Each shared assignment or question bank in Classroom has a designated Bank Manager. The Bank Manager is very much like a librarian, they are responsible for the quality of the content housed in Classroom, as well as its maintenance and accessibility. Bank Managers also play a key role in disseminating the content, especially common district assessments or assignments.
There can only be one bank manager for each shared question or assignment bank; however, one person can be the manager of more than one shared bank. For instance, you may be the manger for both the "District Approved Questions" and "District Assessments" banks.
As a bank manager you have full privileges to control the content within the bank. When you select either the Shared Assignment Templates or Shared Question Templates from the directory tree on the left you will see the Edit (pencil) icon. Select the Edit icon to gain access to the bank.
Shared Assignment Template Bank
As a bank manager for a shared assignment bank you can:
- Change the details of your bank
- Make your bank active/inactive
- Allow or prevent submissions to your bank
- Approve or reject a submission to your bank.
- Edit or delete a previously approved submission
- Export an assignment to one or more gradebooks
- Lock an assignment
- Hide an assignment
Let's cover each responsibility.
The Details Tab
As the manager, you can alter the default Name of the bank. Denoted with a red asterisks, the name is required. You can also add, modify, or remove a description of the bank and what content or curriculum it contains. The name and description are displayed when a user selects the Shared Assignment Templates link.
You can also make the bank active or inactive, that is, users can or cannot make submissions to the bank. To deny submissions to a bank select the Active toggle button. When inactive, users will not be able to select the bank for sharing when composing an assignment. It turns white. Select it again to activate it. It turns green. You may want to inactivate a bank at the end of a school year.
You can also prevent users from importing, or using, the contents of your bank. If you select the Importable toggle, it turns white, and a user will not be able to access the contents of the bank. Select it again to allow imports. It turns green. Consider denying users import access to the bank right before a testing window.
Turning both options off effectively hides the bank from all users except you, the manager.
The Candidates Tab
When a user creates an assignment and wants to deposit it into your bank, it will end up on the Candidates tab. As the manager, it is your responsibility to review the assignment and any questions it contains for accuracy, relevancy, and adherence to your district's approved curriculum. Therefore, you have full privileges to approve, deny, edit or delete the assignment.
To view the assignment details and the questions it contains, select the Information icon to the right of any candidate assignment name.
The full settings of the assignment are displayed in view only mode, including a list of the assignment's questions. Here, you should carefully analyze the assignment and make a determination on whether or not it will be included in your bank.
If you approve of the assignment, you can accept it into the bank by either selecting the Checkmark, or by selecting the Edit icon.
Selecting the Checkmark approves the assignment as is, without revision. Selecting the Edit icon approves the assignment but places the assignment into edit mode for your revisions. Remember, you have full control of the assignments in your bank. In Edit mode, you can alter any portion of the assignment, including its questions. This is a good option if you intend to make a few minor changes; however, consider rejecting the assignment and notifying the author if you feel many changes are required. This will ensure the original intent and integrity of the assignment is maintained. The author will see the assignment is approved on the Sharing>>Banks tab of the assignment.
If you consider the assignment to be flawed in some way, for instance, the author submitted it to the wrong bank, or the questions do not align to the chosen standards, you can deny the assignment by selecting the Delete icon.
A dialogue box pops up asking you to give the author a reason why you are rejecting the assignment. Be very specific, and if warranted, tell the author to make the changes and submit the assignment to the bank again. You may even want to follow up the rejection with a detailed email. Assignments are submitted to banks after an author's best efforts and no doubt have been reviewed multiple times, so whatever errors you find are usually not intentional. The author will see your reason on the Sharing >> Banks tab of their assignment.
Once an assignment has been approved and becomes a part of your bank, the tie to the original author and the original assignment is broken. If the author makes changes to the original assignment they will not be reflected on the assignment that now lives in your bank. And conversely, if you make changes to the assignment in your bank, they will not be reflected on the author's original assignment.
