Scenario in eLearning incorporates real-life situations and is designed to put learners in roles of problem solver. This approach helps increase interactivity and give learners the opportunity to use information in a practical setting. In this post, we’ll take a look at some examples I think stand out, where good branching scenario eLearning demonstrates these guiding principles really well. So, let’s dive in. Mini Scenarios First up, ‘Mi Vida Loca’ by the BBC sits at the higher end of the production spectrum and helps learners of Spanish through an interactive TV mini series Good use of interactive video drama takes you on a mystery adventure. Episodic design with 22 episodes in all, 10 minutes each, covering basic learning points for beginner level Spanish. A learning section complements each episode and provides practice activities and opportunities to go through grammar and vocabulary in more detail at your own pace. Includes a speaking phrase book, which is a real person! Lots of audio practice and chances to listen and repeat. In a mini-scenario, learners make a decision and are presented with a realistic consequence, which helps them decided if they made a good choice. They may then go on to a different scene representing a different situation. Most of the time, a one- or two-scene mini-scenario does the job fine, you needn’t stretch to 22 episodes like the BBC has done. Branching scenarios Mini-scenarios are good for covering an array of problem-solving activities, but they don’t facilitate learners going deeper into a complex situation. For that, more complex branching scenarios are a good option, in which decisions that learners make in early scenes can affect what happens in later scenes. This helps learners practice skills such as: challenging their own assumptions recovering from mistakes and getting back on track dealing with ambiguous situations making decisions and carrying them through. A great example of complex branching is ‘Connect with Haji Kamal’ by Cathy Moore & Kinection in which the learner is placed in the context of an inexperienced army officer in Afghanistan who needs to make several decisions during the course of just one conversation. Decisions that the learner makes at an early point in the story affects what happens at later points. The branching approach in this scenario eLearning helps challenge the learner in situations where deep change is involved, particularly around Western perspectives of developing relationships with Pashtun leaders, and recovering from mistakes when they occur. ‘Family of Heroes’ by Kognito is another excellent example of complex branching scenario eLearning. Focusing on just one conversation again, this scenario-based module helps the learner to see situations from another’s perspective, manage emotions, and recover from mistakes. Branching helps you to fully plan how your scenario will play out. Think about how you want to illustrate information and how it will benefit your learners. Make sure you have all the background information you need, so your course will tell the story you are trying to portray and be as realistic as possible. Mapping the scenario will make it a lot easier to build your scenario. Challenging learners One of the main goals of using scenarios is to not just push information out to learners, but make them work for it. This will not only test their problem-solving skills but also increase learner engagement. You need to be able to set the learner a challenge so that they feel some kind of satisfaction when they achieve it and so there’s some focus for their learning. ‘Broken Co-Worker’ by Learnerengaged is a great example of the creative use of video, interactive scenarios and comic book creative design to challenge learners with a number of problem-solving activities. Good use of interactive video for context and feedback Inspired by the printed comic book layout gives it good visual appeal and a strong story-based structure. ‘Patient Management’ by Smart Builder takes learners through medical cases using investigative real life branching scenarios to help nurses practice the diagnosis and treatment of a sample of patient conditions. It demonstrates good design practice, providing: lots of patient information to help with diagnosis and treatment a framework for investigating the symptoms and likely causes feedback at different levels - diagnosis and treatment - so possible to succeed at one but fail at the other a chance to go back and attempt again, thus learning from mistakes and taking the feedback on board. Scenario-based learning is all about placing learners into situations or contexts where you are telling them a story and require them to make decisions along the way. The aim is for the audience to learn by thinking about these decisions, making them, and then experiencing or seeing the consequences of those decisions. There is usually support information of some sort provided. But this support information is secondary, it’s the story and the decisions that drive the learning. Adult learners are driven by goals. They want to achieve things. Make sure you set a goal at the start of the scenario, e.g. making a sale or operating a piece of equipment. Stories are a great way of tying information together. Situations which require learners to take action by making decisions and seeing consequences is a much better way of learning than being passive. Summary Mini and full branching scenario eLearning is an effective way to engage and motivate learners to attempt challenges that provide a framework for safely practicing skills and knowledge. Done really well, as demonstrated in our examples, scenario eLearning takes learners deeper into problem-solving activities and provides a way of challenging assumptions, changing behavior and improving outcomes. Modern elearning tools - like Elucidat - can facilitate designing and building branching scenario eLearning quickly and simply. Can’t wish for more than that when designing great learning experiences. Do you know of other examples of great scenario eLearning? We’d love it if you shared links in the comments below. A version of this article first appeared on eLearningIndustry.com The post Branching Scenario eLearning: 5 Killer Examples appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

