Two New Tools Added to the LMS Assessments Area Support In-Person and Remote Testing

The LMS Assessments area has recently added two helpful improvement features to support both in-person and remote testing. These additions, along with local policies, standards and control augment the LMS Assessments tool to support your training and evaluation needs. Be sure to read on and review these descriptions of the new ‘Lost Focus Test Locking’ and the ‘Skills Gap Analysis Report’ to best be prepared to utilize the updated system.

As of September 4^th, the Lost Focus Test Locking feature provides an enhancement for protecting the integrity of test questions by influencing students who lose focus. ‘Loss of Focus’ occurs when the student navigates away from the Assessment Tool browser page…’Loss of Focus’ is a strong indication that the student may be accessing answers through other methods (Google, Documents, etc.).

This new feature is especially important if the training center has absolutely no option than to have students test when they are at home. The electrical training ALLIANCE stresses that if home online testing should occur, the practice should include special care to prevent students from accessing answers and recording questions. Many training centers are utilizing Zoom meetings during these test times and the student places their cell phone in a place that is visible to the instructor. A recommendation is to have the student sit in a room with the cell phone camera at the student’s side, and all doors and their workspace are within camera view. The student’s phone should be charged or connected to a charger in order to last the entire time of the test, often about an hour. It is also suggested as policy that reviewing the test remotely be eliminated because it is difficult to prevent students from capturing portions of the test. We realize this procedure is cumbersome, but everyone should try to adhere to protecting the integrity of the tests and to follow the requirements of their apprenticeship standards.

The Skills Gap Analysis Report is an enhancement that details the academic skills areas and the learning objectives. This particular report is available for the instructor and the student to review. The instructor controls when the student can view their own Skills Gap Analysis Report. Allowing the student to see this report is an excellent way for the student to find out where improvements may be needed. This report also allows for the student to gain awareness of test performance without need of reviewing question performance; and in turn protects the test questions.

Lost Focus Test Locking

The new feature that is now functional within the LMS Assessments tool increases student accountability on both remote and in-person tests. The main objective is to aid instructor awareness of the student Lost Focus feature, which requires interaction during such events from both the student and the instructor.

Quick Focus Description: When a user is active on a page of the internet, that page is considered in focus. If the user opens or interacts with other pages, applications, programs, monitors etc. the focus changes to the newly opened or interacted with item. In turn, the result is a lost focus from the original page. This is what is meant by the use of a focus monitoring system like the one utilized on both the Online Aptitude Testing solution as well as the LMS Assessments tool.

Feature Functionality Description:

With the LMS Assessments tool, when a student loses focus, their test is automatically paused until the instructor manually resumes it.

- - The student’s test is hidden from view and paused. A notice with the following message appears. Be sure to click the image to review the message
    _{click image for full view}

- - The student must provide a reason for why they lost focus from the test tab and must hit send to notify the instructor of the issue.
  - The student is unable to continue with the test until the instructor resumes the test.
  - If the instructor does not resume the test within a minute, the student may send another message.

Once the student enters the reason for the lost focus, the instructor will receive a notification to their Administer Test panel.

- - A pop-up will appear for each student who has lost focus, which includes a Lost Focus explanation entered by the student. Be sure to click the image to review the messages

- - If the reason is acceptable, the instructor will need to click on each message to dismiss it, in order to resume the student’s test.
    - - Click on “X” to dismiss each message.
      - Click on “resume test” in the student block, which allows the student to resume the test.
  - It is possible for an instructor to see several messages from a single user.

If an instructor “Pauses” a test for all students, and a student has lost focus, their test will not be automatically resumed until a lost focus reason is entered.

- - Any time focus is lost, the student will have to provide a reason for the instructor. It is up to the instructor to decide if that reason is valid so the student can resume the test. The instructor always has the option to end a test for a student, if necessary.

Student notifications are stored in the test history change log.

- - The student notifications and messages to the Instructor are recorded in the test history log.
  - The Lost Focus events and student-entered explanations will be available in the live history log and the Lost Focus reports.

Skills Gap Analysis Report

A new reporting feature was added to the LMS Assessments area on August 25^th, which shows how students performed on each test’s Learning Objectives. This feature is called the Skills Gap Analysis Report.

Note, this report is only displayed if the instructor has the “students see their scores” option turned on in the Administer Test panel.

Once the instructor finalizes the test, the student will immediately receive an on-screen version of their Skills Gap Analysis Report.

- - - This report will list each Course, Lesson, and Learning Objective, and also shows how the student performed within each Learning Objective. Be sure to click the image to review the detail
      _{click image for full view}

- - - Currently, this is only visible onscreen, however future versions will allow the student to print out or email a PDF version.

The instructor also has a new option for the Skills Gap Analysis Report, which is available in the Reporting panel.

- - - The Skills Gap Analysis generated from the Reporting Panel is for all students and shows how each student performed on each Learning Objective along with the mean performance of all the students in the class.

These new features of the LMS Assessments tool in conjunction with proper application of your local policies and standards may allow you to offer both in-person and remote testing where necessary. If you have any questions regarding the new Lost Focus Locking feature or Skill Gap Analysis Report, within the LMS Assessments area, please reach out to Steve Strickland by phone at 888.652.4007 or by email at sstrickland@electricaltrainingalliance.org.

Bonus Reading Material

This just in….not only do we have the update provided above, but here are two more items just for you!

TWO NEW COURSES!

The electrical training ALLIANCE is pleased to announce that on September 4, 2020 there are two new LMS awareness courses. The Crane and Digger Derrick Awareness and the Bucket Truck Awareness. These courses are for anyone who uses a digger derrick truck or bucket truck. They are great tools to help teach the importance of proper set up, safety and use of the equipment. They are also great prerequisites for the crane certification. We will be putting together a TTT course soon.

Communication about an oops we made!

To err is human, to forgive is divine

~Alexander Pope

We, at the electrical training ALLIANCE, strive to produce the best curriculum we can for our JATCs, Instructors, and apprentices; sometimes, we make mistakes. We are, after all, only human. When we make a mistake, especially one that involves providing the best curriculum to the greatest union instructors, and students, we try to correct it as soon as we can so that your education is not interrupted.

To that end, we would like like to bring your attention to the new 2020 Fire Alarm Systems textbook that you may or may not have already received. We noted a print was incorrectly showing the roof instead of the basement. A link to a PDF replacement page has been added to the course. We are very sorry for any inconvenience.