Test Plans

Owned by Former user (Deleted)
Last updated: Feb 23, 2012 by Former user (Deleted)Version comment
4 min read

Evaluation Test Plans

Prior to creating evaluations for the first time, administrators need to define system settings and permissions for their institution.

Please see the Administrator Guide for information on System Settings, Creating Scales and Setting up Permissions.

General Information

The Evaluation System is used to conduct formative and summative (End of Term) evaluations and review the results. An evaluation consists of a series of scaled and/or free text questions, which are delivered to students over a fixed time period (typically a few days). This guide will explain how to create items (questions), templates, and evaluations, deliver the evaluation and view the results. Permissions have been assigned for the "maintain" and "access" roles.  Instructors with the maintain role can create a template, assign an evaluation to a template, and be evaluated in an evaluation.  Students with the access role can complete and submit an evaluation.  Test IDs should be created for an Instructor and Students to assist the tester with this effort.

 The test plan is setup to record results from multiple testers.  It's advisable that you enter your Name, Date, Tag, and Browser information in the heading.  There is also a column to enter JIRA ticket numbers for any issues you create, the Operating System (eg, Windows 7, Mac OS 10.6) and Browser (eg, Internet Explorer 9.0, Firefox 10.0.2) you used to test with and any other pertinent information you have into the Notes section.

Overview of Evaluation Process

The process of using the Evaluation Tool involves the following general steps:
1. Create your items (this is optional as you can also create items while creating a template)
2. Create a template
3. Add items to your template
4. Create an evaluation
a. Set the parameters for the evaluation
5. Run the evaluation
6. View the results

Each of these steps are explained in the following sections.

Preparation

If you are new to QA testing for Sakai, there are some things that you do before you begin:

Creating test accounts and sites on the Sakai QA servers

  • The QA5 server has been used in the past by UM for testing Release candidates.  It can be found here:
    Quick link: http://qa5-us.sakaiproject.org/portal
  • Login to the Qa5 server: 
    • UserID = admin
    • Password = (traditional Sakai login)  contact Cathy Crouch if you need additional information (crouch@umich.edu)
  • On the Sakai QA servers, each user can create his or her own test accounts and sites.
  • Test accounts have been setup for the following IDs:  Instructor01, Student01, and Student02.  See the Information page of the test plan for details.
  • Set up 2 or 3 Sakai course and/or project sites, i.e. EvalTest02, EvalTest02, and EvalTest03
  • Add 1 instructor to a site; add multiple instructors to a site
  • Add at least 1 student to each site; add multiple students to at least 1 site.                 

Evaluation Dashboard

The Evaluations Dashboard provides a summary of group information and the current status of your evaluations. Links at the top of the page when selected will display the following:

  • My Evaluations
  • My Templates
  • My Items
  • My Scales
  • My Email Templates
    • + Add Template
    • + Add Evaluation

You'll also see two boxes on the screen which are described below:

  • Site/Group Listing: displays the groups that the instructor can be evaluated in and the groups they can evaluate.
  • Evaluations I am creating or administering: displays the Title, Status and Date of the instructor's evaluations
    • Clicking on the Title of the evaluation will bring up a preview of the evaluation.
    • The Status column will indicate whether an evaluation is active or if the results are viewable. You can click on the View Report link to gain direct access to the report for that particular evaluation.
    • The Date column will indicate the due date of the evaluation or the date of the when results become viewable.

Test Plan

All of the functional testing features are listed in the Google workbook named TQ 1.4 Release - Test Plan*.  Each worksheet identifies a feature to test and contains one more sets of tasks as described below. Click on a feature's link to view test conditions for each step.

  • Instructions- Instructions for completing the test plan and preliminary steps that are necessary to complete before testing features in the test plan.
  • Create Items - Test scripts that focus on creating, modifying and removing items.  These are the questions or statements which the evaluator responds to.
  • Create Templates - Templates store items in a layout and are used to create evaluations.  This page contains test scripts for creating and editing templates.
  • Create Evaluations - Test scripts that focus on authoring assessments. The conditions will focus on creating new and updating previously creating evaluations.
  • General Student Conditions - Test scripts that focus on student submissions and email notifications.

Re-order question block using menus Re-ordering blocks with drop-down menus is not implemented in 1.3.x

  1. Go back and edit template.
  2. Try to reorder the items inside a bock of items by using the drop-down menu box for the numbered items.
  3. Exit edit mode and re-enter template and determine if order was saved.
  4. Preview template to be sure the order of items is displayed correctly.
  5. Go back to template edit view (from preview mode) and make sure order is still retained.

For ideas on how to format your test plans, take a look of some of the ones linked here: http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/QA/2.7.0+Changes. Also, the OSP test plans are very thorough: http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/OSP/System+Test+Scripts

Testing Results