What this article is about…

The Learning Hub provides a few different options for how you can contribute your content. These are called Resource Types. This article explains how to get started and successfully contribute your content using the resource type called Assessment.   

Who this article is for…

This article is for anyone who wants to create online formal or informal assessments to be hosted in the Learning Hub.

What you will need…

You will need to be a member of the Learning Hub to contribute to the Community Catalogue. Everyone can contribute their content using the Assessment resource type.

 You will need contribution rights to any restricted catalogue that you wish to publish to. If you're unsure about this, check on the catalogue's page or with the Catalogue Owner.

 You will need an idea of what kind of questions you want to set to contribute and how best to sequence them. This article gives you some tips, but it will help you to have an idea of the basic structure before you start building your assessment.

Planning your Assessment

Assessments are designed to help educators to curate a set of questions that can be scored to give examinees a benchmark for their knowledge and understanding of the material.

Here are some rules to keep in mind about what examinees will see when they are sitting the assessment:

• Content in Assessments can be split across multiple pages
• Each page on the assessment will contain a section of assessable content followed by questions that relate to it
• All questions on a given page must be answered in sequence
• Once the reader has submitted their answer for a question, that answer is then locked in for the remainder of that assessment
• A reader can only receive a summary of their assessment and a score once they have submitted all of their final answers for the assessment
• We have not yet given Contributors the ability to set time limits for assessments

It may help you to do some forward planning around how to structure your assessment. Here are some things to consider that will make it easier when you start building your Assessment:

• What kind of content do I need? For example, text, images, videos, slides etc.

Tip: Aim for a mix of different content types to keep things interesting and make questions relevant

• How do I split my content across pages to give it good pacing and separation?

Tip: Think about how you can group questions that relate to the same material to keep things efficient and relevant

• How do I arrange the content?

Tip - Is there a natural flow from one group of questions to another to help create a sense of coherence and progress?

Getting Started (draft or duplication)

Creating a new unpublished Assessment (draft)

There are two ways to start contributing a new, unpublished assessment from a blank canvas, which is referred to as a Draft:

1. Go to Home from the navigation bar and use the Contribute a resource link near the top of the page, or
2. Go to My Contributions from the navigation bar and use the Contribute a resource link in any of the tabs—Draft, Published, Unpublished or Action required.

This image shows the Home page of the Learning Hub with the Contribute a resource button in the centre.

This image shows the My Contributions page of the Learning Hub having used the My contributions button in the menu bar. The Contribute a resource button visible.

1. There are some steps you will need to follow before you can start adding content. To finish setting up your new draft:

• You will need to choose a Title for your assessment. This can be anything but must have under 255 characters, including spaces and punctuation.

Tip: You will be able to edit the title again at any time from the Assessment Editor, so don't worry about getting it perfect right now

• Where you are asked to Select a resource type, you will need to click on the Select button next to where it says Assessment, to indicate your choice
• You will need to choose if your assessment is going to be Formal or Informal. Choose Select next to the appropriate choice to finish this part of the set up. Be aware that this choice cannot be changed later. If you wish to change, you will need to start a new draft Assessment.

Tip: A formal assessment will not provide the examinee with any feedback on their answers after the assessment has been completed, only a score. An informal assessment will give the contributor an opportunity to provide feedback and advice to the examinee on each question after the assessment has been completed, as well as their score. 

To finish setting up your assessment you will need to choose how you would like examinees to experience it. Under the dark grey banner where it says Informal assessment settings or Formal assessment settings:

• You will need to choose whether to allow examinees to work through the assessment pages in any order or whether you would like them to answer one page at a time in sequence
• You can choose to set a pass mark for your assessment. This should be expressed as a percentage, not an absolute score. For example, 80 is an acceptable choice to represent 80%. 8/10 is not an acceptable choice
• You may choose to leave this option blank. If you do, there will be no pass mark for the assessment
• You can choose to provide some guidance to examinees for them to read after they finish the assessment

Tip - This is a great place to put links to additional reading materials or resources for those who are interested. 

