Reviewing Items and Stimuli

Each item and stimulus in ITS goes through a predetermined review sequence. The review process varies from one item bank to another, but always consists of revision, editing, approval within CAI, and approval by the client and appropriate committees. The purpose of the review process is to ensure that items and stimuli are aligned with the test specifications, are appropriate for the students who will be assessed, and fully reflect client content standards.

After an item or stimulus has been thoroughly reviewed and all reviewing parties are satisfied with the product, it is placed in a locked status in ITS. Items in locked status produce a pool of error-free items that meet test and item specifications and can be used on test forms.

You can review items and stimuli using the links that appear when you hover over the Review menu in the banner.

Note: The Review menu also allows you to perform different actions, such as print reports, web-preview items and stimuli, and move items and stimuli. The actions that you can perform depend on your user role and may vary from one item bank to another. For information on the different types of actions you can perform for items and stimuli, refer to the section Action Center.

After an item or stimulus’s English content has been created, it is submitted for review. The item then passes through different review levels in sequential order until the English content is web-approved. Once this happens, additional review lanes are opened to create more content, for example, text-to-speech (TTS), braille, sign language, and rubrics. Content for these additional review lanes can be reviewed in parallel.

Each review lane has its own review levels that need to occur in a set order. The combination of review lanes and review levels is used to determine the current overall review level of an item.

To review an item or stimulus:

From the Item Search or Stimulus Search task group of the Review menu, select the subject associated with the item or stimulus you wish to review. This takes you to the Item Search or Stimulus Search page.
Search for the items or stimuli you wish to review in the same way that you would search for them from the Item or Stimulus menu. For information on how to search, refer to Searching for an Item or Stimulus.

Note that the Review Status field only displays statuses that are appropriate to your user role. For example, if you are logged in as a Preliminary Reviewer, you can only search for items that are in the Preliminary Review status. However, if you are logged in with the Reviewer Group user role, you can search for all review statuses.

From the list of retrieved items or stimuli, select the ones you wish to review by marking the checkboxes next to them.
From the Actions panel, click View and then click Web Preview. The selected items’ or stimuli’s content is displayed in the Web Preview window in chronological order.

Click to open the Review panel and then click the arrow next to the item or stimulus ID to expand it as shown below.

Do any of the following:
- To view the item or stimulus’s attributes, click the View Attributes tab.
- To enter comments about the item or stimulus, use the available text box. Alternatively, to view a larger version of the text box in a pop-up, click Expand on the top of the box.
- To review the item or stimulus’s review history, click Review History at the bottom of the panel. The Review History window appears, displaying previous review comments about the item or stimulus.

To select the review outcome, click the appropriate button from the review panel. The buttons that are available may vary from one review level to another and from one item bank to another, as they are configured according to the needs of the project. Available buttons may include the following:
- Accept: Indicates that the item or stimulus will be moved to the next level of review without any changes.
- Accept as Revised: Indicates that the item or stimulus will be moved to the next level of review with the modifications made to it.
- Pend: Indicates that the item or stimulus will stay at the current level of review until the reviewer selects an option to move the item to the next level.
- Reject: Indicates that the item or stimulus will be moved to the rejected pool and will not be shown to users at subsequent levels of review.
- Archive: Indicates that the item or stimulus will be archived for historical purposes and will not be available at subsequent levels of review.

When you select an outcome, a confirmation message appears. Click OK to close the message and proceed to the next item or stimulus that you wish to review.

Once you have reviewed an item or stimulus, you will no longer be able to access its content unless you have appropriate review privileges for the level to which it has been moved.