Item Banks: Items, Passages, and Rubrics > Create an Item

Create an Item

Test items can be created on a test, or created individually and saved to item banks. Be sure to review and fix alerts any alerts that appear on the page.

Items and passages that are created on a test are not automatically added to an item bank. In addition, when editing items or passages on a test that are already in a bank, changes are made only for the test -- the bank will not be updated. You can add an item or passage to a bank from Test Detail or Item Detail after a test is Scheduled, In Progress, or Completed.

ClosedTo create a new test item
  1. Go to Assessments > Create for Items, Rubrics and Passages, and then select an item type. You can also create items directly from a test. See Edit a Test.
  2. Define the item's subject, grade, standards, and other properties. Depending upon the item type, the available item properties will differ. Be sure to complete all required fields.
  3. Click Add Passage to create a new passage or link to an existing passage in an item bank. Passages provide information needed to answer the question or a series of questions, such as a reading passage, graph, or map. Multiple passages may be assigned to a single item, and each passage may be paired to several items. Passages can be linked to items in the same bank or a different bank. If you create a new passage for an item in a bank, it will be saved to the same bank as the item.
  4. Click in the Question Content field to enter the test question in the content editor.

    ClosedUsing the content editor
    1. Click in the Question Content area to enter the test question.
    2. Use the content editor buttons to format, spell check, insert media files, insert equations, and so on. Hover over an icon to see each button's function.
    3. Optional: For the Text to Speech accommodation, you can provide alternate text to be read aloud in place of a selected word, math equation, image, audio file, or table. To do so, select the item you want to provide alternate text for, and then click the Alternate Text icon and enter the alternate text to be read aloud. You cannot select more than a single line of text. For tables, alternate text can be entered for content within the table or the entire table (in Table Properties). If alternate text is entered for both, only the alt text for the entire table will be read. You can remove alternate text for a single word or click the Clear All Text to Speech icon to remove all alternate text for the test item. You can use alternate text to improve the pronunciation of certain words. See the phonetic spelling guide.
    4. Optional: Click the Grade Level Vocabulary button to view Grade Level Vocabulary reference sheets. This button is available to districts that have uploaded grade-level vocabulary reference files for the item's grade level.

  5. Click Preview to see the item as it will appear for students when taking an online test, and then select one of the following preview options. Note: Previewing a new, unsaved item will save it to your Personal Bank. If a new passage was created as well, it will also be saved to your Personal Bank. After previewing the item, you will have the option to Save to Another Bank, which will move the item and (optionally) linked passages to the designated bank.
    • In TestNav: Select to preview the item in TestNav without text-to-speech. Composite tasks display in TestNav with both activities on the same page. For tasks with more than two activities, the previewer displays which activity in the task (testlet) you are on. In the TestNav previewer, all tools and accommodations will be shown when you preview items, not just those that are selected, so it is recommended to preview the entire test in TestNav to view the test as students will see it.
    • In TestNav with Text to Speech: Select to preview the item in TestNav with text-to-speech enabled. This option will take longer to process than other preview options. Note that if you have already previewed speech-to-text and not made changes to the item, the text-to-speech feature will also be available in the "In TestNav" preview option.
    • In preview, you can enter answers to verify that scoring works correctly.
  6. Click Save to Bank, and then select an item bank to save the item to. If you previewed the item, click Save to Personal Bank or Save to Another Bank to move the item to the appropriate bank.
ClosedOther settings and options
ClosedAdditional Properties

To view or edit the following fields, click Additional Properties. For items that have been purchased from external vendors, these fields are imported. Your system may have up to three additional custom properties for items.

