Learning Assessments - Versioning

Assessments can exist in three states:

• Draft
  • Draft assessments have not yet been published
  • Draft assessments can be created when creating a brand new assessment before publishing, or when creating a new version of an existing assessment before publishing
  • Publishing a draft will promote it to the next version number
  • Each assessment can have only one draft
  • An assessment cannot return to draft state once published
  • Any changes made to a draft can be saved as a draft or published as a new version. If published, the draft will replace the current version and will trigger an audience selection.
• Older Version
  • Older versions are View Only and cannot be edited
  • Older versions will exist when a new version of an existing assessment is created
• Current Version
  • The current version is the most recently created version
  • A new version can be created from the current version by making structural changes to the assessment
  • Text changes can be made to the current version without creating a new version, if needed

Textual Changes vs. Structural Changes

Two types of changes can be made to assessments:

• Textual
• Structural

Making textual changes to an assessment does not require a new version. Making structural changes to an assessment DOES require a new version of the assessment.

Textual Changes

Textual changes are any changes to a text field that does not alter the overarching structure of the assessment. Textual changes include:

• All metadata fields, such as title and description
• Section names and descriptions
• Question text and explanations
• Answer choices text (Note: Answer choice text for the Text Only question type cannot be changed without creating a new version)

After making textual changes to the current version of an assessment, the administrator can save the assessment without creating a new version. The changes made will be visible to the learners assigned to that version.

Structural Changes

Structural changes are substantive changes that fundamentally alter the structure of an assessment. Structural changes include:

• Changing the settings (number of attempts, entries, passing score, etc.)
• Adding or deleting a section, question, or answer choice
• Reordering sections, questions, or answer choices
• Changing the answer choice to a Text Only question
• Changing the correct answer to a question

Making any of the above types of changes require the administrator to create a new version of the assessment. Administrators are prompted to choose which learners receive the newest version of an assessment:

• Any combination of transcript statuses can be selected, including Not Started, In Progress (which includes Failed), or Completed.
• If no statuses are selected, only new assignments will receive the new version.
• Selection of individual users, organizational units (OUs), or groups outside of the above statuses are not supported.

Considerations

• No changes can be made to older versions of an assessment. Changes can only be made to the current version.
• Any changes can be made to a draft assessment without triggering a new version.
• Only textual changes can be made to a current version without triggering a new version. To make structural changes to the current version of an assessment, the administrator must click the Create Version button.