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For Educators: How to Manage Online Assessments (FOSSmap)

For Educators: How to Manage Online Assessments (FOSSmap)

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Online Assessment Help (FOSSmap)

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Getting Started with FOSSmap

FOSSmap is the online component of the FOSS Assessment System that allows students, grades 3-8, to take assessments online for FOSS Next Generation Edition, Third Edition, Texas Edition, and Middle School Second Edition modules. It allows teachers to analyze the test results in an easy and efficient way, to provide feedback to students, plan next instructional steps, and to report progress to caregivers.

Teachers can access FOSSmap through a link on each module. A module must first be activated onto a teacher’s FOSSweb account before it can be accessed through FOSSmap. Scheduling assessments and providing access for students requires creation of a class with individual student accounts. To learn more about the system and how to use it, please view the Walk-through video gallery or download the quickstart guides for FOSSmap:

  • Accessing FOSSmap & Assigning Assessments (video/ Quickstart Guide)
  • Students Taking FOSSmap Assessments (video/Quickstart Guide)
  • FOSSmap Online Assessment Accommodations (video /Quickstart Guide)
  • Coding FOSSmap Assessments (video/Quickstart Guide)
  • FOSSmap Reporting (video/Quickstart Guide)

What grades use the online assessment?

The online assessment system, FOSSmap, is available to grades 3-8.

How do I access FOSSmap?

Teachers can access FOSSmap through a link on each module. Scheduling assessments and providing access for students requires creation of a class with individual student accounts. To learn more about the system and how to use it, please view the Walk-through video or download the Quickstart Guide.

Video: Accessing FOSSmap & Assigning Assessments
PDF: FOSSmap Quickstart Guide for Accessing FOSSmap & Assigning Assessments
How do I assign assessments to my students? Why can’t I find my students in FOSSmap?

The use of FOSSmap requires an account with entitled modules (modules for which you have entered access codes) and a class with individual student accounts. The account can be a district-administered account or a self-registered teacher account. If you enter FOSSmap without having a class with individual student accounts, you will not be able to assign any assessments.

View the Walk-through Videos or download the Quickstart PDFs to learn how to create a class with individual accounts in FOSSweb or assign assessments in FOSSmap.

Video: Creating a Class with Individual Accounts
PDF: Creating a Class with Individual Accounts
Video: Accessing FOSSmap & Assigning Assessments
PDF: FOSSmap Quickstart Guide for Accessing FOSSmap & Assigning Assessments

My students do not have the "Take Assessment" link on their module page.

If your class of rostered students does not see the "Take Assessment" link, having them log out of FOSSweb and then back in should fix the problem. Please contact us using our form if you continue to have issues.

Can I delete a class after I’ve created it?

Self-registered teachers may delete a class after they’ve created it. To delete a class, go to the “My Class Pages” section of “My Teacher Page”. Find the class you wish to delete and click the “Manage Class Page” button. At the bottom of the pop-up dialog, click on the “Delete Class” button. You will receive a warning dialogue confirming you want to delete the class.

If you used FOSSmap with the class, it will be “termed out” or archived in FOSSmap. This will prevent the class from showing up on the list of classes to which you can assign assessments while still giving you read-only access to any assessment data in the reports. If you have open assignments for a deleted class, you must go into FOSSmap and manually deactivate the assessment, otherwise this assessment will continue to show up in your active assessments. It will also appear on any students’ “Take Assessment” pages, if those students’ same usernames are entered into other classes. This can be done in FOSSmap by going to Online Testing > Review/Grade Online Tests and then scrolling down to the assessment in question and clicking the red and white “deactivate” icon.

How do I code ("score") the results of an assessment? (Coding)

In order to get started coding assessments your students have completed, you'll need to log into FOSSmap and go to the Online Testing area on the top of the page. First, ensure that students have completed the assessment and submitted it. You can do this in the Monitor Online Test Taking area. In some cases, students may quit out of the browser session without submitting the assessment for coding. These assessments will not appear in the coding section. In order to code these non-submitted assessments, you need to manually submit the assessments for the student(s) in FOSSmap. Please see the help question "My students have finished the assessment, but their data is missing." for detailed instructions on how to do this.