NOTE: If you use these videos to undertake the introductory training for perception, you are agreeing to go through ALL the videos in order to  have a certificate for each section. Once you have completed all the tutorials or attended a workshop we can provide you with a perception authoring account. Once you have completed all tutorials, email tel@plymouth.ac.uk with an image of your certificates and the modules you wish to use Perception with. 1. Introductory Suite The purpose of the Introductory Suite is to be used as an alternative to face-to-face introductory training. Overview of Perception and e-assessment How to install Perception via ‘Run Advertised Programs’ Creating and copying repositories Creating topics and sub-topics Creating questions (basic MCQs) Creating assessments Publishing assessments Scheduling assessments to students 2. Refresher Suite The purpose of the Refresher Suite is the same as the ‘Introductory Suite’ but for users who have had training but just need to refresh their memories on using QuestionMark Perception. How to install Perception via ‘Run Advertised Programs’ Creating and copying repositories Creating topics and sub-topics Creating questions (basic MCQs) Creating assessments Publishing assessments Scheduling assessments to students 3. Reporting Suite The purpose of the Reporting Suite is to inform users how to generate Score List Reports and Export to ASCII. Produce a Score List Report Export to ASCII Report 4. Useful links, documents and tutorials QMP Community web site These links take you to the QuestionMark Community web site which have some excellent tips on test security. If you do not have your own QM Community account,you can use this UN & PW to access the site. UN: tel@plymouth.ac.uk PW: tellogin 5 tips to enhancing test security using technology 11 Tips to help prevent cheating and ensure test security     v5_getting_started_v21 - This guide has all the information you need to start creating questions and assessments. V5_qrauthoringassessments - simple help card v5_authoring - Shows how to edit and author questions and assessments - more comprehensive than the ‘Getting Started guide’.   If you do not have a Community account, use the UN:  tel@plymouth.ac.uk    & PW: tellogin   Enterprise Manager User Guide Quick reference & Best practice guides - QMP web site with access to multiple documents Tutorials ggggg  5. Important notice concerning examinations Advise your students to use Internet Explorer (IE)  as the preferred browsers and FireFox if IE isn’t available, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari will impact on the assessment performance by showing the default template and ignoring the templates you may have selected, you may also find that some of the assessment functionality could be lost such as the  countdown clock & report feature. Save As You Go (SAYG) should be switched to OFF and not be used. Extensive internal tests have shown that SAYG can be detrimental to a fault free assessment. Further Support If you require further support, please contact us.

This week, I’m going to discuss the term chunking, and how it plays into the world of what I would consider good Instructional Design. Chunking is the process wherein complex information is broken down into smaller, more palatable pieces of information. I understand this verb could be used for something that occurs after a long night of drinking and I’d like to think that the outcome is similar. It’s a concept that came to existence in and around the 1950s when its inventor (George A. Miller) argued that our working memory can only do so much, and how true that is! Like Miller, cognitive load theory dictates that the volume of information and interactions, of which the learner is presented, is directly correlated to feelings over being underloaded or overloaded. For example, compare a first year university intro class versus a fourth year university class - here you can easily see that the former is likely less of a workload versus the latter. Another great example is to think back to the days of Geocities and Angelfire (bonus points if you’re a kid of the 80s, whose formative years were in the 90s boy-band era) and ALL of the images that took forever to load on your 14.4k modem, the auto play midi background music and the marquee banners. Were you able to focus on the content? Probably not. Believe it or not, there are still a lot of educational sites that resemble this format…in 2014, but I digress. Why Should I Care About Chunking? As an Instructional Designer, educator, or even writer, it is CRITICAL to chunk material, especially if the goal is to have the end user retain information. Or maybe you’re a business owner or training and development coordinator transforming source materials (e.g. new hire training) into a larger presentation - while perhaps not your usual task, you must understand the importance. Chunking information allows for enhanced retention, which will likely yield a more productive and efficient operation - your team will run like a (more) well-oiled machine if they can process the information presented in a meaningful way. If you just toss all of the information in one pot without creating smaller segments (or chunks), you’ll likely notice that your learners have become withdrawn from their tasks or seem to have forgotten all of the information you worked hard to present. Why? Well, cognitive load theory would indicate that your learners are overwhelmed and overloaded with information, and they just can’t process it effectively. This is bad when you need your target audience to recall the information for use at a later time. Connie Malamed provides a great explanation of why content should be chunked. She explains the history behind the concept and identifies methods for chunking content, so please check it out if you need more information! Basically, you can choose not to care about chunking your material, but don’t say you haven’t been warned. The goal to creating a successful learning experience should always be focused on the student and their ability to achieve your learning objectives, so please take the time to consider the concept of chunking further if you want to achieve optimal student achievement and satisfaction! Like this post? Want more Instructional Design tips? Sign up below!  

