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Entering Assessment Details and Finding Assessment Items

  • Updated

How do I get to this page?

  1. Log in to Renaissance.
  2. 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.
  3. In the header of the Assessment Progress page, select Create/Edit Assessment.
  4. On the Assessments page, select Create Assessment.
  5. On the Assessment Details page, select a subject and then select Continue.

    The subject selection options; the Continue button is at the bottom.

You will also arrive on this page when you are editing a draft assessment (the title of the page will be "View/Edit Assessments") or viewing a published assessment (the title of the page will be "View Assessments"; you will not be able to make any changes to a published assessment).

Who can create assessments with default user permissions?

  • District Level Administrators/District Staff: for any class or school in the district
  • School Level Administrators/School Staff: for any class in their own school
  • Teachers: for any of their own classes

The Create Assessment page has several sections you will work in:

A zoomed-out view of the Create Assessment page, showing all three sections described in the text.

A The "Assessment Details" section at the top of the page where you will enter additional information about the assessment you are creating.

B The "Find Items" section on the lower-left where you will search for items to add to your assessment.

C The "Items on the assessment" section on the lower-right where you view and arrange the items you are adding to your assessment.

Changes are automatically saved as you make them—you will see Saving... and All Updates Saved notifications at the bottom of the page as you work.

The Saving and All Updates Saved notifications.

If you are creating a new assessment and you want to stop working on it (deleting all the work you have done on it up to that point), select Discard Test in the lower-left corner. This will completely delete the assessment you are creating and cannot be undone.

The Discard Test button.

    1. On the left side of the "Assessment Details" section (A), enter a unique name for the assessment in the Name field.

      The Name field.

      If you do not give the assessment a name, it will be listed as "Untitled" on the Assessments page. You can only have one untitled assessment at a time, and an untitled assessment cannot be shared (see the next step).

      Directly above where you enter the name of the assessment you will see the subject you chose in the prior step. If you selected Science, the subject shown here will be Reading (with Science items).

    2. On the right side of the "Assessment Details" section (A), the Status will be Draft. It won't change to Published until you have finished creating the assessment and published it.

      By default, new assessments aren't shared. To change the sharing status, select Edit Sharing.

      The Share Assessment pop-up window. The Cancel and Apply buttons are at the bottom.
      In the pop-up window, select whom to share the assessment with; then, select Apply.

      The share options you see are based off the settings of the "Share Created Content School-wide" and "Share Created Content District-wide" user permissions.

      • Just me means you are the only person who can view, clone, or assign the assessment.
      • Everyone in my school means that administrators, staff, and teachers who are assigned to the same school as you can view, clone, and assign the assessment.

        If you make this selection and you have access to more than one school, use the drop-down list to choose which school you want to share the assessment with.

        The Share Assessment pop-up window, with a single school selected.

      • Everyone in my district means that any administrators, staff, and teachers in your district can view, clone, and assign the assessment.
    3. In the "Find Items" section (B), choose the method you want to use to find items to include in the assessment. The default is by Standard; select Domain if you want to search by domain.
      The Standard and Domain links.

      The Standards or Domains used are based on the Learning Standards used throughout the district.

      If you chose Science as the subject in the prior step, neither of these options will be shown; see "Searching for science items" in step 4.

    4. Follow the instructions for the method you have chosen:

      Searching for reading or math items by standard

      Note: Standards in a learning progression are typically updated once a year. This will have different effects on draft and published assessments:

      • If items in a draft assessment are aligned to a standard that is updated, the entire draft assessment will be deleted.
      • If items in a published assessment are aligned to a standard that is updated, the assessment will remain published and can still be assigned to students; however, the assessment will use the learning standards set for your district instead of the original learning progression. Skills from the district's learning standards are mapped to the skills and standards from the original learning progression.
      1. When you choose to search by standard, two drop-down lists will appear. Use them to select a standard code for the subject and then check the skills (both focus skills and non-focus skills) you want to be represented in the assessment.

        A domain has been selected on the left; a list of related skills (focus and non-focus) is shown on the right.
      2. Click outside the second drop-down list to close it.
      3. Previews of items matching the code will appear below. Select the expand icon on an item to open a larger preview of it. If the list of items is long, use the above to navigate through it.