Once you've verified all students have submitted the assessment, go to "Review/Grade Online Tests." Find the assessment you are coding, and then start coding. The system automatically codes all items except open-ended and drawings or graphs (using the art palette).

For more detailed step-by-step instructions for coding assessments and viewing reports, see the Walk-through Videos and/or Quickstart Guide PDFs below.

Video: Coding FOSSmap Assessments
PDF: FOSSmap Quickstart Guide for Coding Assessments
Video: FOSSmap Reporting
PDF: FOSSmap Quickstart Guide for Reporting

My students have finished the assessment, but their data is missing. How do I find it?

There are two main reasons why your student's data might be missing:

  1. Students have not submitted their assessment correctly, usually by closing the browser before submitting the test.
  2. The assessment is assigned more than once and some students took one instance and others took the other instance.
In cases where students do not submit the assessment correctly, the assessments will not appear in the coding section. In order to code these non-submitted assessments, you need to go into your teacher dashboard in FOSSmap and submit the assessments for the students.

To do this, go to the Online Testing section of FOSSmap, then find and click the "Monitor Online Test Taking" button.

Click on the paper/pencil icon next to the assigned assessment that has the non-submitted assessments.

Your class roster will appear with the progress of each student on the assessment. (If you do this while the students are actively taking the assessment, this screen is only updated every 1-2 minutes. It is therefore not a completely accurate representation of the student's status in the assessment during test-taking.)

The "Test Status" column will indicate whether the students have started the assessment, submitted the assessment or are "actively" working on it. Submitted assessments have a mustard yellow "Manual review" indication in this column. These assessment should appear in the "Review/Grade online tests" section. For students who have not correctly submitted the assessment, the status will be a gray "In Progress" status. Select these students and click the "Submit Test" button at the bottom of the modal box. Make sure students do not have the assessment open when you do this. These assessments will now appear with the "Manual review" indication and be available for coding.

If the assessment was assigned more than once to the class, some students likely took one instance and other students took the other instance. To check whether this is the case, go to the Online Testing section of FOSSmap, then find and click the "Review/Grade Online Tests" button. Scroll to the bottom of the page to see your list of active test assignments. Find the one that has not been graded but has submitted assessments. Code the assessments as usual. The coded results will appear in the same report.

For more detailed information on coding your students' assessments, please see the Coding Walk-through Video and/or use the Coding Quickstart Guide PDF.

How do I view the results of an assessment? (Reports)

In order to view results of an assessment, you need to finish coding items that are not automatically coded in the FOSSmap system once students submit their assessments. If you've already done this step, go to the top of the FOSSmap homepage and click on the Reporting button. Select the assessment you want to view and drag it into the area below. Click on the purple or red icons at the bottom to start viewing reports.

For more detailed step-by-step instructions for coding assessments and viewing reports, see the Walk-through Videos and/or Quickstart Guide PDFs below.

Video: Coding FOSSmap Assessments
PDF: FOSSmap Quickstart Guide for Coding Assessments
Video: FOSSmap Reporting
PDF: FOSSmap Quickstart Guide for Reporting

How do I record data from embedded assessments?

FOSSmap allows teachers to quickly record results of the FOSS embedded (formative) assessment opportunities listed in the Investigations Guide. Embedded assessment entry is done through the Data Locker on FOSSmap.



You can learn how to enter data by using the Quickstart Guide:

PDF: Recording Data from Embedded Assessments in FOSSmap

How do I share the results of an assessment with parents? How do parents access FOSSmap Reports?

Teachers can share the results of an assessment with parents in a few ways:

  • Parents can use their child's FOSSweb account to log in and view reports. They can view the test with the student's answers, and the student's By Item report, which describes the code they received on each item.