So you’re ready to create drop-dead eLearning scenario with amazing branching. But you need some help getting started. You’ve arrived at the right place. In this post, we’ll be dishing out our 10 must-have eLearning scenario resources for creating a great eLearning branching scenario. Must-Have eLearning Scenario Resources Our theme this month has been eLearning scenario with extra emphasis on designing branching scenarios. This week we’ll round up with our list of 10 must-have eLearning scenario resources which will help you get on your way. So without, further ado, here’s the count-down (in no particular order!) 1. Getting started. eLearning Industry’s very own staple, a step-by-step guide for designing eLearning scenarios, will walk you through the various aspects of scenario-based eLearning, so that you can design eLearning courses which motivate and engage learners and help enhance skill sets and knowledge base. 2. Decision maps & points. Decision Maps are a great way of storyboarding eLearning scenario. See how designer Jackie Vannice does this: Branching Scenario & Branching Infographic demo. In an exploratory scenario, learners make decisions and learn from the consequences of their decisions. Decision points are the moments in the eLearning scenario where you set up a challenge in which the learner needs to make a decision. 3. Tom’s Three C’s of eLearning scenario. Instructional design guru, Tom Khulmann strips back the component parts of good eLearning scenario design with these simple steps. 4. Logic flowcharts. Mind mapping tools are a great way to help you visualize the way your branching logic will work in your eLearning scenario. This is a meaty example. Lots of tools are available that will help you, e.g. Mindjet MindManager. 5. Tom’s New Employee scenario (powerpoint file). Another offering from guru Tom Khulmann. This time a good example with a free download. Lots of designers have started out emulating this one. 6. Character personas. Borrow a technique from interaction design to help shape and develop characters for your eLearning scenario. 7. eLearning scenario tools. There are some excellent eLearning tools available that will help you design and build branching eLearning scenarios quickly and simply. Try these out for starters. Elucidat and Branchtrack. (Other eLearning tools are available!) 8. Powerpoint image effects. The best worst kept secret in instructional design circles: Powerpoint! It has some powerful inbuilt features which can help you to quickly work up decent visual designs similar to those used in Haji Kamal e.g. comic book feature demonstrated in this helpful tutorial. 9. Real case studies for scripting the story. Have a look at We Need to Talk from Society for Human Resource Management for inspiration. These are classroom based materials, but could be adapted for online training. 10. Working with SME’s to create eLearning scenarios. Crafting a realistic scenario requires leveraging tacit knowledge that only a subject matter expert (SME) might have. Integrated Learnings offers a practical working session solution to help you formulate real-life scenarios with the help of your SME’s. Well, that about wraps it up for eLearning branching scenarios. If you have any other resources that would be helpful for the community, we’d love for you to share. Just post your links in the comments below. The post 10 Must-Have Elearning Scenario Resources appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

A fellow community member (Hey, Adam!) posted an interesting infographic for Surviving the E-Learning Revision Apocalypse over at e-learning heroes, and it made my day and struck a chord, so I thought it might be a good time to discuss what you can do to make your revisions go as smoothly (and cost-effectively) as possible! There were so many great points that they honestly bear repeating. Everyone (regardless of your profession) has likely encountered the dreaded revision cycle or has come to a point of project rework. This can be a painful experience, but you need to set yourself up for success. As the infographic indicates, the number one way to ensure you don’t get caught up in endless revisions is to dictate and define your revision scope. Some individuals dictate which types of revisions are included and which are out of scope; however, I find it easiest to dictate a revision limit and outline the associated daily rate for each additional set of revisions. For me, this has worked well - clients generally get the brunt of their revisions worked out in the first iteration of their review, and while they may not balk at the daily rate for additional revisions, it usually keeps them within scope and reality. Let’s face it - without defining the terms of your revisions, you may get locked into an entire project re-development - who knows! It sounds scary and I don’t like it, so I cover my butt and you should too! Another essential element within your contract should be to outline the revision deadlines and how they are to be communicated to you. Time and again I have had multiple reviewers look at a project and send 487932423 different documents outlining their revisions. The last thing you want to do is be faced with consolidating those revisions. This will yield a lot of work and likely a lot of redundancy between reviewers. What I like to do is provide my clients with a change log; here they are able to track all of the necessary revisions in one place - all neat and tidy. Then come revision time, I don’t feel compelled to bang my head repeatedly off my keyboard (or maybe I just do this less, depending on the revisions required). Thoroughly review all deliverables. I cannot stress this enough - it’s going to save you a lot of time and headache AND it makes you look more professional. Sometimes it can be really hard to review our own work, especially when you’ve been looking at one document or project for so long - you may need a fresh set of eyes. In this case, I recommend having someone you trust give it the once over for basics like spelling and grammar…or if you don’t have that luxury, close the project, refresh your mind, and review a few hours later. If there are multiple members on a project, ensure there is a clearly defined team lead; after reviewing your work, it should be submitted to the team lead for their input. All team members will submit their work to the team lead, and this will ensure consistency in look and feel. Once revisions come rolling in, it is important for the team to have a meeting to discuss all comments. It has been my experience working on teams that a reviewer may comment on one element in one place and expect a global change. Without meeting to discuss these ‘global changes’, there will inevitably be more revisions down the line. And you might cry. And your project manager might whine about deadlines and resources. No one wants either of those things, so please…go forth and meet with the minds. Share now or cry later. Last but not least (and to reiterate my first point), be aware of project scope. Be very aware. If it is the one thing you do 150%, be cognizant of your project scope. Clients like to ask for things, and I want a pony, but I’m not getting one. I’ll liken scope creep to the difference between feeding a 38lb border collie and feeding a 150lb Bernese mountain dog. Today I went to pick up pet food; there was a Bernese mountain dog (and its owner) in the store. On the counter, there was the Bernese mountain dog’s food - 6 raw ‘medallions’ 1lb each with a price tag of 56 bucks on it, and when I asked how many feedings that was, the response was "well, we only give her one a day"…okay so 6 days at 56 bucks…We pay 27 bucks for 2.5 weeks of food for our 38lb border collie. MUCH more cost effective. Ashley - Where the hell are you going with this? Well - your client may be paying to feed the border collie (e.g. what they agreed to pay you), but come revision time, they ask you to feed the Bernese mountain dog (e.g. scope creep). DO NOT FEED THE BERNESE MOUNTAIN DOG! If you do, you will lose a lot of your profits. Like this post? Want more Instructional Design tips? Sign up below!  

