Renaissance DnA offers multiple packages of prebuilt content in the form of assessments and individual items, which help districts to quickly and efficiently evaluate student performance according to national and state standards, without needing to create content from scratch. Sometimes, users look to utilize prebuilt Inspect items in the Item Bank, but would like to make changes or edits to better fit their specific situation. This article walks through the process for districts to opt into the Beta feature to duplicate Inspect publisher item content, and how users can duplicate these items for their own purposes.
Before You Begin
Required Permissions: Districts must have purchased at least one publisher content package in order to request access to the Beta item duplication feature.
For users to utilize the duplication feature, the district must have requested Beta access from the Support team, which can then enable the Duplicate Items permissions for the relevant publisher item banks. Permissions can be viewed on the Item Bank Config page, under the Publisher Bank Permissions section.
The feature to duplicate publisher items is currently in Beta. Publisher items are specifically created to mimic common national- and state-level assessments to help prepare students for testing. Sometimes, item types and formatting that are created to simulate an assessment are supported in assessment administration, but are not supported in item creation. Due to differences in formatting, technical support, and the Beta status of the duplication feature, users may experience issues and inconsistencies when attempting to duplicate publisher items.
Request Beta Access
If a district has purchased at least one publisher content package from Renaissance DnA, such as Inspect Plus or Inspect Premium, a request can be made to enable the Beta duplication feature.
To begin the process, a System Administrator or other equivalent district representative should submit a ticket to the DnA Support team requesting that the Beta publisher item duplication feature be enabled.
The Support team will process the request, and confirm that the feature has been enabled via email.
Duplicate Inspect Items
- Select Assessments.
- Select Browse Item Bank.
- Filter the item list to the desired publisher content item banks.
- Locate a prebuilt item to be duplicated, and select the 3-dot icon.
- From the dropdown, select Duplicate Item.
- Some item types might not be available to duplicate yet; these items will not list the option to duplicate.
- Once duplicated, an Item Creation screen for the copied item will open. Edits can be made to the item content and settings, and any standards, passages, and tags can be added or edited as desired.
- Duplicated publisher content items cannot be published back into the publisher item bank, but they can be published to any district-created item bank, according to relevant user permissions.
It is recommended that users create a sample assessment containing duplicated publisher content items, and administer the sample assessment to a dummy student account to ensure that all items are functioning as intended, and are scored properly.
Potential Beta Issues
As the feature to duplicate publisher content items is currently in Beta status, some issues with item formatting and ability to make edits can be expected.
Some publisher item types are not available to author from scratch, and some item types which are available to author still contain features that are not normally accessible. Because these item authoring tools might not be fully developed in item creation, duplicated items can present unexpected content formatting, or content pieces that cannot be edited.
Whether or not an item will present issues is situational and dependent upon the item specifics, but common issue areas have been marked by the product team for improvement:
- Math Equation Response items and Constructed Response items with multiple response areas.
- Any items, but specifically Math Equation Response items, with a Response Template are especially prone to not scoring as expected.
- Hot Text item Token setup.
New errors and issues with duplicating publisher content items can be reported by sending a request to the DnA Support team. Reported issues help the developer team to iron out the kinks in the Beta version to create a finalized feature.
Next Steps
To learn more about item bank items, take a look at the other articles in the Item Bank Items manual.