(For formal assessments only) you can set a limit on the number of times an examinee may sit your assessment

Audience Access, you can set the audience for your assessment resource

Publishing options:

• 'Make this resource available to everyone within the Learning Hub community' – this will make the assessment available to everyone, including General users who are not part of the NHS or social care workforce
• 'Make this resource available only to the NHS and Social Care workforce community' – only learners with full user accounts will be able to access the assessment.

Select the appropriate level of access. 

Duplicating an existing Assessment

If you have permission to contribute to a restricted catalogue, you can also start a draft by duplicating any of its existing assessments.

You can duplicate an Assessment from either:

• The Draft, Published or Unpublished tabs in My Contributions (example 1)
• The More Options menu from the ribbon of the Assessment Editor (example 2)

Example 1

Example 2

Blocks - Adding and organising questions

What you need to know about blocks

Blocks are the buildable chunks of content that you can add to construct your assessment. They have been designed to make adding and modifying a particular kind of content easy.

There are two kinds of block: content blocks and question blocks.

Content blocks

Content blocks help you to add the material you want to assess to your page.

You must add at least one content block to each page to be allowed to publish your assessments (see Publishing your Assessment)

Every content block has a content type corresponding to what kind of content they can contain. You will be asked to choose the content type when you add a new one. The interface for the content block will change depending on which type you choose, giving you access to just the tools you will need to create that kind of content.

For example, a content block that you have chosen to have the Text content type will only contain the tools to allow you to add and format text.

This image shows an example of the Assessment Editor with one new content block that has a Text type. You can add formatted text to the box and edit the title

Examples of content types

Examples of content types you can choose from include Text; Whole-slide Images like Hamamatsu; and other Media like Images, Videos and Audio Files.

Tip - You can mix and match content blocks of different content types on one page to create more appropriate and engaging material. 

Question blocks

Question blocks help you to add interactive questions to your page.

It is your choice if you want to add question blocks to your pages or not. Leaving them out will not prevent you from publishing your case. (see Publishing your Case). Each question block is designed to create a specific type of question, which will have its own unique experience for your reader.

For example, Single Best Answer questions will expect a reader to choose and submit only one answer from an available list, and will be given feedback on whether that answer was the best available, a reasonable answer, or incorrect.

This image shows an example of the Case editor with one new question block that has a Single-Best answer question type. The step-by-step structure will walk contributors through the information they will need to construct their question in the appropriate format.

Adding blocks

To add a new content block to the page:

1. You will need to select + Add Content, which you can find at the end of the current list of content blocks you've already added to the page.
2. You will need to choose a content type by clicking on Select on the row that corresponds to the kind of content you want to add. For example, Text.

There is a description for each of the types to help you decide which is most appropriate for you.

Tip - Your new block will be added at the end of the blocks that already exist, but you can rearrange these blocks however you like (see Rearranging blocks)

To add a new question block to the page:

1. You will need to select + Add Question, which you can find at the end of the current list of question blocks you've already added to the page.
2. You will need to choose a question type by clicking on Select on the row that corresponds to the kind of question you want to add. For example, Single Best Answer.

There is a description for each of the types to help you decide which is most appropriate for you.

Tip - Your new block will be added at the end of the blocks that already exist, but you can rearrange these blocks however you like (see Rearranging blocks)

Duplicating a block

You may choose to duplicate any block and its contents by selecting the duplicate tool from the blocks toolbar.

This image shows an example of the Case editor and highlights the Duplicate icon on a content block. Contributors can access the tool from the toolbar in the top-right of any block.

Deleting blocks

You may choose to delete a block at any time by selecting the delete tool from the block's toolbar, though be warned this operation cannot be undone once it is confirmed and your content will be lost.

This image shows an example of the Case editor and highlights the Delete icon on a content block. Contributors can access the tool from the toolbar in the top-right of any block.

Rearranging blocks

You may choose to rearrange any block on the page by using the move up and move down tools from the blocks toolbar. These tools are only available once there are multiple blocks on the page.

This image shows an example of the Assessment editor and highlights the move up and move down tools on a content block. Contributors can access the tool from the toolbar in the top-right of any block.

