Offices looking for a way to evaluate an applicant's understanding of content as part of an application process can do so with the use of Assessments. Create new assessments or update existing ones from the Content Management section of the Admin Console. This article covers the following topics related to Assessments:

• Assessments Overview
• Creating & Editing Assessments
• Assigning Learning Content as a Prerequisite
• Applicant Perspective
• Admin Perspective

 

 

Assessments Overview

An assessment is a process element that can be assigned to a program application as a requirement for an applicant to complete. Assessments are similar to quizzes in that a series of questions appear to the applicant, and a minimum passing score can be required before the assessment is marked as complete.

Consider how your office might benefit from the following options with assessments:

• Learning content can be assigned as a prerequisite for an assessment, thus requiring an applicant to read or view specific content before an assessment in the same application can be attempted.
• An assessment can be configured as conditional, which means it would only be required of applicants who respond in a certain way. For applicants to whom the assessment does not pertain based on their response to this conditional question, the assessment would not be required. Assessments can also be marked "N/A" for an application by the admin.
• As part of the Content Management "suite" of process elements, assessments can be created and updated from this section of the Admin Console.

As you get started using assessments, keep the following feature attributes in mind:

• An assessment consists of at least two questions that function in the same way as a single-selection type question item. It is not possible to use other question item types with this feature.
• In order for learning content to be treated as a prerequisite of an assessment, the learning content must both be designated as a prerequisite in the assessment's settings and be deployed to the same application as the assessment. An applicant is only prevented from attempting an assessment if one of their prerequisites is incomplete in an application.
• Incomplete assessments are included in reminder emails to applicants. 

 

 

Creating & Editing Assessments

To create an assessment, navigate to Admin Console > Content Management > Assessments. Any existing assessments will appear with information and options organized as follows:

• Search Field: Locate assessments by name.
• Active Toggle: View assessments that have been retired or are currently active.
• Name: Listing of assessments by name alphabetically from A to Z.
• View Icon: Take a look at any deployment rules that deploy this assessment.
• Copy Icon: Make a copy of an existing assessment.
• Edit Icon: Make a change to an existing assessment.
• Prerequisites Icon: View any learning content that may have been assigned as a prerequisite for the assessment.
• Items Per Page: By default, 10 items will appear. This can be modified so that up to 50 assessments can be viewed at a time.
• Create New Assessment Icon: Click to open a new assessment builder.

To create a new assessment, follow these instructions:

Configuration Settings

Click on the "+" icon in the lower right corner of the page to open a new assessment creation modal.

You'll be presented with the following configuration settings:

• Assessment Title
  • This is the name that will display on an application.

• Active 
  • Enables the assessment for use.
  • When a process element is not "active", it is considered to be "retired". 

• Minimum Passing Score
  • Sets the lowest acceptable score that can be used in order to pass the assessment.
  • After enabling this setting, a "Minimum Score" slider bar appears from which the desired minimum score can be set. 

• Allow Multiple Attempts
  • Permits the applicant to take the assessment more than once. 
  • After enabling this setting, an "Allowed Attempts" field appears. Enter a numeric value or use the arrow bar to select the desired number of allowed attempts. 
  • After enabling this setting, a "Preferred Score" field appears. This setting determines what final score will be used after an applicant has exhausted their attempts. 
    • Latest: The most recent score will be used. 
    • Highest: The highest score will be used. This will be the default option that cannot be changed if the assessment is also configured to have a minimum passing score.
    • Average: The average of all scores attained will be used. 

Important Note: If both the "Minimum Passing Score" and "Allow Multiple Attempts" settings are enabled, then the "Preferred Score" will be set to "Highest". This cannot be changed.

• Randomize Question Order
  • Displays assessment questions in no specified order to the applicant.
  • If you want to honor the question item order that you've set in the assessment, then this setting should remain disabled.

• Limit Total Questions
  • Determines the number of assessment questions which should appear to an applicant.
  • If let blank, all available question items will appear to an applicant.

• Prerequisite Learning Content
  • Allows the admin to require that one or more learning content be read before an applicant can attempt the assessment.
  • Select the desired learning content from the "Prerequisites" drop-down menu that appears. Multiple items can be selected. In addition to being selected in this setting, the learning content must all be deployed to appear in the same program application and phase as the assessment.

