How do I get to this page?
- Log in to Renaissance.
- On the Home page:
- Renaissance Next: Select Star under “My Apps” in the left-hand sidebar; then select Star Custom in the sidebar.
- Legacy Mode: Select Star Custom.
- In the header of the Assessment Progress page, select Plan Instruction.
- On the Plans page, select New Plan.
- On the New Assessment Plan Setup page, select the students, subject, and week for your plan and give it a name, and then select Start Planning.
- On the Select Skills page, select the skills you want to be included in the assessment, and then select Next: Find Resources.
- At the bottom of the Choose Your Assessments page, select Create your own.
- On the Assessment Details page, enter a title and description of your assessment and select additional options; then, select Continue.
- On the Find and Select Assessment Items page, select either multiple choice or constructed response under the list of items on the right side of the page.
Who can do this with default user permissions?
District Level Administrators, District Staff, School Level Administrators, School Staff, Teachers
Creating a new assessment item is a five-part process:
- Enter information about the item
- Download a template
- Use the template to design the item and then upload the completed template
- Preview the item
- Create the item, making it available for use in Star Custom assessments
- After you select either multiple choice or constructed response (during the assessment creation process), a window will open that contains all the steps necessary for creating an assessment item. (The examples shown here are for a multiple-choice item.)
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Enter a title and a description for the assessment item . This information will make it easier for you and others to find this item and decide whether to include it in an assessment. You can also add comments below the description.
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Creating an assessment item is a substep of creating an assessment, which is itself a substep of planning and scheduling an assessment. As a result, two of the details from the initial page have been carried over to this one:
- Grade : the grade level you are choosing skills from
- Skills Selected : the skills you wanted to have measured by the assessment
You can remove grades or skills by removing the check marks next to them; however, you cannot add grades or skills on this page. There must be at least 1 grade and 1 skill selected in order to create an assessment item. Removing grades or skills will only affect the assessment item you are creating; it will have no effect on the assessment you were creating before you got to this page.
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Enter the minimum and maximum number of points the item should be worth —items must be worth at least 1 point and can be worth up to 100 points.
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Choose whether to make the item available to everyone in your school district, everyone in your school, or just yourself . If the item is only available to you, other users will not be able to find it when searching for assessment items.
The options will differ based on your user type:
- District level administrators and district staff can make an item available to everyone in the district, everyone in the selected school (the one selected in earlier), or only to themselves.
- School level administrators, school staff, and teachers can make an item available to everyone in their school, or only to themselves.
If you make an item available only to yourself, but you include it in an assessment that is available to others, the item will be included in the assessment when others use it.
The ability to share created content (at both the school and district levels) can be changed by managing user permissions in Renaissance.
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Depending on the item's content, you may want to make certain on-screen tools available to students. You can include a calculator (either standard or scientific), a ruler (measuring in inches or centimeters), a protractor, and a periodic table of the elements . By default, none of the tools are selected; add whichever you think students will need to answer the item correctly.
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Select Download Multiple Choice Item Template or Download Constructed Response Template to download a template (a .zip file with a Microsoft® Word .docx file in it) for the item you are creating. To create an assessment item, you need to use a version of Word that can open, edit, and save .docx files.
Files created or edited in the online version of Word are not compatible.
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Once you have downloaded the template, open it. You may need to select Enable Editing in order to work with the template:
Instructions for filling out the template are included on the first page of the template. Follow the instructions and fill out the template, then save it.
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Upload the completed template, either by dragging it to the Upload Template section of the window , or selecting the upload from your computer link in that section, navigating to the location of your saved file on your computer, selecting the file, and then selecting Open.
If you have included audio files (.mp3) or graphic files (.png [and .svg if available]) in the item, you must upload them here as well.
When uploading multiple files, select the template as the Primary:
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Once the template and any associated files have been uploaded, select Preview Item to see how the item will look to a student when it is part of an assessment. If you're not satisfied with how it looks, you can close the preview, edit and re-upload the template, and then preview the item again.
If the file preview does not work, you will see an error message.
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Once you are satisfied with the item, select Create Assessment Item . There will be a brief pause while your work is saved, after which you will see an "in progress" message (tests and items will be published overnight). Select OK .
If you are not ready to save the item, select Cancel instead . None of the work you have done in this window will be saved; however, any templates you have downloaded and saved will remain on your computer.