Pages - Separating and pacing questions

Adding a page

To add a page, select + Add a page from the ribbon at the top of the Assessment Editor. Your new page will be positioned immediately after the page that is currently in view.

Please note that we have not yet created a way to rearrange pages or move blocks between pages. Please make sure you are adding pages and content in the right positions to avoid losing work.

This image shows an example of the Assessment editor and highlights the +Add a page button on a content block. Contributors can access the button from the ribbon at the top of the page to add an additional page to their Assessment.

Deleting a page

Once there is more than one page in your Assessment, you can then choose to delete one if you don't need its content anymore. Be warned, this operation cannot be undone once it is confirmed, and all your content will be lost.

To delete a page, choose Delete this page, which you can find at the bottom of the page, after the last question block.

This image shows an example of the Assessment editor and highlights the Delete this page button. Contributors can delete any page, at any time, however, all content on the deleted page will be lost as a result.

Previewing your Assessment

You can preview what your Assessment will look like at any time by selecting Preview from the ribbon at the top of the Assessment Editor.

When you are done, you can choose to either return to the editor to continue making changes or publish your assessment from the preview page. (For more information on publishing, see Publishing your Assessment)

This image shows an example of the Assessment Editor and highlights the Preview control. Contributors can Preview their assessment at any time to see what their content will look like to readers

This image shows an example of an Assessment Preview and highlights the controls that Contributors can use to either Continue editing Assessment or to Publish

Adding resource information to help others find your assessment

You will need to provide some extra information for your assessment before it can be published.

This information is important is because:

• it allows readers to discover relevant assessments more easily based on the keywords they search for
• it allows readers to understand what your assessment is about from a list of search results, so they can decide if it is relevant to them before opening it
• it warns readers if there is any sensitive content in your assessment that they need to be aware of
• it makes sure your assessment fairly attributes authors and organisations who have contributed to it or who have ownership over its content
• it restricts other people from using of your content based on the rules set out in the licence you have chosen

To complete this information for your assessment, you will need to proceed through the tabs available from the ribbon at the top of the Assessment Editor.

This image shows an example of the Assessment editor and highlights the tabs that contributors must proceed through to add the required additional information. Contributors can access these tabs from the ribbon at the top of the page.

Resource Info

• You will need to add a description for your assessment. This will be the text that describes your assessment in a reader's search results. Try to be clear and succinct to help readers decide if your content is helpful to them
• You will need to decide if your assessment is going to be marked as sensitive by ticking the box. If there isn't any content in your assessment that could be considered sensitive, then leave the box unchecked
• You will need to choose Keywords that best describe your assessment. To add one, enter the text into the box and select the Add button

Tip - Each keyword can have multiple words. Only type out one keyword at a time before selecting the Add button to add it to the list. You can remove unwanted keywords by selecting the red cross inside the one you want to remove. 

This image shows the Resource info tab within the Case editor and highlights how to +Add a keyword to a Case.

Authors

You will need to add at least one Author to your Case. You can add up to a maximum of three Authors in this way.

Tip - If you'd like to attribute more Authors for your Case, you can achieve this by adding a Text content block to your Case and add more Attributions there.

To add a new Author:

1. Select +Add Author
2. Type the Author name, Organisation and Role of the Author to the appropriate text boxes

   Tip - You can check the box next to I am the author or co-author to make it quicker to add your own name. 

3. Select +Add

This image shows the Authors tab within the Assessment editor and highlights the +Add button. Contributors can type information for an Author and use the +Add button to add the Author to the assessment. Contributors must add at least one Author and a maximum of three.

Licence

You will need to choose a Licence for your Assessment to decide how other contributors can use your content. The learning hub uses the Creative Commons framework for licences. For more information about which is the most appropriate licence for you to choose, you can visit the Creative Commons website.

Location

Contributions in the Learning Hub are organised by Catalogue. In the Location tab, you will need to choose a Catalogue where your Assessment will be published. To choose a Catalogue, use the dropdown and select from the Catalogues you currently have permission to contribute to.

The default space for all contributors is called Community Contributions. Publishing your Case here will allow all readers to discover and access its content.

If you have permission to contribute to a Restricted Catalogue, this will also appear in the list for you to choose from.