        A list of items that match the chosen domain and skills. Each item has an Add button below it.
      4. If you want to refine the list of search results further, select the filter icon . In the pop-up window, use the drop-down lists to select an item source and an item type to filter by, then select Apply. The list of items found will update based on your selections.

        The two filter lists (sources and types).

      Searching for reading or math items by domain

      1. When you choose to search by domain, three drop-down lists will appear. Use them to select a domain in the chosen subject, then a grade the skills should be targeted to, and then the skills (both focus and non-focus).

        When selecting skills, check the ones you want to include in the search results; uncheck the skills you don't want.

        A selection flow: the chosen standard leads to choosing a grade, which leads to choosing skills (focus and non-focus).
      2. Once you have made your selections, click outside the third drop-down list to close it, and then select the search icon .
      3. Previews of items matching the code will appear below the search field. Select the expand icon on an item to open a larger preview of it. If the list of items is long, use the above to navigate through it.

        A list of items that match the chosen standard, grade, and skills. Each item has an Add button below it.
      4. If you want to refine the list of search results further, select the filter icon . In the pop-up window, use the drop-down lists to select an item source and an item type to filter by, then select Apply. The list of items found will update based on your selections.

        The two filter lists (sources and types).

      Searching for science items

      1. If you chose Science as the subject in the prior step, three drop-down lists will appear. Use them to select a grade the science items should be targeted to, then the standard they should correlate with, and then the skills.

        When selecting skills, check the ones you want to include in the search results; uncheck the skills you don't want.

        A selection flow: the chosen grade, which leads to choosing skill areas, which leads to finding skills.
      2. Once you have made your selections, click outside the third drop-down list to close it, and then select the search icon .
      3. Previews of items matching your choices will appear below the search field. Select the expand icon on an item    to open a larger preview of it. If the list of items is long, use the above to navigate through it.

        A list of items that match the chosen grade, skill area, and skills. Each item has an Add button below it.
      4. If you want to refine the list of search results further, select the filter icon . In the pop-up window, use the drop-down lists to select an item source and an item type to filter by, then select Apply. The list of items found will update based on your selections.

        The two filter lists (sources and types).
    5. Once you have found items to add to your assessment, select Add in the lower-right corner of the item to add it. The button will change to a green checkmark, and the item will appear in the "Items on the assessment" section (C).

      An item has been selected and added to Items on the assessment on the right.

      An assessment can have a maximum of 100 items.

      As you add items to the assessment, the "Selected" information (in the "Assessment Details" section (A) will update. You can select Item Summary on the right to see a summary of the items you have added so far. (Standards and skills will not be shown for items that were created by you or other users.)

      The cursor is hovering over the Item Summary link; the summary is open in a pop-up window.

      You can also see a running total of the number of items you have at the bottom of the page:

      The item count (8).

      Once you've reached the maximum number of items (100), a notification will appear:

      The message reads: Item Count 100. Maximum number of items reached.

    6. The default view of items you have added to the assessment is Reorder, which makes it easier for you to rearrange the items and remove them if you wish.

      The controls shown on three items: arrows for sorting on the left, Xs for deleting items on the right.

      New items are added at the bottom of the order. Select the up and down arrows on the left side of an item to move it up or down (by 1) in the order it will appear in the assessment, or use the three-dot icon to move an icon directly to the top or bottom. The numbers assigned to the items will automatically update after you move them.

      Select the in the upper-right corner of an item to remove it from the assessment.
    7. To see the preview versions of the items in the assessment, select Preview in the upper-right corner (select Reorder to return to the view where you can rearrange items). As on the "Find Items" section of the page (B), you can select the expand icon on an item to open a larger preview of it.

      A preview of an assessment item.
    8. When you are satisfied with the assessment and you are ready to publish it, select Publish.

      The Publish button.

      Select Publish Now in the confirmation message to publish the assessment. This will put the assessment in the Published Assessments table on the Assessments page. Note: It may take a short while to publish an assessment; "Publishing..." will appear in the Actions column until publication is complete.

      The Publish Now button.

      If you need to stop creating the assessment but you want to continue working on it later, select Leave & Finish Later at the bottom of the page.

      The Leave and Finish Later button.

      This will put the assessment in the Draft Assessments table on the Assessments page; select Edit in the row for the assessment (or select the name of the assessment itself) to return to this page so you can continue developing it.

If you have published the assessment and you are ready to assign it to students, see Creating Assessment Plans and Assigning Assessments to Students.

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