• Is this a conditional submission?
  • Allows for the option to make the assessment not applicable, or "N/A", to applicants who don't select the desired response to the conditional question.
  • After this setting is enabled, the admin is prompted to enter a conditional question and select a response of "Yes" or "No". 
    • If an applicant responds to the conditional question with the selected response, then they will be presented with the assessment. If not, then they will not be presented with the assessment, and it will be marked as "N/A". 

Instructions

Use the WYSIWYG editor to create instructions that will appear to applicants when attempting the assessment. A rich-text editor offers formatting options. For offices wanting to include a video in the instructions, use the "insert media" option to embed HTML.

 

Question Text

An assessment consists of one or more questions that are created by adding the question to a text box, entering a minimum of two response options, and selecting which response is correct. Assessment questions function the same way as a single-selection question item type: one question is displayed, and the applicant must choose one response from the given selection.

Follow these steps to build an assessment question:

1. Create the desired question in the "Question Text" WYSIWYG editor. 

2. Create response options for the question. A minimum of two response options must be used. Use the "+" icon to add as many response option fields as desired.

3. After all response options have been created, select which response is the correct one. This is important as the system will determine what the correct answer should be to the question based on this action. 

4. To add another question, click the "+" icon. When all desired questions have been created, click "Update" to preserve your changes. 

Keep these tips in mind as you create your assessment:

• Use the arrow icons to change the order of response options for a question. They can also be used to rearrange the order of how questions appear in the assessment.
• The trash icon can be used to delete response options as well as entire questions. 

Edits can be made to existing learning content with the edit pencil tool.

Important Note: The cascade wizard in Content Management will only display and apply changes to rules-based app cycles. This action will not apply changes to any process map-based app cycles that might be using the Learning Content. Instead, an admin would need to click the green "Update" arrow from the applicable Learning Content menu in Process Maps > App Cycles for an update to occur.

 

 

Assigning Learning Content as a Prerequisite

It is often the case that offices want applicants to read content or view information before demonstrating what they've learned. To meet this need, it is possible to link a learning content as a prerequisite for an assessment so that when these two process elements appear in the same application, an applicant must mark the learning content as read before being able to attempt the assessment. 

There are two ways to assign a learning content to an assessment:

1. Creating a New Learning Content

After creating a new learning content, the admin can select "Add and Create Assessment". This action will immediately take the admin into a new assessment builder where they can configure the desired assessment to which the learning content will be assigned as a prerequisite. 

 

2. Using an Existing Learning Content

An admin can elect to edit an existing learning content by selecting the option of "Update and Create Assessment". This action will immediately take the admin into a new assessment builder where they can configure the desired assessment to which the learning content will be assigned as a prerequisite. 

 

 

Applicant Perspective

When an applicant creates an application for a program to which an assessment has been assigned, the assessment appears as a requirement on their application page.

If the application has also been assigned any learning content configured as a prerequisite for the assessment, then the applicant will not be able to attempt the assessment until the learning content has been viewed and marked as "read". Otherwise, any attempt will result in the following message:

 

After completing any required prerequisites, the applicant can click on the assessment title to get started. The system will display any assessment-specific instructions and note the following information on the application page:

• Whether or not the applicant has attempted the assessment.
• The number of times the applicant is allowed to take the assessment and how the score will be determined. 
• Any required minimum score.

After the applicant clicks "Start", the question items display on the application page. Once all questions have been answered, the applicant is able to click "Submit" at the end of the assessment.

The results of the assessment immediately appear to the applicant, which include:

• A "check" icon next to the correct answer for each question.
• An "X" icon next to any incorrect answer selected for each question.
• A notation of "Your response" next to the option that was selected by the applicant for each question.
• Whether or not the score received met any minimum passing score.
• The number of attempts that remain to take the assessment.

 

 

Admin Perspective

If an admin clicks on an assessment name in Application Admin Manager which has not yet been attempted by the applicant, a message will appear alerting the admin that no attempts have been made. 

After an applicant completes an assessment, the score for the assessment appears next to the assessment name in the "Requirements" tab of the application in Application Admin Manager. The date on which the assessment was completed is also populated under the "Submitted" column.

Hovering one's cursor over the assessment line item triggers the appearance of an option to mark the assessment as "N/A" or erase the responses.