Elearning Features:
The automated assessment system in Opus Pro monitors key scores and progress metrics across all questions in a publication (referred to as a course) and also in specific areas of expertise referred to as topics.
As we will see topics can also be used to categorise questions to allow tracking of different types of data and not just to suggest revision.
Instructional designers can define topics in the course settings tab of the Publication Properties. This puts the pass setting in a single location and Opus Pro handles the score and assessment throughout the publication without any further scripting.
The course must have at least one topic which thereby sets the pass threshold for the whole course but Opus will use the default "Topic 1" if no other structure is set up.
Pass thresholds can be set as a value or as a percentage and the value is then specified alongside. Opus Pro also allows developers to specify whether a topic is critical to the course - that is, the topic must be passed for the course to be passed.
This provides the elearning developer with real flexibility and can allow the assessment to be informative as well as evaluative. It means critical assessments do not necessarily have a 100% pass threshold which could otherwise put the candidate under unnecessary pressure and skew results.
Obviously topics can be used for specific subject areas in the project but they can also be used for more sophisticated tracking.
In this example of a school science revision test the topics are the relevant sections of the curriculum on plant biology. Note that because plant reproduction is no longer part of the curriculum but is still useful to know, the topic is set as not critical.
However, topics can also be used to divide up the assessment in any way the developer requires. For example, a health and safety assessment might be broken up into critical information which everyone must know, extended information which might identify prospective managers and additional information which is not critical to the course at all but should have been picked up from an attentive learner, or even monitor whether old notions are still prevalent.
Thus the assessment provides competency assurance but also valuable information for personnel management. It also means that you can switch this assessment from identifying management prospects to testing the managers you already have by simply making the management information topic critical to passing the course.
Opus Pro automatically tracks and calculates key progress metrics - including questions answered, score percentage and value as well as the total possible score the learner could achieve if they got everything else right. Many of these scores are also tracked on a topic-by-topic basis so that the number of questions answered and the score in any particular topic can also be tracked.
In addition Opus Pro tracks whether a course, and it's individual topics, have been finished and have been passed or failed.
Opus Pro provides a Topic Condition and a Course Condition setting which allows you to define a series of actions to take place if the course or topic has been passed or failed.
Opus Pro automatically records a Course Log which can be set to include a