  • The teacher can print out each student's By Item report one at a time from her account. We are looking into adding a feature that prints the whole class with the touch of one button.

  • The teacher can also print out the tests with the students' answers from the coding section of FOSSmap.

Where is my class from last year?

The previous year’s classes are “termed out” of FOSSweb before the beginning of the next school year.

If you used FOSSmap with the class, it will be “termed out” or archived in FOSSmap. This prevents the class from showing up on the list of classes to which you can assign assessments while still giving you read-only access to any assessment data in the reports. If you have open assignments for a deleted class, you must go into FOSSmap and manually deactivate the assessment, otherwise this assessment will continue to show up in your active assessments. It will also appear on any students’ “Take Assessment” pages, if those students’ same usernames are entered into other classes. You can deactivate open assessments for a deleted class in FOSSmap by going to Online Testing > Review/Grade Online Tests and then scrolling down to the assessment in question and clicking the red and white "deactivate" icon.

Can I access previous years’ reports?

If you are a teacher in a rostered or SIS district on FOSSweb, you can easily access read-only reports from previous years’ classes by changing the date range on the Reporting interface. The default dates setting in the Reporting interface is to include reports from classes only in the present term. Clicking the calendar icon in the upper right of the Reporting interface access the calendar. Once the dates are changed to include the previous years’ reports, the reports will appear in the searches.

The reports are view-only. You cannot change codes or manipulate student data in reports from previous terms.

Can I see my student’s data from previous years?

If you are a teacher in a rostered or SIS district, your students’ data is not deleted and you can see previous year’s assessments in read-only format. To do so, go to FOSSmap and click on Reporting, then Dashboard. Before viewing reports, click on the calendar icon in the upper right-hand part of the page. Expand the range to include the school years you want to see. Next, select the current class the student is in. All the assessments assigned to the students will appear below. Select the one you wish to view and proceed as usual.

If you are a self-registered teacher, previous year’s data is deleted from the system and does not follow the student from year to year. You can, however view your previous year’s class reports.

Why is my student seeing assessments I never assigned or why am I seeing old assignments in FOSSmap?

The previous year’s classes are “termed out” of FOSSweb before the beginning of the next school year. If you have open assignments for a deleted class, or if the student’s previous year’s teacher does, these assignments will still show up in the students list of assignments if the same username is used for the new class. The assessment will also continue to show up in your active assessments. You or the other teacher must go into FOSSmap and manually deactivate the assessment(s). This can be done in FOSSmap by going to Online Testing > Review/Grade Online Tests and then scrolling down to the assessment in question and clicking the red and white "deactivate" icon.

Is there audio available for the students as they take the online assessments?

Audio is available for all Next Generation assessments available in the FOSSmap Test Taker. You need to change the preferences for each assessment as you assign it.

You change the settings by clicking the “Test Preferences in Effect” and “Change.” The Audio settings are found under “Accommodations.”

  1. Audio:
    • Simple audio: This provides recorded audio on the online assessment screen. The button is a small blue square with a white play arrow. Once started, the arrow changes to a square. Users can only start and stop the audio and it will restart from the beginning.
    • Advanced audio: This provides recorded audio on the online assessment screen. The button is a larger blue rectangle. Clicking the white Play arrow starts the audio and turns into a pause button. Users can also stop the audio using the white Stop square on the right side of the controls. This will restart the audio from the beginning.
  2. Text-to-speech: This accommodation allows the computer to convert the text on the screen to speech. We do not recommend this accommodation because there is recorded audio that reads the screen text in a more natural voice and with the correct pronunciations.

There are a number of other accommodations for students as they take an online assessment. Most are part of the online assessment interface as a default and others are set when an assessment is assigned. To learn more, view the Quickstart PDF, or view the Online Assessment Accommodations (Audio, Spanish) walk-through video.

What accommodations are available for students taking assessments in FOSSmap?

