Evaluation states and dates

Information

This describes the various states of evaluations and how they interact with the dates. This is documentation for developers mostly but it applies to all users and especially administrators.

Evaluation States

• Evaluations have multiple states which they can be in, these states are determined by the dates set for each specific evaluation
  • Use the methods in the EvalEvaluationService API ( String updateEvaluationState(Long evaluationId), String returnAndFixEvalState(EvalEvaluation evaluation, boolean saveState) ) to determine the state of an evaluation, do not attempt to calculate it for yourself
• States - Partial => InQueue => Active => GracePeriod => Closed => Viewable (=> Deleted)
  • Partial - evaluation is being created but user has not completed the creation process, evaluations in the partial state will be purged out of the system if they are not completed to UnQueue within 24 hours
  • InQueue - evaluation has not started yet, should be the state of evaluations when they are first created, can make any change to the evaluation while in this state
  • Active - evaluation is currently running, users can take the evaluation, start date cannot be modified anymore, email templates cannot be modified, cannot unlink groups of takers at this point, can still add in groups
  • GracePeriod - evaluation is over but not technically, no more notifications will be displayed and links are no longer shown, however, takers can still complete the evaluation until the state changes to closed, evaluations in GracePeriod status are shown as closed in the interface
  • Closed - evaluation is over and closed, users cannot take evaluation anymore, no changes can be made to the evaluation except to adjust the results view date, cannot add or remove groups of takers
  • Viewable - evaluation is over and closed and results are generally viewable, no changes can be made to the evaluation at all
  • Deleted - evaluation is removed and can no longer be accessed by the user, evaluation data is maintained while in this state and locked templates/items/scales cannot unlock but evaluation results are not lost
• NOTE: - StartDate > DueDate (null) >= StopDate (null) >= ViewDate (null) >= student/instructorViewDate (null)

Evaluation Dates

• There are four significant dates that determine the state of the evaluation
  • Start date - eval becomes active on this date, cannot change start date once it passes, most parts of evaluation cannot change on this date, no assigned contexts can be modified
    • this MUST be set
  • Due date - eval is reported to be closed after this date passes (interface and email), cannot change due date once it passes, cannot assign new contexts once this passes
    • this may be null, if it is then there is no closing date and the evaluation stay open indefinitely until it is manually closed
  • Stop date - eval is actually closed after this date passes, cannot change stop date once it passes, no changes to evaluation after this date EXCEPT adjusting the view dates
    • this may be null, if it is then there is no grace period
  • View date - eval results visible on this date
    • this may be null, if it is then results are visible as soon as the evaluation closes
  • student/instructorViewDate - allows students/instructors to view results on a separate date from the admin/owner, this has no effect if the viewdate is null or the results sharing is set to public or private, if these are null then students/instructors may not view the evaluation results
• Note: currently times are taken into account, so if you want to close an evaluation at the end of a date, make sure to set the time to midnight