Assessment & Evaluation Scales

Create Assessment Response Categories & Scales

Article Content

This article covers the following topics. Click on the topic to go to that section of the article.

Scales
Set Scale Permissions

Note: To effectively use the A&E module tools in Elentra ME some initial setup is required. Either a Staff: Admin or Medtech: Admin will need to configure assessment response categories in System Settings. Once this is done, scales can be created.

Scales

You must be a Medtech: Admin user to manage rating scales. Scales are used on form items as question responses which can be reused across different items and forms. Creating rating scales promotes consistency across items and can be a time saver for the administrative staff creating items and forms. Once created, scales can be permissioned to others for use in forms.

To begin, click on the Admin tab> Assessment & Evaluation> Scales tab. Click on Add Rating Scale.

Enter your scale title and optionally, a description. If enabled, optionally, assign the scale to a curriculum track.

Rating Scale Type: This categorizes the type of rating scale you are creating. Later, if you add rating scales to items, or add standard scales to form templates, you will first have to select a scale type. There is no user interface to configure rating scale types. Sample scale types include generic, global rating scale, milestone scale, etc. In a non-CBME Elentra installation you'll likely just see a default scale type. In installations with CBME enabled you'll see global rating and milestone/enabling competency scales. To have additional rating scale types added, contact Elentra Support.

Response Categories: This is where you will apply the assessment response categories you previously created within System Settings. Optionally, assign a color and/or a character to a response. To add or delete response entries, use the + and - buttons at the top right of this section.

Note: Some assessment response categories are hard-coded to count as a null value, and will behave as such when used in a gradebook assessment. These response categories are: N/A; Not Applicable; Not Observed; Did Not Attend; Please Select. Enter a 0 in the score value in order to save the form. If one of the null responses are selected, the gradebook will proportionately redistribute the weight of the question to the other questions on the form. Please note that custom null values as configured on an A&E scale will not count as null values in the gradebook, and instead count as a 0 (or whatever you configured the value to be) and not redistribute the question weight.

Click Save to continue. Once created, scales will be available for use when creating forms within the A&E module.

Tip: Some reports in Elentra rely on "weights" applied to scale values. By default, a scale's response categories are weighted 0 through 4 in the scale order (while respecting hard-coded null values as described above). Elentra can apply weights to scale response categories to match your institution's required scale response weighting. Contact Elentra Support to apply weights to a scale's response categories. Provide the name of the scale and the number value to apply to each response category on that scale.

Set Scale Permissions

Once saved, the scale will display permissions options.

You can permission scales to an entire organization, courses, individuals, or some combination of those options. When applying permissions, you are granting the users in that organization or course whose profile provides them with access to building forms, the ability to use this scale on their forms. You are not providing edit access to every person associated with the organization or course, just those whose profiles give them build access to forms. Click Save once finished.