Field
Description
Name
Searchable names used to locate the item in item banks. This field is not optional for task item types.
Author
The person who created the item.
Publisher
Vendor that wrote the item or passageA reading passage that can be included with a test item. Passages can be created independently or while creating a test item., such as Equella, Kaplan, or ETS.
Keywords
Searchable keywords used to locate the item in item banks.
Anchor ItemAny item that has been flagged by a teacher or administrator for identification as an anchor item. This flag is user-defined, visible to only its creator, and may be used for a variety of purposes.
Any item that has been flagged by a teacher or administrator for identification as an anchor item. This flag is user-defined, visible to only its creator, and may be used for a variety of purposes.
Question Language
The language used to author the content. The item can be used to administer assessments to students in a language other than English. This option is available for school districts with system configurations that support multiple languages. For the Text to Speech accommodation, English or Spanish pronunciation will be used based on this setting. Note that the test-level Text to Speech language setting will override the item-level Question Language setting.
Response Language
The language used by students to respond to the question in a language other than English. This option is available for school districts with system configurations that support multiple languages. The Response Language will default to the option selected for the Question Language, with the exception being Chinese. If Chinese is selected as the Question Language, the Response Language field will default to English, as Chinese text cannot be entered for student answers.
Authored Difficulty
Difficulty determined for this item after it has been field tested.
Batch
The batch number. This field is used by Florida only.
Bloom's TaxonomyA multi-tiered scale for learning objectives used to define how well a skill or compentency is learned or mastered.
Represents levels of learning: Remembering, Understanding, Applying, Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating
Course ID
The course ID the item is associated with.
Cognitive Demand Level
Low, Moderate, or High.
Item Category
An attribute of open response item types.
Reading Level
Select the reading level range for this item.
Additional Item Identifier
A unique item number that may be provided when importing items from a publisher, such as Equella.
Webb
Norman Webb's Depth of Knowledge Levels:
  • Level 1: Recall or recognition of a fact, information, concept or procedure
  • Level 2: Basic Application of Skill/Concept - use of information, conceptual knowledge, follow and select appropriate procedures, two or more steps with decision points along the way, routine problems, organize/display data
  • Level 3: Strategic Thinking - require reasoning, developing a plan or sequence of steps to approach problem; require some decision making and justification; abstract and complex; often more than one possible answer
  • Level 4: Extending Thinking - an investigation or application to real world; requires time to research, think, and process multiple conditions of the problem or task; non-routine manipulations, across disciplines/content areas/multiple sources
Year
The year the test item was imported or created.
Hard to Measure Content Area
Indicates whether the test itemA test question, such as True/False, Matching, Open Response, and so on. Test items can be created in Assessment Admin or imported through the QTI import process. is in a hard-to-measure content area, such as World Languages. Items that are imported through QTIThe IMS Question & Test Interoperability (QTI) specification enables the exchange of item, test, and results data between authoring tools, item banks, test constructional tools, learning systems, and assessment delivery systems. Test items that meet the QTI 2.1 specification can be imported into Schoolnet. Import that are flagged as hard-to-measure will maintain the flag when they are imported.
ClosedItem alerts and warnings

Messages will appear when creating or editing an item to notify you of any alerts or warnings for the test item you are working on. While a test is in a draft state, you can work on new items before finalizing previous items. However, draft tests can be moved to the Ready to Schedule state only when all required alerts are resolved. Tests can be scheduled with unresolved warnings, but not with unresolved alerts.

The following table lists some common alerts and warnings. It is not a comprehensive list of all warnings and alerts.

If a required alert appears, you must resolve it before scheduling the test.

Message

Required

Troubleshooting

Required

Yes

Appears in red text below required fields. Select or enter all required content.

At least one answer must be selected as correct

Yes

Select a correct answer using the checkboxes.

Standard alignment is required

Yes

Select a standard using the standard picker (click Select Standards).

Incomplete
Yes
The item is missing a required field. This alert appears when hovering over the alert icon for an item when editing a test.

Not worth any points

No

Assign at least one point to an answer choice.

Primary alignment is not from preferred standards document

No

Appears when the standard you select using the standard picker is from a different standard set than the preferred standards used in test creation.

Fix the errors in the highlighted tabs
Yes
For item types with gaps or containers, fix any errors that appear in the answer choice tabs.
Multiple correct answers (multiple choice)
No
Make sure only one answer is selected as correct.
The question must contain at least one gap (gap match and graphic gap match)
Yes
Click Insert New Gap in the question content area to add gaps.
At least one correct answer choice per gap is required (gap match and graphic gap match)
Yes
Make sure each gap has at least one correct answer.
Other alerts
 
This table is not comprehensive. You may see other alerts for specific item types that need to be resolved.

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