When you use the Online or Mixed formats for assessments, you can record audio of the student's assessment so that you can review student performance or identify areas for improvement later. For Online assessments, audio is recorded at the student's computer, while for Mixed-format assessments, it is recorded at the teacher's computer.
Make sure that the web browser that you use for the assessment allows access to the microphone and allows recording; see the help included with your web browser for details. Depending on those settings, students or teachers may be asked for permission to use the microphone each time you record audio; they may also be asked to choose the microphone to use. You may also need to check your operating system settings. Note: If you are using Safari, version 14.02 or higher is required.
You are in control of when students are recorded and what happens to those recordings:
- The Star CBM - Audio Recordings preference lets the district-level administrator decide whether to allow the recording of audio, and if so, how long to retain audio files after the recording (2 years, 1 year, 6 months, or 90 days). Each school can have its own settings; district administrators set the preference.
- For individual students, the Star CBM - Record Audio preference lets teachers or administrators choose whether individual students may be recorded during assessments. District administrators, school administrators, or teachers may set this preference (teachers may only set the preference for students in their own class). Note: If the district Star CBM - Audio Recordings preference does not allow recording, it overrules the setting of the student preference.
- When you select the Online or Mixed format for an assessment, you choose whether to record audio by checking a box under the assessment format.
- When you view the details for an assessment that has recorded audio available, you will see the audio controls below the drop-down lists as shown below. You can click the play button to listen to a recording, or select the icon to remove a recording that you no longer want to keep. (Deleted recordings cannot be recovered.) Audio controls vary depending on your browser.
Things to Note:
- After you finish an assessment in which audio was recorded, you need to wait for audio processing to finish before you can select Done. This ensures the audio is saved. Audio processing generally happens fairly quickly; if processing takes longer than expected, you will see a message asking if you'd like to save the assessment results without the audio. For Online assessments, students must wait for audio to be uploaded before selecting Finish.
- If you change the settings of the Star CBM - Audio Recordings preference or the Star CBM - Record Audio preference, your changes apply only to recordings made after the setting change. For example, if the district administrator initially chose to keep audio recordings for 2 years, and later changed the setting to 1 year, any recordings made before the change would still be kept for 2 years, while new recordings would be kept for 1 year. Regardless of the preference settings, you can remove individual audio recordings as described above.
- If you are recording from an iOS device, you may need to turn Siri® off and on again in order for assessment audio recording to work.
Do you have questions about student privacy? See the Renaissance Privacy Hub for more information and for a link to the Renaissance privacy policy.