As eLearning designers, we should be looking to web design trends to borrow, to begin an eLearning design mashup. Let’s look at one of the trendiest and best design practices from the web - scrolling - to help us create better, richer elearning.   Scrolling In eLearning Some time ago I was lured to this fabulous site after seeing Life of Pi in the cinema (I particularly love the "Meet Richard Parker" bit!). It got me thinking about web design trends we could be incorporating into eLearning design, a sort of eLearning design mashup. The Life of Pi website uses a design technique called parallax scrolling. It has been a hot topic in graphic design for a while; with the rise of HTML5 and CSS3, we’ve discovered new and exciting ways to interact with web browsers. Parallax scrolling is a technique originally used in 2D video games to create a 3D look and feel, where background images move at a slower rate to the foreground images, creating an illusion of depth while scrolling down the page. Parallax scrolling can be vertical or horizontal. The trend is moving toward more horizontal effects, although vertical scrolling is most common. So, how can parallax scrolling, or any scrolling for that matter, help us to design better eLearning? Let’s recap on how traditional eLearning courses usually work: the learner interacts with a screen of content and then clicks ‘Next’. But this is not necessarily the best navigation design for web-based eLearning. It’s reminiscent of when Powerpoint was the prevalent training tool. But for learners who are used to webpages, scrolling is both intuitive and user friendly. It’s also the de facto user experience on tablet and mobile devices. So, scrolling in eLearning also helps eLearning designers to future proof their training. Integrating vertical navigation lets eLearning designers organize content semantically rather than according to a fixed height of a template; content can be arranged on a single page that’s as short or as long as needed. Not only does this reduce any unnecessary navigation, it also helps the learner make sense of the structure and the relationship between content. Navigation becomes meaningful, rather than a by-product of the template size. It might be a small market but it could help us design academic subjects such as history or science, which become more alive with parallax or similar scrolling effects. Check out this parallax example (in Dutch) which chronicles the ship Titanic and uses some familiar eLearning interactions such as the photostory/carousel to present still imagery and video content. Now, add in music and voice over and you have an experiential, rich and memorable learning experience, something like NASA’s intuitive website. eLearning tools You can achieve similar results using presentation design applications such as Keynote and Powerpoint which have tools that let you create motion paths and layer effects to help lift a flat 2D screen into a richer effect. This is nicely illustrated by eLearning guru Dave Anderson in this demonstration and tutorial. Elearning tools such as Elucidat let you build elegant scrolling and fully responsive eLearning in HTML5. Storytelling We’ve looked at the power of storytelling in eLearning in a previous post. There are some wonderful examples of design and execution in storytelling using scrolling. The Dangers Of Fracking is a website that works like an infographic, with the long page encouraging scrolling to provide a narrative. Connected Home is another good example of one page scrolling using an infographic style approach. Here are another couple of examples of infographic style scrolling design: Neomam Every Last Drop The experience of presenting content through scrolling is different to video because users can follow the action at their own pace, moving both forward and back. And multimedia does not have to be flashy. As the Ken Burns Effect demonstrates, a slow pan or zoom over a photograph, with a little appropriate music or audio effects, can be very powerful in telling a story and making learning memorable. The Hegarty on Advertising website tells a compelling story about overcoming a censorship problem with the famous Nick Kamen Levis advert (showing my age there). Point is, this effect is used to tell a story and show how a problem is overcome. Imagine how powerful this design could be in eLearning courses, and imagine if we added in video and activities along the way. eLearning company Upside celebrated its 9th Birthday with a scrolling webpage, telling the story of the company’s history. Product training Parallax scrolling offers exciting solutions for product training both for internal staff and customers, based on the concept of brochure style websites or ‘products that tell a story’. Check out car manufacture Volkswagen’s non-animated animation. Smart USA, like the VW Beetle website, invites you to scroll down the content on one page. When doing so, it appears as if the page is animated, when in fact it consists of lots of stills. Other notable examples: The One Design Company webpage uses left and right scrolling to access various clusters of content. The whole site is a single page canvas, which can be explored horizontally and vertically. Carnation Group’s website provides an interesting web experience which combines scrolling with drag and drop image functionality. ComOn Group (in Portuguese) website is designed to present simple case studies and key quotes with impactful messages. Finally, The Art of Flight site provides the user with a downwards, upwards, and sideways experience, utilizing pop-up videos and clickable graphics to allow the user to explore the topic areas in more detail. Summary In this post, I’ve tried to curate some good examples of how web design trends can be borrowed to improve your elearning. For some time the mantra for eLearning design was ‘no scrolling’; we were told to avoid the scroll bar at all costs. But things have changed. The scroll bar is back and proving to be an effective means of accessing and exploring the rich world of the web and tools such as Elucidat are encouraging us to boldly experiment with eLearning design mashups, whilst helping us adhere to design principles such as good UX design and simplicity. And before we get too carried away with everything mashable, it’s worth recalling UX guru Jacob Nielsen’s cautionary words of wisdom: "A snappy user experience beats a glamorous one". The post How to use best-practice "scrolling" in your elearning appeared first on Elucidat Blog.

