Saving Observations for "Task" assessments

There are multiple types of assessment questions present in Catapult resources, but there is one specific type of assessment tool that is very different from the others; this is known as the "Task" assessment - also informally known as "Observation" assessments. These kinds of assessments are predominantly found in Performance Tasks tools, but they can also be found in other tools, such as Practical Assessments and other performance-related assessment tools.

The major way that Task/Observation assessments are different is that they are not bound to the enrolment submission cycle (as described in this Article). This means that even if a learner has submitted their enrolment for marking, and is therefore locked out of editing their Knowledge Questions etc, they can still provide evidence for their Task/Observation assessments. Similarly, trainers can start providing evidence and grades for Task/Observation assessments before the enrolment has even been submitted for the first time.

Saving an observation

To save an observation for an enrolment, first navigate to that enrolment. Depending on the enrolment's current status you may need to find it via the Enrolments page as shown below;

Next, click on the Assessments tab, followed by any Task-style assessment (e.g. one of the Performance tasks).

Underneath the assessment, you will see an Add observation button. This button is available to both learners and trainers, regardless of the current overall enrolment status. Take this current example we're looking at - the enrolment's status is "Not started", and usually a trainer wouldn't be able to mark any questions at this point. The Task-style assessments are not limited in this way, though.

When a user clicks on the Add observation button, a pop-up window will appear to ask them to provide information. The user can respond to some generic questions relating to the evidence, record a video directly into the system, and/or upload relevant files.

Once this has been saved, the Observation evidence will be saved against the task and immediately made available for all users to view.

At this point, the trainer can provide a grade for this task (just like they would for a standard question). However, note that providing any grade other than "Not yet satisfactory" will lock the Task and prevent any further evidence from being provided.

Multiple observations

Note that multiple observations per user can be saved. This provides a complete overview of all evidence-gathering that has occurred, and the observations are ordered based on their initial creation date.

Important notes about Task/Observation assessments

• By default, notifications are not sent out by the system when a learner saves an observation. This behaviour can be enabled on request by sending an email request to support@catapult-elearning.com.
• Task/Observation evidence is not included in any Timeline snapshots or downloaded transcripts until the enrolment has been finalised (i.e. the final transcript will include observation evidence, but the intermediary ones will not).