The Activity settings define and control elements of an assessment such as certain layout and presentation options, available buttons for the user interface, and the sequencing of the assessment delivery.
Activity settings are very similar to those of an Item. Every Activity will need an Activity Reference, and all reference numbers must be unique and contain ASCII printable characters, except double quotes, single quotes, and with no more than 150 characters. The Description is optional - it will allow you to enter more information about the Activity and is searchable on the Activity page. Just like Items, the Activity status must be set to Published in order for the Activity to be used.
See the article on how to add Items to an Activity here.
Figure 1: The Activity Editor
Player Settings
You can find all the settings associated with the Activity in the Player section of the Activity editor.
Figure 2: Player settings
In the first section, you can add the Activity title and subtitle and also choose a layout preset for the player. Click on Show options to see which options are enabled. You can disable any of these options by unchecking the checkbox.
Figure 3: Available options
Title: When the Activity Title is enabled, the title will be displayed on top of every Item page. When disabled, it will only show on the Activity start screen.
Timer: A timer will appear during the Activity. You can specify Activity time in Time settings.
Item Count: An Item counter will appear during the Activity. For example, on the first Item it will say 1 of 10 (if there are 10 Items in the Assessment).
Save: Allows saving of the Activity.
Review Screen: When enabled, the learner will be able to review their progress through the Activity.
Calculator: Shows a Basic Calculator throughout the Activity.
Next: The Next Button will appear in the Activity.
Pause: Allows learners to pause the Activity.
Reading Timer: The option to allow reading time for the learner.
Vertical Table of Contents: Displays the vertical table of contents.
Fullscreen: A button will be present allowing the learner to view the Activity in Fullscreen.
Accessibility: When enabled the learner can use the accessibility panel.
Flag Items: The learner can flag Items. They will be able to see this is the review panel.
Previous: The Previous Button will appear in the Activity.
Annotation Tools: Learners can have access to drawing, highlight, notepad, and sticky notes during the Activity.
The layout presets are based on regions configuration which allows the creation of a customized, fluid, and extensible assessment UI.
In addition to the presets, it is possible to define custom player templates for selection when creating or editing Activities.
Figure 4: Default time based settings
Activity Time: Set the total time allowed for the Activity in hours and minutes.
Reading Time: Set the total time allowed for the Reading time in hours and minutes.
Warn when approaching end of Activity: Alert the learner when they are nearing the end of the Activity in seconds.
Warn when approaching end of reading time: Alert the learner when they are nearing the end of the Reading time in seconds.
Go to first Item on reading time completion: Automatically go to first Item in Activity on completion of reading time.
Auto save at intervals of: Auto save the Activity in intervals of seconds.
Enable a visual indicator when the test is auto saved: Enables a visual indicator to the learner on autosave.
Disable force save on quit: Disables force save on quit.
Trigger inactivity timeout warning when inactive: Set the number of seconds of inactivity before an inactivity warning appears.
Allow student to dismiss timeout warning within: Allow the student/learner to dismiss the timeout warning.
Force submit after activity time expires: Force submit Activity after the Activity time expires.
Figure 5: Default playback settings
Shuffle order of Items: Shuffles the order of Items show to learners.
Scroll to top on Item change: When navigating to the next Item in the assessment, the page will scroll up to the top of the Item container (as opposed to the top of the assessment).
Show scrolling indicator: This shows the learner that there is more content "below the fold", and that they should scroll down to view all the content.
Show acknowledgements: This will allow acknowledgements entered into the Item and Question level Acknowledgement field to be displayed in the Activity Outro Item.
Show distractor rationale per question: This is a way of adding extra information onto the question to give the user additional information on the answer(s) they have given. This is something which can be implemented by your development team.
Show distractor rationale per response (if available): Once enabled you can explain the rationale behind each individual response in the question. You will not be able to view a preview of this in the Author Site. Your developers will decide how to display this.
Warn student on unattempted question(s): If the student/learner progresses onto the next Item without answering the current Item, a warning message will appear.
Allow submission only when a defined % of the questions are attempted/answered correctly: Define an acceptance criteria for submission.
Display confirmation window on submission: Learners are asked to confirm that they wish to submit their tests.
Figure 6: Default text settings
Font-size: This allows the user to adjust the font size from small to XX Large.
Text label options: Change and adapt the default text descriptions that are displayed in the preconfigured layouts.
Figure 7: Default scoring settings
Allow player side scoring is on by default to support player-side score behavior such as the Check Answer button and use of public methods related to scoring. If you disable this feature, it adds this to the activity definition:
"ignore_question_attributes": ["validation"]
Theignore_question_attributesproperty allows you to ignore question data features.
You can read more about how this feature works in this security best practices article here.