I know that last week I said I was going to show a more detailed storyboard template this week, but I found myself creating a basic circle diagram using Articulate Engage, so I thought "why let that experience go to waste?!" - so this week, you’re getting a look into the development of that very circle diagram! This diagram is being used to explain some basic, but essential elements of an online course. I won’t make promises, but my plan is to demo the detailed storyboard template next week. All of Articulate’s products are incredibly user-friendly and I’ve been a fan of them for many moons. With that being said, I don’t usually find myself using Articulate Studio products as much as of late due to my love of Articulate Storyline. Right now I’m in the process of developing a very high-level model course for faculty members, and one module lent itself very well to an Articulate Engage Circle Diagram. This is a template within Articulate Studio where you can create an interactive component to displaying varying levels of information. This is a great tool to use when you have loads of information, but don’t want to kill your audience with bullet points or present all of the information at once. I recorded the screencast using Camtasia and slapped in one of my favourite songs by a local artist (Matt Mays) - Enjoy! I’ve since made a few changes to the circle diagram, but you can view the complete interaction by clicking here. Like this post? Want more Instructional Design tips? Sign up below!  

Since the dawn of my days as an Instructional Designer, Bloom’s Taxonomy was pounded into my brain - the military realllllly loves Dr. Benjamin Bloom’s verbs. I made the assumption that everyone in the field of Education had heard of Bloom’s Taxonomy, and you know what assumptions do - they make an A** out of me and you! In developing a model course for faculty members, I initially thought it was too elementary to be discussing Bloom’s Taxonomy with folks holding PhDs in educational fields…that is until I found out that a faculty member had admitted to not knowing what Bloom’s Taxonomy was. SAY WHAAAAT?! So this week, I’m discussing Bloom’s Taxonomy, and maybe you too can become king (or queen) of the verbs! So way back in the 1950s, Dr. Benjamin Bloom decided that he wanted to move away from simple recall tasks in education - you may remember this as memorizing text book passages and recalling them later in some regurgitated form or another - to him, this wasn’t really a deep form of education. Wanting to foster higher thinking in education, Dr. Bloom came up with classifications of verbs which would be used to write learning objectives. Bloom’s Taxonomy emphasizes the importance of using the three domains of learning (cognitive, affective, and psychomotor), and if you’ve ever worked within the Defence sector, you will see this translated in Job Task Analyses (JTAs) as knowledge, skills, and attitude - often in a very fancy looking excel spreadsheet that makes your eyes bleed and sucks a little bit of your soul each time you open it. These verbs were classified into six groups: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation. Later on, the taxonomy was revised, with the new groups being: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. But Why Do I Need Verbs!? Well. Every good training program has a set of learning objectives which outline the goals of the course - or what you should be able to do upon completion of the training program. Now to be good and measurable learning objectives, you must include a verb within the learning objective that seeks to somehow measure what the learner is doing. For example, say I want the learner to be able to calculate a variable based on a mathematical equation discussed within the course, I may write a learning objective like "Apply your understanding of the Pythagorean Theorem to the length of X." This is much more measurable than say "Solve for X." In the latter learning objective, I’m not even telling the learner which formula I expect them to call upon; this is confusing. You want to create clarity within your learning objectives as this outlines clear expectations you have of your learners. As much as I like to harp on Bloom’s Taxonomy (honestly, it’s been beaten to death with me), it is important for any effective training program. Especially when it comes to assessment. Like I said before, we want to create measurable learning objectives; this means that we need to assess our learner’s knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation (notice a trend here?) of the information presented throughout the training program. Doing so will ensure that our learners successfully achieve the learning objectives (or have all possible chances to do so at least). You can find some neat visuals for Bloom’s Taxonomy (a few good ones are here, here, and here) - this may help clear up some confusion. And if the visuals don’t help, check out Don Clark’s explanation - it’s a darn good one! Like this post? Want more Instructional Design tips? Sign up below!  