Assignments imported from your shared bank are however, linked to one another. If Teacher A and Teacher B both import an assignment from your bank, each teacher now owns a copy of your bank's assignment. The copies can be independently edited without affecting the assignment in your bank. But, the copies remain linked to the originally imported assignment in your bank for the sole purpose of standard and item analysis. Because of this flexibility, we HIGHLY RECOMMEND all district approved ASSESSMENTS be LOCKED to prevent them from being modified by staff after import/export. This will maintain the assessment's integrity on all reports and analytics.
The Assignment Tab
Once you have accepted a candidate submission into your bank, it moves to the Assignments tab. On the Assignments tab you can filter all the bank's assignments with a keyword search or by selecting standards used. You can also filter by grade level, by subject, or by a variety of other options available by selecting the More button.
You will notice many options to the right of the Assignment name. These options are similar to those available from the Actions button on an assignment template.
The Information icon will give you a read-only view of the assignment settings and all it's questions.
The Taker icon, will open a new browser window (the current Classroom window stays open) and allows you to access and "take" the assignment as a student would without actually making a student submission.
The Export icon allows the bank manager to push an assignment to one or more existing gradebooks.
A pop up window with a list of all the gradebooks available is displayed. Use the Schools button to narrow the list by school(s). Use the Courses button to see only gradebooks which used the settings from a particular course (by course code).
Finally, use the Search box to enter any keyword. Every gradebook created has an owner and the owner's name is displayed here in parentheses to allow easy searching by first or last name.
To export the assignment to one or more gradebooks, select the Add symbol to the right of the gradebook name, then select Export.
If you want to preserve the integrity of an assignment, you should Lock it. The purpose of any shared bank is to prevent duplication of effort by educators by openly sharing curriculum and other resources between them. A teacher may import an assignment and then modify it to suit their particular need. Once a teacher imports, or copies, an assignment from a shared bank into their own gradebook, they have full edit privileges on the copy. It is a new assignment and belongs to the teacher. However, if you are using shared banks in Classroom to house district approved assessments, you probably do not want staff members altering the assessment in any way once they import it into their gradebook.
To prevent a user from editing an imported assignment, set the Lock icon by clicking it.
Once locked, and after import, the assignment (or assessment) will display a "cannot be edited" message to the user. Only a few areas can be altered: the assignment schedule (Open, Due, Close, Published), which students are included/excluded from taking the assignment, and the student submissions.
Bank managers can also hide assignments from being displayed in a bank. To make an assignment Invisible select the icon which resembles an eye. Once hidden, only the bank manager will be able to see the assignment. A good time to hide an assignment is before or after a testing window, if for example, you do not want any users to import it. You can also hide it if you are working on modifications to the assignment and do not want to take the chance of having a staff member import it before it is ready.
Bank managers have full edit privileges on all assignments in their bank. To modify an assignment, select the Edit icon (pencil). You can change any setting on the assignment or its questions. Remember, when you make changes to an assignment in the shared bank, the author's original assignment and any copies (imports) of the assignment will not reflect your changes.
Finally, even after approval, bank managers can Delete an assignment from the bank by selecting the trash can icon. The author of the assignment and any user who imported the assignment will not be notified. Additionally, the imported assignments will lose the common link required for reports and standard analytics. Therefore, we recommend you do not delete any assignment whose student submissions have been migrated to Homeroom (most district approved assessments are migrated to Homeroom). Instead, you can hide the assignment.
Please note: deleting an assignment cannot be reversed!
Shared Question Template Bank
Managers of shared question banks have nearly identical privileges to managers of shared assignment banks, with two exceptions, they cannot preview a question with the Taker and they cannot Export a question to a gradebook. Neither action would make sense!
As a bank manager you have full privileges to control the content within the bank. When you select Shared Question Templates from the directory tree on the left you will see the Edit (pencil) icon. Select the Edit icon to gain access to the bank.
As a bank manager for a shared question bank you can:
- Make your bank active/inactive
- Allow or prevent submissions to your bank
- Change the details of your bank
- Approve or reject a submission to your bank.
