Creating New Assessments

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Composing A Test Pilot Administrative URL

Suppose your administrator had assigned you a URL path to designate your assessment directory as shown below.

http://server.edu/instructors/joe/math101/

To create an empty assessment template in that directory, your administrator would access the following modification of that URL:

http://server.edu/servlet/TestPilot3/instructors/joe/math101/?admin

Note that /servlet/TestPilot3/ was inserted after the machine name and ?admin was appended to the URL. This syntax instructs Test Pilot to produce the test administration dialog:

• filename - this must be a simple filename ending with the extension .tp3. It cannot contain any path information, or any characters other than a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and the single period before tp3.
  
  
• owner id - this is the id that the test author will use to access the editing and administration features of this new Test Pilot assessment. It should not contain commas.
  
  
• password - this is the password that the test author will use to access the editing and administration features of this new Test Pilot assessment. It, also, should not contain commas.
  
  
• administrator password - this is the Test Pilot web extension's administrative password as set by the server administrator during the installation of Test Pilot.

Once all of the fields have been completed, clicking upon the Build button will create a new empty assessment template AND immediately begin the editing process. At that point the URL necessary to return to administering the assessment is in the browser's location bar. You may use your browser's bookmarking feature to save this information OR you could e-mail it to the test author for their reference. For example, if you created an assessment named week1quiz.tp3 in the directory shown above http://server.edu/instructors/joe/math101/ with an owner id of fred and an owner password of xyzzy, the administration URL would be:

http://server.edu/instructors/joe/math101/week1quiz.tp3?USER_ID=fred,xyzzy

The standard URL for participants to access the assessment would be:

http://server.edu/instructors/joe/math101/week1quiz.tp3

Creating an Assessment Index

While, in some installations, administrators may wish to control the creating of assessments, in other environments, it may be preferable to allow authorized user to create and manage their own assessments with a minimum of administrative involvement. Test Pilot permits this through its ability to create and deliver assessment indices. That is, the Test Pilot administrator creates an index for each author wishing to manage assessments. This permits an authorized user to:

• maintain an index of their assessments for their convenience and the convenience of assessment participants
  
  
• quickly access the assessment for editing or data collection
  
  
• create new assessments without need for administrator intervention
  
  
• delete assessments without need for administrator intervention

Indexing capability is enabled through an installation setting to Test Pilot. Once enabled, accessing the administrative URL as shown above will result in the following additional dialog being displayed.

When Test Pilot creates an index in a particular web server directory, it locates all existing .tp3 assessment files in that directory and automatically builds an index and keeps it up to date. Once created, the index can be accessed by participants, in which case a simple index of links to assessments is displayed:

Or, the index may be accessed by its owner; in which case an index of assessments with management options is generated. Consider the following sample management index:

Note that there are four entries. The first column, manage, lists the filename of the assessments in the directory. If the owner information of the test matches the owner id and password for the index, clicking on the filename will take the owner to the assessment's management options.

The second column lists the assessments' titles. Those shown in boldface type will be shown to participants accessing the index. Those shown in normal face type will be hidden from participants. Compare the management index shown above with the participant index shown above it. Note that the Ancient History assessment is not shown to participants.

Showing or hiding assessment titles is controlled by the next column of the index: visible. This is not a high security option. The assessment is still online and available if you know its URL. Indices are meant as a convenience to aid participants in finding and accessing assessments. You'll need to use each assessment's built-in security options to control exactly who can and cannot access your assessments.

The final column shows a delete button enabling the owner to delete the assessment and ALL associated response data. The button is only shown if the assessment's owner information matches the index's owner information. As a safeguard against accidental deletions, there is a checkbox at the bottom of the index which must be checked in order for the delete button to function. There is NO undo function. Assessments, once deleted, are NOT recoverable.

Below the rows representing the assessments in the directory is a Build Test button and a file in which the new assessment's filename should be entered. The filename must end with the extension .tp3. It cannot contain any path information, or any characters other than a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and the single period before tp3. The test will be created using the owner id and password assigned to the index. When the Build Test button is click, the assessment will be created and the owner will then be automatically begin online assessment editing.

Below the Build Test row is a Duplicate button and filename box. This allows you to make a duplicate copy of any test in the index. The new assessment's filename must be unique and end with the extension .tp3. It cannot contain any path information, or any characters other than a-z, A-Z, 0-9 and the single period before tp3. The assessment will be created using the owner id and password assigned to the original file. When the Duplicate button is clicked, an assessment duplicating you choice from the pop-up menu of existing assessments will be created in a file with your selected filename and the index will be refreshed listing the new assessment.

Finally, at the very bottom of the index, is a preview link which, when clicked upon, will cause a new browser window to appear showing what the assessment index will look like to participants.

Expert Information

A typical Test Pilot installation has an administrator create a web server directory for each prospective assessment author. That directory must reside somewhere within the web server hierarchy (where HTML files are stored). In order for authors to include media with their assessments, it will be necessary to provide the author with the ability to place media files in their directory. The means of accomplishing this vary from installation to installation and depends upon the type of web server used and the services available from that server. Some sites use FTP (file transfer protocol) software and instruct authors in its use. Others provide a local-area-network file server connection to the directory. Finally, once a directory is created and the process for file transfer to and from the directory is discussed, an assessment index is created as shown above. After some initial training in the process of assessment creating using Test Pilot, the index's owner may author, deliver and delete assessments at will with little need for further administrative involvement.

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Browser Requirements for Online Editing of Assessments

In order to ensure the most powerful, yet easy-to-use editing environment, Test Pilot's online authoring tools make extensive use of version 4 browser features such as frames and Javascript. We recommend using the very latest versions of popular web browsers such as Netscape or Internet Explorer. However, it should be possible to use Netscape version 3.02 or better or Internet Explorer 4.01 or later. Be sure that Javascript is enabled in your browser. Some installation may modify the browsers to disable Javascript.

Java is not Javascript

That is, Javascript is a scripting language built into most browsers and is not likely to cause your browser to crash. This should not be confused with client-side Java, a programming extension to web browsers that has been known to require considerable resources and cause browsers to crash. Test Pilot makes no use of browser Java.

Javascript Not Required for Assessment Participants

While there are optional features in Test Pilot which use Javascript in assessments delivered to participants (such as a countdown timer), participants in Test Pilot assessments can use most modern web browsers from Netscape v1.1 and Internet Explorer v3. Those browsers support the limited use of Javascript to allow Test Pilot's use of timers and the like. However, if you choose not to use those features flagged as requiring Javascript, you should be able to deliver an assessment to participants using virtually any web browser on any operating system platform.