There are a number of accommodations for students as they take an online assessment. Most are part of the online assessment interface as a default and others are set when an assessment is assigned.

  • Default Accommodations: These tools are located under the “Tools” button from the top menu of the online assessment. You can turn these on and off from the Test Settings.
  • Individual assessment accommodations: Upon assigning an assessment you can change the settings by clicking the “Test Preferences in Effect” and “Change.”

Default Accommodations:

  1. Zoom-in/zoom-out tool: The tool allows a student to zoom in and increase text size on the online assessment screen. The tool zooms out and decreases the text size on the screen.
  2. Contrast: This tool allows the student to change the background and text color for easier reading.
  3. Line Reader: The line reader allows a student to isolate sections of text to help with reading longer section.

Test Preferences (listed by usefulness, rather than order on the screen.)

  1. Audio:
    • Simple audio: This provides recorded audio on the online assessment screen. The button is a small blue square with a white play arrow. Once started, the arrow changes to a square. Users can only start and stop the audio and it will restart from the beginning.
    • Advanced audio: This provides recorded audio on the online assessment screen. The button is a larger blue rectangle. Clicking the white Play arrow starts the audio and turns into a pause button. Users can also stop the audio using the white Stop square on the right side of the controls. This will restart the audio from the beginning.
  2. Test schedule: You can limit when the assessment is open for students. This is useful for classes in which you want to assure the assessment is accessible during class hours.
  3. Time limit: This limits the amount of time a student can take the assessment. We do not recommend this limitation.
  4. Text-to-speech: This accommodation allows the computer to convert the text on the screen to speech. We do not recommend this accommodation because there is recorded audio that reads the screen text in a more natural voice and with the correct pronunciations.

To learn more, view the Quickstart PDF, or the Online Assessment Accommodations (Audio, Spanish) walk-through video.



How do I assign one or more students an assessment in Spanish and assign other students the English assessment?

Sometimes you may not want to assign the same assessment to all students in your class. For example, some students will get the English I-check and other the Spanish. You can only do this for individual classes, not for group assignments.

If you want to assign the test in English to some students, and Spanish to others:
  • First select the test in English at the top of the Assign Test page.
  • Then, under "Select Students," ensure the "Class Assignment" radio button is selected.
  • Next, deselect the "Use Rosters at Time of Test Taking" checkbox. (NOTE: Do not select "Student Level Assignment.")
  • The list of students will appear below with all of the names selected. Click on the students’ names who will not be taking the test in English. The background will go from blue to gray meaning they will not be assigned the English test.
  • Click the "Assign" button.
For the remaining students, return to the top of the Assign Test page.
  • Select the Spanish module from the "Bank" drop-down menu and then select the test from the "Test" drop-down.
  • Scroll back down to the list of students and click the blue "Invert Selection" button. The student names with the gray background should now be blue.
  • Click the "Assign" button.
Scroll down to the bottom of the page and you will see two test assignments. The assessments are separate and the reports will be separate.

To check which students were assigned which test, go to the top menu bar and click on "Monitor Online Test Taking." Look at the Test Assignments at the bottom of the page. Click on the icon in the left most column to see the names of the students getting that test.

To view a walk-through of this information, see the Online Assessment Accommodations (Audio, Spanish) video.

Does FOSSmap have a time out period?

Yes, FOSSmap will time out for teachers after 30 minutes of inactivity. The student test-taker interface will time out after 90 minutes of inactivity. This time limit meets mandatory security requirements from some FOSS districts and follows information security best practices. In FOSSmap, you will not receive a time-out warning. If you’ve been logged out, log in again from FOSSweb.

In FOSSweb, users are timed out after 60 minutes of inactivity. Two minutes before the end of the session, you will receive a warning banner that allows you to extend your session. If your session has timed out, the warning banner will have a link to the login page. You can continue working in FOSSmap, even if you've been logged out of FOSSweb. You will need to log in once you return to FOSSweb. Note that you will not see the warning banner if the time out occurred while your computer was asleep.