Item Development Process
From conception to sign-off, each ONPAR item undergoes a many-staged item development process before a finished project is created. Item ideas are sketched as storyboards, passed through a series of edits and revisions, designed by graphic artists, and made functional with programming.
Storyboard
The storyboard is a hand-drawn sketch of an item that details the item construct, the graphical layout, and the program functionality of the item type. Layout includes:
- Item question / text prompt
This is a phrase or sentence that poses a question or provides contextual information to the student. Key words are colored blue and underlined in order to provide additional support for difficult text.
- Task-descriptive animated icon
This icon demonstrates how to perform the item task with a simple animation.
- Stimulus area
This area on the screen provides important information to the student that is required to answer the question or is related to the text prompts.
- Response options
These are the actual objects that must be manipulated in order to answer the question.
- Response space
This is the area in which the response options need to be placed or manipulated in order to record the answer to the question.
Design Mock-up
The mock-up is a computer illustrated version of the storyboard. It meets design standards that dictate the overall graphical cohesion of the individual items. Design standards set the guidelines for:
- General appearance of the layout elements
- Stylistic look of common content-related images including laboratory equipment, animals, etc.
- Consistency in the ways supporting or descriptive symbols, such as arrows, are used
Programming
Custom-designed program clusters add functionality to the mock-up. The programming is item type specific and each item is created to fit into a testing interface that comprises the complete test.
Internal Review Panel
Each of the previous stages is examined by a review panel for quality assurance purposes. Items go through the following stages:
- Initial Content Review
Storyboards are checked for content integrity and accessibility issues. Revised storyboards return to item writers for editing.
- Content-Design Match Review
Design mock-ups are checked for storyboard alignment and target-irrelevant biases that may facilitate or hinder test-takers. Revised mock-ups are returned to graphic designers for editing.
- Content-Design-Programming Review
Approved design mock-ups get programming added for functionality. Items are checked to detect any alterations that may have occurred to the content or initial design during the programming process.
- Functional Review
Items are debugged and tested for programming errors that may affect the integrity of the test as a whole or the individual items.
- Final Review / Sign-off
Items are given a general exiting review and determined to be appropriate for testing.
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An example of a Science Item
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