Introduction

This guide covers how to use the Action Builder to configure action settings on your Item. Using the Action Builder enables you to

• Autoplay audio and video
• Auto-record audio
• Disable navigation
• Disable the student from interacting with the Question

The Action Builder is available to users of the Author Site through the Actions tab in the menu to the left of the Item. 

Figure 1: The Action builder in Author Site.

This article takes the example of the Author Site while configuring the actions for your Items.

Preparing to use the Action Builder

In order to use the Action Builder, you must have populated and saved your Item with at least one Question or Feature. If you wish to, you can now include Audio (along with the Calculator, Protractor, or Ruler) in your Question/Feature, embedded as a Simple Feature.

To embed a Simple Feature, go to the toolbar in the Rich Text Field, and click on the Simple Feature button.

Figure 2: The Simple Feature option.

Selecting an Event

Once your Item is populated to your satisfaction, click the Add action button in the Action Builder to start the action configuration.

Figure 3: Add the first action section to the Action Builder.

In this example, we will look at auto-playing the audio on the Item once the Item loads while simultaneously disabling the use of the MCQ until the audio finishes. This forces the learner to listen to the audio before giving their answer. 

In Action 1 seen below, we have selected the current Item on Item loaded. Now we can set the action. We have selected the MCQ and have chosen to disable it. This means that once the Item has loaded, the learner will be unable to use the MCQ.

Figure 4: Action 1, disabling the MCQ on Item loaded

In action 2, we are going to select the same event origin and name, in other words, once the current Item loads, and this time target the audio to play automatically. At this stage, once the Item loads, the use of MCQ is disabled and the audio is auto-playing.

Figure 5: Action 2, auto-playing the audio

In the third and final action in this example, we now need to enable the MCQ once the audio finishes to allow the learners to give their answers. You can see below, we select the event origin as the audio and the event name as widget completes. We now target the MCQ and enable it. Once the audio completes playback, the MCQ will be enabled.

Figure 6: Action 3, enable the MCQ

You can preview your actions at any point by hitting preview at the top of the Action builder.

Figure 7: Action builder preview

Below are some of the other possible actions.

• Widget changes - An action will be triggered when the student interacts with the Widget.
• Widget completes - The widget completes
• Playback started - When audio or video playback is started, this will trigger an action.
• Playback paused - When audio or video is paused, this will trigger an action.
• Playback resumed - When audio or video is resumed, this will trigger an action.
• Playback completes - When audio or video is finished playing, this will trigger an action.
• Playback stopped - When audio or video is stopped by the student, this will trigger an action.
• Go to next item - The Assessment will navigate to the next Item.
• Pause item - The whole Item (all Questions/Features) will be paused.
• Resume item - The whole Item (all Questions/Features) will be resumed.
• Enable navigation - Navigation will be enabled. Use this to enable navigation again after disabling it.
• Disable navigation - Navigation will be disabled. Use this if you do not want the student to navigate away from the Item, e.g. while some Audio plays.
• Enable widget or Disable widget - Disabling the Widget will stop the student from being able to interact with it - use Enable widget when you want to allow interaction again.
• Start recording - The audio recorder will start recording the student.
• Pause recording - The audio recorder will pause itself.
• Resume recording - The audio recorder will resume recording.
• Stop recording - The audio recorder will stop recording.
• Play response - The student response will be auto-played back to the student.
• Pause response - Playback of the student response will be automatically paused.
• Resume response - Playback of the student response will automatically resume again.
• Stop response - Playback of the student response will be automatically stopped.
• Play/Pause/Resume/Seek/Stop - These commands are related to the Audio and Video players - each command can be configured to happen automatically.

Interactive demo

To see the Action Builder in action, visit this page.

Use cases article

To read about how Action Builder simplifies assessment navigation, visit this page.