Setup – Setting Up Your Assessment

This page is intended to guide you through the three main steps for setting up assessment using the Staffroom Assess module.  These steps are for schools that are setting up their assessment for the first time (since setup can be copied for subsequent years).  The page describes the main steps briefly and provides links to more detailed information where available.

Please note that the Staffroom Onboarding Team or Staffroom Support Team will help you with your assessment setup.  Getting your assessment setup working properly in Staffroom can take some time and we think you should ask us for help.  Don’t struggle: contact support!

STEP 1 – Create Categories

You need to create categories to help you separate and organise your assessment information.  Categories are a bit like folders you can use to keep your assessment information in.  You create categories by using the Assess2 > Settings > Categories menu option.

A detailed guide to creating categories can be found HERE.

Categories are important for organising your courses so that teachers can access their assessment information easily e.g. a school might use a category for each year and then within that create categories for each grade taught at the school.  Another example would be an institution that has faculties might create categories for each so that they can have a separate place for their assessment information.

STEP 2 – Create Courses

A course is something that is taught and assessed for which you need to capture and calculate results e.g. an english language or maths course.  You need to create courses in Assess2 to hold the details of each assessment task, calculated result, comment etc.  You create courses by using the Assess2 > Settings > Courses menu option.

A detailed guide to creating courses can be found HERE.

A school might create a course for each subject that is taught to a Grade 5 class e.g. English, Mathematics, Sciences etc.  Another institution might create a course for a module taught by one faculty e.g. Philosophy 101.  NB: Courses belong to the category you create them in and they only belong to that one category so you need to select the correct category in order to see your courses.

STEP 3 – Create Assessment Groups

Assessment groups are what you use to enroll students and teachers into your courses in Assess2.  You use assessment groups to give teachers access to the courses and students they are teaching.  You can create an assessment group by using the Assess2 > Settings > Assessment Groups option.

A detailed guide to creating assessment groups can be found HERE.

NB: Assessment groups belong to the category you create them in so you need to select the correct category in order to see your assessment groups.

Okay, so what happens next?

Once you have set up your categories, courses and assessment groups your teachers can start capturing marks.  You may also want to start thinking about analysis and reporting for the assessments you are capturing.

Capturing Marks: so long as you have added your students and teacher to the right courses via assessment groups they will be able to capture marks in Assess2.  If your teachers can’t see their courses or the students they are teaching first check they are looking in the right category.  If they are looking in the right category check that there is an assessment group in that category with that teacher, their students, and their course.

Modifying Markbooks: you may want to modify a markbook or create one manually if you can’t use or wish to modify our CAPS templates.  If you wish to do this you should take a look at the page we have created that tells you about markbook results HERE.

Report Designs: term and end of year reports for students and parents can be created using the reports designer.  In the Assess2 module there is a WYSIWYG reports designer which will enable some schools to make their own report design changes if they wish.  The initial setup of report designs can be quite involved though so we recommend that you contact our support team when you are ready to create new report designs.