Operating Procedures The following pages define operating procedures for computer-assisted assessments. They may change over the next few years in the light of experience and we would value comment from any staff and students involved in computer-assisted assessments. Computer-assisted assessment in this context refers to the delivery of assessment on a computer screen, student entry of answers at a workstation, and marking of the answers by computer software. At present, the University supports Question Mark Perception as a vehicle for computer-assisted assessment across the University The operating procedures are in five parts: General principles Operational considerations Guidelines for staff Guidelines for students QMP Invigilator announcements Guidelines Download the series of documents General principles Computer-assisted assessment is subject to the same policy and standards as all other assessments within the University. Computer-assisted assessments are prepared and moderated to the standards and time-scales agreed by the host Department, including moderation by the relevant External Examiner where necessary. Students submitting answers to a computer-assisted assessment are confirming that they are submitting their own work in accordance with the University’s regulations and policy on cheating and plagiarism. Marking student answers using software complies with the University’s policy on anonymous marking of examination scripts. All marks given to students by the software are subject to moderation at the relevant Subject Assessment Panel.   Operational considerations Computer-assisted assessment involves the interaction of several parts of the University: Technology & Information Services provide the networking and workstations; Teaching & Enhanced Learning (TEL) the CAA software; Academic staff provide the assessment tasks and marking schemes; In addition, for formal examinations, Examinations Office provides invigilators and schedules the examinations. It is essential that good lines of communication are kept active for formal examinations, although the academic alone can often operate coursework and in-class tests. For formal examinations, students should use a University-controlled account with appropriate security and in a lock down mode to reduce its functionality if necessary (for further information contact your local Learning Technologist). For coursework and in-class tests, the level of security should be determined by the academic as appropriate to the assessment task, which may require students to use other software or access resources across the Internet. For formal examinations, the module leader must be present and have access to Perception Enterprise Manager to solve problems. The support team should also include a member of Technology & Information Services and a member of the Learning Technology team: both should have experience of computer assisted assessment. The module leader and senior invigilator need to liaise closely. The assessment is ultimately the responsibility of the module leader Guidelines for staff These guidelines represent current good practice for staff designing and running formal computer assisted examinations using Question Mark Perception. Two important things to remember when invigilating QMP assessments/examinations. Only use Internet Explorer for timed assessments and only start 10 students  at any one time. Once the first 10 have started, start the next 10 and so on. Designing examinations Question blocks should normally be used. This involves dividing the total number of questions into blocks which are delivered sequentially to students. In general each block should be designed to take about 15 minutes to complete. The advantages of this are: a) At least some answers are recorded by the server early in the exam rather than all answers being recorded at the end. This provides an early check that the system is working and means that should there be problems later during the exam, enough marks may be available to make a judgment. b) In conjunction with the use of topics, it provides a convenient mechanism for achieving a balance of topics in the questions extracted from a large database. For examinations where students cannot all be accommodated simultaneously, the number of questions in the database from which exam questions are selected should be at least double the number of questions delivered in the exam. Compulsory questions can be used but the students should not be able to distinguish these from other randomly selected questions. In effect, this (combined with randomisation, see 4.) means that each student sits a different examination. Thus there is no advantage to students sitting the second of two exam sessions in a large class, even if they have spoken with students who sat the examination earlier in the day. Where formal examinations cannot be accommodated in one room, the assessment should be password protected using a QMP Monitor obtainable from the University QMP administrator(s). Randomisation of questions within blocks and of answers within questions should be used unless there is a good reason not to do this. This reduces problems of cheating during examinations. The time scheduled for the computer-assisted examination will be at least 30 minutes longer than the time allowed for the examination. This will allow students to start when they are ready. The timer within Perception Session Manager should be used to set the time for the exam so that students who take longer to log on to the server are not penalised. Questions should be checked for accuracy by at least one other person with expertise in the subject being examined. It is expected that approximately 10% of the number of questions in the exam will be added to the question bank each year. Staff are encouraged to obtain assistance in typing and entering questions from Departmental or Faculty secretarial staff if possible. Before the examination All students should have experienced Perception and a test based on the same material used for the exam before sitting a computer-assisted exam. This may have been part of the formative assessment, coursework or may be available as an open access ‘taster’ before the examination. Students should be informed of the examination assessment name by the Invigilator prior to the exam. Other assessments may be available to the student at the time of the exam, there should not be any confusion as to which exam the student should be taking. Paper copies of a version of the examination should be available in case of problems with individual students’ during