- Edit or delete a previously approved submission
- Hide a question
- Lock a question
The Details Tab
As the manager, you can alter the default Name of the bank. Denoted with a red asterisks, the name is required. You can also add, modify, or remove a description of the bank and what content or curriculum it contains. The name and description are displayed when a user selects the Shared Question Templates link.
You can also make the bank active or inactive, that is, users can or cannot make submissions to the bank. To deny submissions to a bank select the Active toggle button. When inactive, users will not be able to select the bank for sharing when composing a question. It turns white. Select it again to activate it. It turns green. You may want to inactivate a bank at the end of a school year if the contents are year centric.
You can also prevent users from importing, or using, the contents of your bank. If you select the Importable toggle, it turns white, and a user will not be able to access the contents of the bank. Select it again to allow imports. It turns green. Consider denying users import access to the bank if the curriculum is no longer applicable.
Turning both options off effectively hides the bank from all users except you, the manager.
The Candidates Tab
When a user creates a question and wants to deposit it into your bank, it will end up on the Candidates tab. As the manager, it is your responsibility to review the question for accuracy, relevancy, chosen standards, and adherence to your district's approved curriculum. Therefore, you have full privileges to approve, deny, edit or delete the question.
To view the question details, select the Information icon to the right of any candidate question.
If you approve of the question, you can accept it into the bank by either selecting the Checkmark, or by selecting the Edit icon.
Selecting the Checkmark approves the question as is, without revision. Selecting the Edit icon approves the question but places it into edit mode for your revisions. Remember, you have full control of the questions in your bank. In Edit mode, you can alter any portion of the question. This is a good option if you intend to make a few minor changes; however, consider rejecting the question and notifying the author if you feel many changes are required. This will ensure the original intent and integrity of the question is maintained. The author will see the question is approved on the Sharing>>Banks tab of the original question.
If you consider the question to be flawed in some way, for instance, the author submitted it to the wrong bank, or the question does not align to the chosen standard(s), you can deny the question by selecting the Delete icon.
A dialogue box pops up asking you to give the author a reason why you are rejecting the question. Be very specific, and if warranted, tell the author to make the changes and submit the question to the bank again. The author will see your reason on the Sharing >> Banks tab of their original question.
The Questions Tab
Once you have accepted a candidate submission into your bank, it moves to the Questions tab. On the Questions tab you can filter all the bank's questions with a keyword search or by selecting standards used. You can also filter by grade level, by subject, or by a variety of other options available by selecting the More button.
You will notice many options to the right of the questions. These options are similar to those available from the Candidates tab.
The Information icon will give you a read-only view of the question and its settings.
If you want to preserve the integrity of question, you should Lock it.
The purpose of any shared bank is to prevent duplication of effort by educators by openly sharing curriculum and other resources between them. A teacher may import a question and then modify it to suit their particular need. Once a teacher imports, or copies, a question from a shared bank into their own assignment, they have full edit privileges on the copy. It is a new question and belongs to the teacher. However, if you feel the intend of the question will be lost if altered, lock it, so staff members cannot edit the question once they import it into an assignment.
To prevent a user from editing an imported question, set the Lock icon by clicking it. Once locked, and after import, the question cannot be edited and there will be no edit or delete options. The only option available is for the teacher to cut (remove) the question from their assignment.
Bank managers can also hide questions from being displayed in a bank. To make a question Invisible select the icon which resembles an eye.
Once hidden, only the bank manager will be able to see the question. If you are working on modifications to the question and do not want to take the chance of having a staff member import it before it is ready, you should hide it.
Bank managers have full edit privileges on all questions in their bank. To modify a question, select the Edit icon (pencil) or click the question text.
You can change any setting on the question, including the question text.
When you make a change to a question in the shared bank, the author's original question and any copies (imports) of the question will not reflect your changes.
Finally, even after approval, bank managers can Delete a question from the bank by selecting the trash can icon.
The author of the question and any user who imported the question will not be notified. Additionally, the imported question will lose the common link required for reports and standard analytics. If you ever want to see a report about the question, we recommend you hide it rather than delete it.
Please note: deleting a question cannot be reversed!
[Updated: 9/18/15, prh]
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