Assessment of Learners In Elentra

An overview of assessment options in Elentra

Elentra supports assessing and recording student performance in multiple ways. Many organizations will use a mix of the following features to support their assessment needs.

Assessment Options

• Course Gradebook (includes Assignment Dropbox and Document Delivery)

  • List different assessments per curriculum period per course and store a record of each learner’s grade

  • Add a dropbox assignment to an assessment and allow learners to upload files to the dropbox

  • Assign graders to specific learners to facilitate grading of assignments

  • Optionally connect gradebook assessments to other features in Elentra

    • link to an Assessment & Evaluation form to allow for grading using a form within the gradebook

    • link to a portfolio to allow viewing of portfolio artifacts via a Gradebook assessment

    • link to Exams or Peer Instruction to automatically pull in grades from those features

  • Note that there is not currently the ability to connect an Assessment and Evaluation task completed via a distribution to a gradebook assessment.

• Assessment & Evaluation Module

  • Use for behaviour-based assessments of learners

  • Use for event, course, rotation, or faculty evaluation

  • Make forms available for use on-demand or send out to be completed at specific times

  • Optionally connect to other tools in Elentra

    • link a form to a Gradebook assessment to support grading tasks

• Exams (can be used for quizzes, tests, or exams)

  • Despite the name, this feature can be used for any type of graded assessment (quiz, test, midterm, final exam)

  • Create and store items in Elentra, then group them together on an exam

  • Post an exam to a learning event for learners to access

  • Assign graders as needed to assess short answer or essay questions

  • Optionally connect an exam to a Gradebook assessment to automatically populate grades

• Team-Based Learning

  • Supported through the Exams module

  • Deliver iRAT, gRAT and application exercises to learners

  • Optionally connect to a Gradebook assessment to automatically populate grades

• Peer Instruction

  • Build items and group into polls to deliver to learners

  • Learners answer an item and depending on class performance work with a partner to discuss the item and then take the same poll question a second time

  • Optionally connect to a Course Gradebook assessment to automatically populate grades

• Meetings

  • Allow learners and assigned faculty members to record meeting notes or upload documents to track learner progress

  • Can be used to support a coaching/advising model

  • No connection to a Course Gradebook, nor Assessment & Evaluation forms

• Portfolio

  • Configure a portfolio for a cohort of learners (each cohort may have one portfolio)

  • Build a folder structure and optionally list required artifacts/entries for learners to complete

  • Assign portfolio advisors who can view and comment on learners’ portfolio submissions

  • Optionally connect to a Gradebook assessment to facilitate grading

• Competency-Based Education (CBE)

  • The CBE features in Elentra leverage the existing tools in the Assessment & Evaluation module to allow for assessment of learners; additionally, the CBE features allow for the creation of an assessment plan to set expectations for learner progress and include visual dashboards to display learner progress

Planning for Assessment in Elentra

The following questions may help users decide which assessment options to use in Elentra.

• What is being assessed?

  • If the assessment is some kind of knowledge check or application of learning, Elentra tools like Exams, TBL, Peer Instruction, or a Gradebook Assessment may be useful.

  • If the assessment is of learner behaviour, the forms available in the Assessment & Evaluation module will likely be most useful. Note that you can link an A&E form to a gradebook assessment for it to be completed via the Gradebook instead of as an A&E task.

  • If a learner needs to submit something to be graded or for feedback, a Gradebook Assessment with dropbox, the Portfolio or Meetings are options to explore.

• Who will complete the assessment and in what circumstances?

  • For example, are learners creating and submitting a product, are learners completing a task and being observerd by a clinician, is there a written element to the assessment?

  • Do you know in advance which faculty will complete the assessments for which students?

  • If assessment is on the fly, who is responsible to initiating the assessment? Learner or other?

  • These questions can help you determine whether on-demand tasks or distributed tasks will best serve you.

• Where does a record of the assessment need to be kept?

  • If the assessment contributes to a course grade, you'll need to include it in the Course Gradebook.

  • If it is important that a completed assessment be available to view by an advisor, mentor or coach, consider the Assessment & Evaluation module, Portfolio or Meetings.

• Who needs access to the completed assessment?

  • Consider if something needs to be accessible to a learner, a Course Director, a coach or advisory, etc.

  • Visibility of completed A&E tasks is relatively easy through the configuration of course groups and assigning tutors

  • Visibility of completed Gradebook assessments - Learner Explorer?

• How closely do you need to monitor if this assessment is completed and who is responsible for that?

  • May influence whether an on-demand vs. distributed form is preferred (with a distribution you get a distribution progress report which can make it easier to track which learners have completed assessment tasks).

• What kind of curriculum mapping is required for the assessment?

  • Ask this to know what information to collect and store.

  • Examples:

    • assign a curriculum tag to the item or question

      • supported in Exams, Peer Instruction and Assessment and Evaluation items

    • assign a curriculum tag to the assessment as a whole

      • supported in Gradebook assessments

For clinical courses and behavioural assessments, these additional questions may help with planning.

• What different forms do you currently use to complete assessments on learners?

  • Understanding the complexity and variety of forms used will help you identify if the Assessment & Evaluation module can support the items a course currently uses in its assessments.

• Does the assessment happen once or is it repeated multiple times (e.g., daily, weekly, twice per rotation, etc.)? If it's the later, is there one 'final' record that is required for grading purposes?

  • This information can help you decide whether an on-demand or distributed task is best, and what structure your gradebook will require if you are transferring information from Assessment and Evaluation to a gradebook.