the examination. There should be copies available for 5% of the total group, with a minimum total number of 10 copies. These should be on coloured paper and be returned to the invigilators at the end of the session. During the examination The module leader must be present during the exam and have access to Perception Enterprise Manager to solve problems. The support team should also include a member of Technology & Information Services and a member of the Learning Technology team: both should have experience of computer assisted assessment. If something goes wrong with an individual student: a) Check to see if any of the student’s answers have been logged on the server b) Change the number of attempts to 1 in Enterprise Manager and restart the student at the appropriate block (see 3) If it is too late for the student to try the test again (i.e. more than half an hour has elapsed), then the student should do a paper copy of the exam and be allowed an appropriate amount of extra time at the end to complete this. If something goes wrong with an individual student or with a group of students, as long as at least half the examination marks have been recorded, these will be used to form a judgement on student performance. If there is a major problem (such as a power cut) affecting many students and none of the above actions are appropriate, the examination will be deferred until the alternative date on the examination timetable. Students with extra time requirements Students who require extra time should be scheduled in the last session, so that over-run does not affect a following exam. If a student requiring extra time turns up at the wrong time, they should either be asked to come to the later session, or if they want to stay, not be given any extra time. Drafted May 2000 by Dr Dan Charman Amended May 2000 by Dr Chris Ricketts Amended July 2002 by Dr Chris Ricketts Amended Dec 2013 by Sid White (Learning Technologist) Guidelines for Students During an Invigilated Computer Assisted Assessment. LOGON to the Student Portal. DO NOT start your assessment until told to do so. The test may not be available until the exact start time given on the examination time-table, so logging in to the Perception Server too soon will not give you access to the test. When you attend a computer-assisted examination you will be logging on to your own network account. When told to log on go to the Student Portal (http://student.plymouth.ac.uk/) enter your University Username and Password, go to MyEdesk > Computer aided assessments and stop there until told to proceed. In some cases the assessment will be password protected. When you attend a computer-assisted examination your exam assessment may be Password protected. If this is the case an Invigilator will give you the Username and Password which you will need to begin your exam assessment.IMPORTANT Click once on the button to start your assessment.If you double-click the assessment, it may take you out of the assessment and prevent you from starting.The time available will be displayed on the screen, and you will be presented with either the whole assessment or the first block of questions as appropriate. If the assessment is divided into blocks, you must complete each block of questions and click on the ‘Submit’ button before proceeding to the next block. You cannot go back to a block once you have submitted your answers to that block. You can go back to any question within a block. At the end of the assessment, make sure you click on the ‘Submit’ button to get your mark. You may want to record your mark. If you have not been given a mark, do not close down Perception or Internet Explorer, but contact one of the invigilators. Once you have your mark, click on the ‘Home’ button to end your session. If you have been using your own network account, don’t forget to close Internet Explorer and Exit from the network. If you have problems. If you have problems with the computer system, you should attract the invigilator’s attention. Depending upon the time left in the assessment, one of the following actions will be taken. The session will be restarted manually at the point at which the problem occurred. The session will be rescheduled to start at the beginning of the block. A paper version of the test will be provided for completion. No action will be taken and your performance will be assessed on the basis of the questions you have completed so far. If there is a major problem (such as a power cut) affecting many students and none of the above actions are appropriate, the assessment will be deferred to an alternative date. Guidelines for invigilators These guidelines represent current good practice for staff invigilating formal computer assisted examinations using Question Mark Perception. Most of the procedures that apply to paper-based examinations also apply to computer-assisted examinations. The main differences are: Because of limited availability of computers, many computer-assisted exams will divide the student group between two or more successive sessions; To ensure that loading on the network and assessment server do not cause problems, students will not all start at the same time, but will be staggered in groups of about 10 at a time. Once the first group of students have logged on, it will be clear to logon the next group, and so on; Some examiners may choose to have students entering and leaving on a rolling basis, rather than all starting at the same time; The time allocated for the examination will be determined by the computer, not the invigilator; The member of academic staff who set the examination will be present, and will usually be familiar with computer-assisted assessment. You should be familiar with the following operational considerations Computer-assisted examinations involve the interaction of several parts of the University:- Technology & Information Services provide the networking and workstations; - Technology Enhanced Learning support the CAA software; - Academic staff provide the assessment tasks and schedule the assessment on the CAA system; -Examinations Office provide invigilators and schedule the examination rooms. It is essential that good lines of communication are kept active for formal examinations. For formal examinations, students should use a University-controlled Network account with appropriate security. If available, Internet Explorer in ‘kiosk’ mode should be used to reduce its functionality. For formal examinations, the module leader must be present and have access to Perception Enterprise Manager to solve problems. The support team should