Creating Administrations

Administrations are how the Student Strengths Inventory(SSI) or Continuing Student Assessment(CSA) are scheduled and sent out to students.  

Pre-Administration Tasks

Creating an Administration

Methods for Supplying the Assessment Link to Students

How to Set-up Assessment Email Notifications

Pre-Administration Tasks

1. Import Accounts
   • In order to send mailings out Accounts will need to be imported for your students.  This step is part of implementation of Beacon but new Accounts will need to be created as new students are enrolled at your Institution.  For complete instructions on how to import accounts see Core Data Accounts.
2. Set Default Administration Messages
   • Each administration has a welcome message and a thank you message that is shown to the students who are completing the SSI or CSA.  These messages can be customized for each administration.  Since in most cases your messaging will not change much we offer the option to set up default messages.  To learn how to set up you default messages and for example administration messages see Default System Message Examples.
3. Decide on and Set-up Custom Questions
   • Additional questions you would like to ask your students can be added to any administration.  Additional questions must be build in the Custom Question Library before they can be added to an administration.  An Administrator of the system can do this by
     • Clicking on Settings
     • Clicking on Custom Question Library
     • Creating the addition questions
   • To see questions that some of our other member Institutions are adding see Custom Question Suggestions.
4. Set-up Assessment & Custom Question Triggers
   • Assessment & Custom Question triggers allow an Institution to get a Data Insight or Alert for a student based on their response to a question.
   • To learn more about Triggers including how to set them up see Triggers.

Creating an Administration

To create an administration an Administrator can follow the steps below:

1. Click on the 'Administrations' option in the navigation bar.
2. Click on the blue 'Create Administration' button on the right-hand side of the page.
3. Fill in all required fields for each area:
   • Details
     • Administration name - this name should describe the contents of the administration and students.  This name is visible to other users in the system.
     • Assessment - Choose the assessment you want to administer.
     • Open Date/ Open Time - Choose the date and time you would like students to be able to start taking the assessment.
     • Close Date/ Close Time - Choose the date and time you would like the assessment to close to student responses.
     • Description - Not required.  Full in more details that will help describe which population of users this administration was created for.
   • Messages
     • Use Defaults - The default messages that you created will be pre-populated and by clicking this button will be used exactly as they have been written.
     • Customize - Clicking this button will give you the option to make changes to your custom messages.
       • On the customization page there is also the choice to choose to redirect students to another website after they have completed the assessment.
       • On the customization page there is also a checkbox that can be selected that would allow students to navigate to their report immediately after completing the assessmen
     • Custom Questions
       • Choose the questions you would like to add to this administration from your Custom Question Library.  If no questions should be added click 'None'.
     • Click 'Save Administration'

Methods for Supplying the Assessment Link to Students

1. Assessment Link
   • The assessment link for a specific administration can be found by clicking on the name of the administration on the Administration tab.  The link can be found on the right-hand side of the page under 'Quick Info'.
2. Quick Response (QR) Code
   • The assessment QR code for a specific administration can be found by clicking on the name of the administration on the Administration tab.  The QR code can be found on the right-hand side of the page under 'Quick Info'.
3. Email Notification with Unique Link
   • A mailing group can be set up within each administration.  This mailing group allows 
     the Administrator to email each student a unique link to the assessment.  This unique link allows for response tracking of who has and has not clicked on the link to take the assessment.  By using this tracking method reminder mailings can be set up so that only the students who have not clicked on the assessment link in the email will be sent a reminder mailing.

How to Set-up Assessment Email Notifications

1. Click on the 'Administrations' option in the navigation bar.
2. Click on the name of the administration you would like to add a mailing to.
3. Scroll down to the area labeled 'Mailing Groups'.
4. Click on the 'Add Mailing Group' button.
   • Fill in all of the fields under Group Details and Compose Message.
   • The email with a unique link that was generated for each email address will be sent to the student as the designated time.
5. After a mailing has been set up a reminder mailing can be set up to be sent out.  That reminder mailing will go to email addresses where the recipient has not click on the unique link to take the assessment.