When you author, select, or draw questions to
add to an assessment, you can choose in WHICH part to put them in at the
same time.
You don't have to use this feature if you don't want. It's a choice that allows you to group your questions into parts as you author or select them. You can keep clicking Add, Select, Draw, or Add Another, WITHOUT changing the "For Part" selection. By default all questions will be added to Part 1 (pre-created and selected for you). |
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Offer "Manage Parts" view | If you like to group your assessments into
parts, you now have a view where you can order parts, title them, or even
remove them. To access the "Manage Parts" view, click on its link just below
your assessment title.
Here is a sample "Manage Parts" view:
Under Manage Parts, you can see how many points each part is worth and how many questions it has. Additionally, you can (re)order the parts, you can edit / add titles for your parts, and you can delete them. You may leave part titles blank. If you do so, they will be simply listed as Part 1, Part 2, etc. in delivery / student view. If you delete a part, the part and its questions will be removed from your assessment! This is not a 'deep' delete. The questions still exist in your pools and you can select them again if you deleted a part in error. Under the new "Manage Parts" view, AT&S now allows you to shuffle questions within a part. In the above example, I have chosen to shuffle the components of part 1, whereas in the second part, I want my essays to be presented to students as authored. If shuffle is not checked, then part details come in their order. |
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Preserve as-authored order for "draw" details in assessment parts | In the old "draw parts", they were made up of
one or more "draws" from pools. If there were multiple draws, the order of
these draws was not preserved. The part was always shuffled, so the order
was not very important. When editing, the order was always shown sorted by
the # questions selected (for no really good reason). With our new "hybrid" parts, that have the option to be shuffled or not, order is important. Part detail order, for both picks and draws, is preserved. For existing data, the old "by # questions drawn" order is initially preserved, until changed by further editing. This is important because the "random" sequence used to draw from parts is dependent on the order, and for assessments with existing submissions, should not be changed with this feature (else submissions would have a different set of questions than what would be expected under the new data structure for the assessment). |
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Add attachment widget to essay and task questions | Added attachments widget below the essay and
task question text boxes. This allows instructors to attach supportive
documents to assignments and essay or task exam questions quickly. There is
no limit in number of attachments.
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Alert instructors of "locking" behavior upon test publication | Upon clicking on "Publish" to lock an assessment and make it available to students, AT&S now alerts instructors of the impact of publishing - that the assessment is locked to question editing and point modifications. |
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Make [Access key + S] correspond to a "Save" action | Access key support for "Save" has been added
to make it convenient for instructors to save often, using combo keys.
[Access Key + s] will now "Save" your work across AT&S.
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Add "Done" and "Save" at the top of several views | "Done" and "Save" buttons have been added on
several screens throughout AT&S to make it convenient for users to complete
actions or save their work, without having to scroll all the way to the
bottom of the views.
Access key support (keyboard short-cuts) is available for "Done" and "Save" everywhere they are used. Save = [Access Key + s] Done = [Access Key + d] |
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Highlight invalid questions in assessments |
To aid instructors in spotting bad questions,
an 'invalid' icon is shown next to invalid questions. Instructors can then
click on the question to fix it. Instructors cannot publish assessments that
have invalid questions. If you don't have time to fix an invalid question,
you may remove it prior to publishing. Likewise, parts that have no questions are invalid. You will be prompted by AT&S that a part has no questions. You have a choice to remove blank parts (under Manage Parts) or add questions to them. You cannot publish an assessment until invalid parts are fixed. |
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Remove system instructions for strict or flexible order in 1-question assignments | If an assessment is of "Assignment" type or it consists of only one question, AT&S no longer shows 'flexible' or 'strict' order system instructions in delivery. The "strict" order option is only available in tests and surveys. If an assignment has more than one question, by default, flexible order is allowed. No system instructions are shown. |
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Remove question # in 1-question assessments | If an assessment has only one question (i.e.
assignment), there is no numbering in delivery.
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Remove TOC in 1-question assessments | The Table of Contents and Next and Previous buttons have been removed completely (not just grayed out) from delivery / student view for 1-question assessments, as they are not relevant nor necessary. |