also include a member of Technology & Information Services and a member of the Learning Technology team: both should have experience of computer assisted assessment. The module leader and senior invigilator need to liaise closely. The assessment is ultimately the responsibility of the module leader. You should be familiar with the Guidelines for students. A copy of the ‘Guidelines for students’ should be provided at each workstation The briefing of the students should include the following: -mobile phones to be switched off - do not start the exam assessment until told to do so - fill out attendance slip, which will be collected by an invigilator - ensure mark received before leaving - Log off the computer after you have finished The University undertakes regular evaluations of computer-assisted examinations. Students may be asked to complete an evaluation form before leaving the exam. QMP examinations - QMP Invigilator Announcements Guidelines Version 1 July 2002 Dr Chris Ricketts Version 2 May 2011 Sid White (Learning Technologist) Version 3 Dec 2012 Sid White (Learning Technologist) Version 4 Dec 2013 Sid White (Learning Technologist) Version 5 May 2014 Sid White (Learning Technologist)

This week we are looking at some C.R.A.P elearning. Yes, you read right. If you haven’t seen or heard of C.R.A.P before, it is a set of principles used in visual web design. If you’re not familiar with the principles of C.R.A.P design, this article is for you. C.R.A.P Web Design For eLearning We previously looked at how scrolling can be used to improve elearning. Today we’ll be borrowing C.R.A.P principles from visual design, in other words, C.R.A.P web design for elearning. Robin Williams described these four visual design principles in her terrific book, The Non-Designer’s Design Book, and if you don’t have a copy on your bookshelf, change that now! Rapid elearning tools have made it increasingly easy to design and build good elearning without having to know how to code. Tools like Elucidat have unleashed the creativity of instructional designers, allowing us to build stunning elearning rapidly. But what about design, we need to know how to do that, don’t we? And sometimes we need to take a step back and check that the results don’t end up as a mish-mash of fonts, random formats and awkward layouts. In unskilled hands, the tools available to us can very quickly produce messy, over-designed elearning that is far from perfect. Applying a few basic design skills can help avoid those mistakes. What does C.R.A.P mean? C.R.A.P stands for contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity and these are the four principles of design that graphic and visual designers use all the time for websites. Let’s dive straight in and get familiar with how you can apply these principles to elearning. 1. Contrast Contrast is often the most important visual technique affecting what appears on screen. By applying a little contrast in the right places you can avoid elements on the page that are merely similar: making different things different making the important elements stand out muting less important elements creating a bit of dynamism on the screen. Here are a some of the screen elements that you should look at providing contrasting to: Sizes Colours Fonts Line thickness Location of blocks or elements on the screen (e.g. text blocks) Spacing between elements Shapes Titles, body text, bold text and underlining help to organise information, make it meaningful and memorable and provide direction or instruction for your learners. The use of bold or italic text is one common form of contrast — the difference in shape makes the bolded or italicized text stand out from the surrounding text. This is a great example from Utility Warehouse of strong visual design with bold contemporary contrasting colours. 2. Repetition Web designers repeat visual elements of their design throughout the site. Elements such as colour, shape, texture, spatial relationships, line thicknesses, sizes, can all be repeated to help develop a sense of organisation, unity and consistency. By repeating design elements on the screen such as titles, layout, colour schemes and so on, you provide visual cues to your leaner so that they’re able to follow the course content and understand how it all fits together. Some elearning authoring tool allow you to build templates that you can reuse for various page types, making it quicker and easier to set up these designs once and then use them consistently over and over. Some authoring tools provide ready made ‘themes’ which have already been set up to adhere to the very best elearning and web design practices. Templates and themes allow you to standardise repeated screen types such as: Introductions Scenarios Screens with media (images, audio, video) Interactions Summaries Quiz instructions Quiz screens 3. Alignment Nothing should be placed on screen in an arbitrary way. Every element should have some visual connection with another element. This creates a clean, clear and sophisticated took and feel. Aligning your screen elements creates a visual flow and visually connects the screen. This example from Make Sense Design of a one-page design demonstrates the principle of alignment well. You should be asking yourself constantly: Does everything line up or have you got things centred, left aligned or out of place? 4. Proximity Proximity on the screen provides a critical cue about whether items are or are not related. Elements that are related need to be grouped close together. When several elements are in close proximity to each other, they become one visual unit rather than several separate units. This helps you organise information, reduces clutter and gives your learner visual clues to help them understand the meaning of what’s being conveyed. You should be asking yourself constantly: Can you find everything you need on your page easily? What is it that your learners will take note of? Summary Almost all design builds on the principles we’ve looked at in this article. You may already unconsciously use these principles in your work, but knowing the principles and recognising their use will help you make better, more conscious decisions in the future. Better still, let tools such as Elucidat help. Ready-made themes that you can choose and apply quickly to any elearning project are all built with sound web design principles underpinning their design. For some inspiration, try looking at Abduzeedo for websites and Elearning Superstars for elearning. The post Using C.R.A.P Web Design For Elearning appeared first on Elucidat Blog.