More flexibility around Assessment Updates and Versioning
Hi Axcelerate Team,
Thanks for the ability to publicly post in this forum to suggest changes.
We are new to Axcelerate and coming from other systems, I'm finding that my biggest frustration is how difficult it is to make a simple change to an assessment and instantly have it replicated to all (current) students.
While the "Edit Override" feature is great for some very small tweaks to questions, as soon as any further changes are required, it involves a lot of manual manipulation across different classes which turns into a project taking hours.
I see as well that Mark Costello (replied by Mark Gilmore) posted 2 days ago about the load times (and minimal loaded sections) for Bulk Assessment updates. When updating all students at a time (say in my case, 100-500+ students), a simple change could take hours to complete + involve logging in as students to check on their progress (if they have really progressed or just looked at the assignment).
To compare products, if I was to use a wordpress plugin such as WatuPro or LearnDash, if I wanted to add a new question live or change an incorrect question or answer, I could simply do a live edit and then all students would be instantly updated. This wouldn't effect any versioning for students who had already completed.
Current restrictions at the moment mean that if I'm to change a version from 1.0 to 1.1, and still have current "In Progress" students on version 1.0 that is now archived, I can no longer update or even "edit override" that old version.
The last thing I'd want to do is to delete a big assessment that a student has already started or request the student to repeat all of their work just because I've had to update 1 incorrect question on a large assessment.
For the record as well, there are many reasons I'd need to often update an assignment including updates in our industry that might change a correct answer.
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In the class Matrix as well on any bulk updates (for Assessments), it's very hard to filter and see what version is current. It's possible that this issue may already be in development. See below for a highlighted suggestion of how to add in Version Numbers to make it easier for the Administrator to ensure the correct update is assigned.
Looking forward to hopefully providing more insight into this area to allow more flexibility to update
In an ideal situation to match what Axcelerate already has, it would be great to transition a student from Version 1.0 to Version 1.1 and have any answers already completed pushed through to the new version (where no change to that question has occurred).
Regards,
Philip Sherriff.
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I can see a benefit in having assessments updated across all students including those that have yet to commence. We have students enrolling sometimes months in advance, they get their assessments loaded into their profile but aren’t updated automatically by new versions. I can see issues updating “commenced” assessments but would like to see all student assessments gain the latest version unless they have actually commenced the assessment.
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This is an excellent idea. I have the same problem where minor tweaks to assessment via version change don't automatically flow across to learners who are enrolled but not yet started. Changing multiple large classes over to new versions of the assessments is a time consuming task so an option to automatically release a new version to learners would be a great initiative.
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Hi Philip
This is a really detailed and thorough suggestion. Awesome!
Assessment Versioning is still a relatively new feature, so we're still gathering as much feedback as we can. I've sent it through to the product team for review.
I can tell you that we already have a task scheduled to display the Assessment Version on the Class Matrix, which I'm hoping will come through in the next couple of months.
As always, keep an eye on the release notes to be notified of all of our new features!
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We need a quick way to fix any incorrect questions in assessments for a current class. E.g. an incorrect MC quiz question option, that a simple edit-override won't allow.
Reversioning will only roll-out if no student in the class has attempted the quiz already.The other option, creating a new quiz and cancelling and enrolling students (after checking if they're in progress/completed/not started for the old quiz first), is too messy.
I understand the need for data integrity within the class, but if version commenting was made mandatory, would that suffice?
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Agree Kath and the main focus of compliance should be ensuring that the correct quiz is maintained ahead of the version number and having to cancel and re-enrol students into assessments.
Ideally a versioning number could be auto created & tracked for making changes.
Eg.
- Version 1.0 of an assessment is launched.
- Several classes are enrolled in this assessment over time.
- Student A completed this quiz on Version 1.0
- Admin/Teacher goes in and updates incorrect multiple choice answer to correct the mistake and then the quiz automatically becomes Version 1.1
- Student B completes quiz on Version 1.1 (without needing to be cancelled and re-enrolled).
If the admin wanted to do a complete new version requiring cancellations and re-enrolments, they could just make a completely new assessment under a different name.
Kind Regards, Phil.
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Yes Phil, that is an excellent approach above - I hope the ax development team take your suggestion on.
In a perfect world, there would never be any human error, but we don't live in that world.
By in effect forcing admins to 'hack' a way around this issue leaves a lot more room for additional human error.
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Hi. I have addressed this concern over the phone yesterday as well. It is very frustrating that if one student has commenced a course, then a new course has to be created to give the new version to all students including those that enrol after the version change.
Unfortunately after testing, even minor layouts to questions; changes to 'fill in the blank' response and trainer notes requires a version change and new class.
This is even more frustrating for RTOs that deliver online only - students are enrolling on an adhoc basis. It is very time consuming to create a new class, transfer students and update the online enrolment links. This is what I had to do yesterday for three classes. I echo the comment that it would be nice to think we don't make minor mistakes when creating assessments (layout, spelling, references etc) that do not affect the actual assessment itself - however we are human and these mistakes happen.
Sadly, changes are being made that suit classroom and set enrolment dates that then change the way online enrolment dates work.
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