Distribution Wizard

The Distribution Wizard is the five step tool that takes administrators through the process of building a distribution. The specific information entered on each step of the Distribution Wizard will depend on whether you are creating an assessment or evaluation and the distribution method you select. Below is some general information about the options on each step.

Note that a distribution will not save until all 5 steps of the wizard are complete.

Create A Distribution

  • Navigate to Admin>Assessment & Evaluation.

  • Click 'Distributions'.

  • Click 'Add New Distribution'.

  • This will open a five-step wizard that walks you through creating a distribution. The following is a high level overview of each step. The exact options on each step will depend on the type of distribution you are building. Additional details for each distribution method are included on separate pages.

Step 1 Form

On this step you define some basics like which form you are going to send out, and the relevant course and cperiod.

  • Assessment Mandatory: If this is checked off, assessors/evaluators who receive a task from this distribution will not be able to to delete it. The task will remain on their A&E task list until it expires or is deleted by a distribution administrator.

  • Disable Initial Task Email: Introduced in ME 1.26 this option allows administrative users to opt-out of having Elentra sent initial task email notifications to assessors/evaluators. (Applies on to non-delegation based distributions).

Step 2 Method

On this step you define the type of distribution you'd like to build (e.g., date-based, rotation-based).

  • Task Expiry: Check this to apply an expiry date to tasks. After the expiry date has passed, users will no longer be able to complete the task.

  • Delay Task Creation

    • This option refers to the Summary Assessment Task options supported by Elentra.

  • Other options will display depending on the type of distribution being built.

There is a database setting a developer can configure if you want to force the expiry date of certain distribution methods to always be 23:59 on a given day (assessment_tasks_expiry_end_of_day).

Step 3 Targets

On this step you define the target of the task. This could be learners, faculty, events, or courses depending on the type of distribution being used.

Step 4 Assessors/Evaluators

On this step you define the assessors or evaluators who will complete the task. This could be learners or faculty courses depending on the type of distribution being used.

Feedback Options

When completing a distribution you will notice a "Feedback Options" section in Step 4 if the assessor is set to faculty members (it will not appear when the assessor/evaluator is set to learners). If you check this off it will add an item to the form for this distribution asking both the assessor and the target whether or not they met to discuss the target's performance (see sample text below).

You might choose to use this option and add the item if you want to collect data on how often preceptors are meeting with learners.

In effect, this tool adds two items to a form. The first item will appear as above for the assessor to complete. Once the form is completed it will be stored in the learner's "Tasks Completed On Me" tab. The learner can access the form from there, and the learner will also receive an email notification that they can take action on the form.

The form is available for the learner to complete and answer the same question from their perspective. The comment box is available for learners to record any additional details.

Currently there is no reporting tool to compare learner and assessor responses, although they can be viewed on any completed forms. There is also no visual cue to an admin user that the response from the learner is pending; if there is no learner response displaying it means the learner hasn't answered the question.

Step 5 Results

On Step 5 you can immediately save your work, or make some adjustments to the distribution options.

Authorship

This allows you to add individual authors, or set a course or organization as the author. This may be useful if you have multiple users who manage distributions or frequent staffing changes. Adding someone as an author will allow them to more quickly access the distribution from their distribution list.

  • Distributions are automatically accessible to all users with staff:admin group and role permissions.

  • Adding a course permission will make the distribution show, without filters applied, to program coordinators and faculty directors associated with the course.

  • Adding an org. permission will make the distribution accessible to anyone with administrative access to Assessment & Evaluation. (Note that most users will need to apply filters to access the distribution.)

Target Release

  • Task List Release

    • This section lets you decide whether and how to allow targets of tasks to view tasks completed on them.

    • "Targets can view tasks completed on them after meeting the following criteria" can be used to motivate learners to complete their assigned tasks. Learners will only see tasks completed on them after they have completed the minimum percentage of their tasks set by you.

  • Target Self-Reporting Release

    • This controls whether targets can run reports on themselves for this distribution.

    • If given access, users will be able to generate an aggregated report of all responses on tasks in a distribution from their A+E badge and the My Reports button.

    • "Targets can view reports for tasks completed on them after meeting the following criteria" can be used to motivate learners to complete their own assigned tasks before seeing the results of tasks completed on them. Targets will only be able to run reports on themselves after they have completed the minimum percentage of their tasks set by you.

The "Targets can view tasks/reports after meeting the following creiteria" options are typically used for peer assessments. In the example above, if a learner were working with several peers in a small group and they were required to assess each other, the learner would have to complete 75% of their assigned peer assessments before they would be able to view the feedback provided to them by their peers.

Please note that these settings are specific to a single distribution only. This tool does not require users to have completed a percentage of tasks across all distributions.

Target Self-Reporting Options

This controls whether users can view the names of their assessors when reviewing comments left on completed tasks.

If you have set your distribution to release individual tasks, targets will be able to view individual results and the names of assessors, so the option to make comments anonymous makes the most sense when you are never going to release individual assessments, but are allowing self-reporting.

Reviewers

This allows you to set up a reviewer to view completed tasks before they are released to the target (e.g. a staff person might review peer feedback before it is shared with the learner).

  • Check off the box to enable a reviewer.

  • Click Browse Reviewers and select a name from the list. Note that this list will be generated based on the course contacts (e.g. director, curriculum coordinator) stored on the course setup page.

Notifications and Reminders

  • Prompted Responses: This allows you to define whom to send an email to whenever a prompted response is selected on a form used in the distribution. For example, if you have an item asking about student completion of a procedure and "I had to do it" was set as a prompted/flagged response, any time "I had to do it" is picked as an answer an email notification will be sent.

    • You can optionally select to email Program Coordinators, Program/Course Directors, Academic Advisors, Curricular Coordinators, or you can add a Custom Reviewer. If you select to add a Custom Reviewer you can select their name from a searchable list of users.

  • Sender Details: Define the email address that notifications and reminders will be sent from for a distribution.

    • Options are the distribution author, an existing user, an existing generic email, or a new generic email.

    • To create a new generic email provide a name and email address. This will be stored in the system and available to other users to use as needed.