Sample Assessment Scenarios

You know which graders/assessors will assess which learners in advance.

For Course Gradebook Assessments

• Set up an assessment in a Course Gradebook, optionally attach a form created in A&E, and assign specific students or course groups to graders. The form will be available for graders to use as soon as the assessment is created in the gradebook. Grades from the completed form will automatically display in the course gradebook.

For Assessment & Evaluation Tasks

• Set up a distribution and define the targets and the assessors. This will send a task to the assessors to complete (configure to send on a specific date, after a specific event, etc.) Completed forms will not automatically populate a course gradebook. Administrative staff can monitor completion of tasks from a distribution progress report.

• To reduce administrative workload, you could also have learners or faculty initiate tasks on demand. Administrative staff must monitor completion from the A&E dashboard or an A&E report (e.g., Form Responses Report). May be more time consuming to identify learners that have not been assessed.

You don’t know which graders/assessors will assess which learners in advance. You know who all the learners are and all the potential assessors.

For Course Gradebook Assessments

• If you are unable to assign specific learners to a grader, another option is to give administrative access to faculty who will be graders by setting them up as Course Directors for the course. This will give them admin access to the gradebook and the ability to select any learner from the course enrolment (it also gives them access to view all other assessments and grades, as well as write access to all events in the course so use judiciously).

For Assessment & Evaluation Tasks

• Distributed Tasks

  • Learners Responsible for Directing Tasks

    • If you know all the potential assessors, use an adhoc distribution to allow learners to initiate a task on demand and send it to a faculty assessor. This will provide a distribution progress report so administrative staff can easily see who has/has not been assessed.

      • Note: this can only send one task at a time (first task must be completed before second task can be sent)

      • No grade will automatically display in the course gradebook. You’d need to export a report from A&E and then import grades to the course gradebook.

      • Use a delegation distribution (with the learner set as the delegator). The learner will then delegate the task to the assessor they work with.

        • no grade will automatically display in the course gradebook. You’d need to export a report from A&E and then import grades to the course gradebook.

  • Assessors Responsible for Directing Tasks

    • If you know all potential assessors, you could set up distribution sent to faculty with entire class as target, then set up pool option so faculty have to assess a minimum of 1 but a maximum of 100 (or 65 or whatever class size is).

• On-Demand Tasks

  • Set up a generic assessment form with an “other assessment form” workflow. This allows learners or faculty to access form on demand, however there won’t be a distribution progress report for the form. You’d need to grab data from an A&E report (e.g. Form Responses Report).

You don’t know which graders/assessors will assess which learners in advance. You know who all the learners are but do not know all the potential assessors.

For Course Gradebook Assessments

• Unless you have admin staff available to assign graders on an as needed basis during the asessment, you can not use the gradebook to collect assessment information without knowing the assessors.

For Assessment & Evaluation Tasks

• Distributed Tasks

  • Set up a delegation distribution (date or rotation-based) where the learners are both the target and the delegator. When the assessment is being completed, learners can delegate the task to the appropriate assessor for it to be completed.

• On-Demand Tasks

  • Set up a generic assessment form with an “other assessment form” workflow. This allows learners or faculty to access form on demand, however there won’t be a distribution progress report for the form. You’d need to grab data from an A&E report

You have assessments that inform a final assessment.

• Use the summary assessment feature on a distribution to allow an assessor to access the results of previously completed distributed assessments while completing the final assessment task.

Peer Assessment

Peer Assessment in the Assessment & Evaluation Module

Elentra supports peer assessment through the Assessment & Evaluation Module. A learning event-based, date-based or rotation-based distribution can be configured to allow learners to assess each other and themselves as needed. When configuring distributions for the purpose of peer assessment, you should set learners as both the target and assessor in the Distribution Wizard.

A common use of the A&E module for peer assessment is assessment in small groups. For example, for schools using team-based learning or small clinical skills groups, you may have learners assess their peers once or more during a curriculum period. For small group peer assessment, you can set the target and assessors to the small group defined in the Course Groups. Because each course group has different membership, you can create one distribution then copy it for as many groups as are needed. Remember to change the course group on steps 3 and 4 of the distribution wizard.

When using A&E to support peer assessment, pay close attention to the options on Distribution Wizard Step 5: Results. A sample use case could be to restrict learner access to individual tasks, but allow them to run report on themself with commenter names anonymous. This configuration lets a learner view their peer-assessment results in a report and gain insight as to their performance, but not be able to attribute any comments to specific individuals.

Another option on Step 5: Results is to optionally apply a Reviewer to a distribution (this will require that completed assessments are reviewed by a staff or faculty member before they are released to the target). This option was designed to provide the opportunity for learners’ feedback to be reviewed before it’s released to a target. An example of it’s use might be a first year class providing feeback to each other, and the desire for a staff or faculty member to review that feedback before it’s released to ensure that comments are constructive and helpful. Before you use this option please recognize it that in the case of peer assessment this represents a significant number of review tasks that will generate for a staff member.

Peer Assessment in a Course Gradebook

Currently, peer assessment is not easily supported in a course Gradebook. If peer assessment in a gradebook is absolutely required, an administrator can facilitate it by making all enrolees in the course TAs on the Course Setup Page, then adding all enrolees as graders on an assessment and assigning one learner to each grader. Currently there is a 1:1 relationship between a grader and a learner, so this approach can only support learners receiving peer assessment from one other learner per assessment. Using this approach, once learners are assigned as TAs and graders, they will be able to access a Grading page (similar to faculty) and provide feedback to their assigned peer.