Item review, approval and version control

The version control options in risr/ assess help to ensure that you remain in complete control of which items (and more importantly, which versions of items) are available for use in item sets and exams. Various elements of the system are subject to version control (e.g. items, blueprint maps, item sets), although this article will focus primarily on the item workflow. 

The general rule to remember is that versions of items go into versions of item sets which are then used in exams.

This principle ensures that you can continue to work with items and items sets safe in the knowledge that changes you make will not be cascaded into live (or historic) exams without an explicit action on your part. 

You can tell which is the current version of an item from the information in its title.

General workflow

The standard item workflow is shown in the image below:

There are several item states at which different functions are possible.

Status	Description
DRAFT	The item is open for editing. If the item is still at version #1 then it is not yet possible for the item to be used in an item set or exam. If the item is at version #2 or greater, it is possible that earlier versions than the one currently open for editing are being used in active exams.
PENDING	The item has been submitted for review and is pending decision from the reviewer. This is now locked for edits from the author's perspective.
APPROVED	The item has been approved by a reviewer and the current version is now ready for deployment in item sets and exams. Further editing is not possible in this version. If further editing is required a new version must be created.
ARCHIVED	The item has been retired and is no longer in active circulation. It is possible to bring the item back into circulation by creating a new version to send it back to DRAFT.

The arrows show the possible routes for the item to travel through this process. At all stages it is possible to clone the item to create a separate item under a new ID.

Permissions for this process can be controlled using user groups functionality. For example, some end users can be set to only have authoring permissions, whereas others might have the ability to review (or both). For an even greater degree of control end users can be set to only perform actions on items that belong to them or, alternatively, that are tagged to specific blueprint coordinates. 

If no end user permissions are set, all users will be able to carry out all functions.

Working with item states

The different possible actions at each state are described further in the sections below:

• Whenever a new item is created or a new version of an item is created it will exist in a DRAFT state. Once editing has been completed it needs to be submitted for review.

  

  The option to Submit for review will only be shown if ALL mandatory authoring tasks have been carried out. For example, if there are mandatory blueprint dimensions where no tag has been chosen, the Submit for review button will not be visible.

  Upon submission for review you will see the option to notify an approver by email. You can add a comment (which is logged in the version history) and the selected reviewer will receive an email notification. All users with review or admin permissions are present in the list.

  

  Selecting a reviewer from this list sends an email notification but it does not allocate the item to that reviewer. Any reviewer can make a decision about the item.

• Once the item has been submitted for review, users with review permissions can make a decision on whether the item can be approved for use in item sets and exams.

  Depending on whether the author has elected to send a notification, the review may receive an email inviting them to review the item.

  

   If no email notification has been initiated, reviewers can access pending items via the item bank index.

  On the item landing page, the reviewer sees the options to either Approve or Reject the item. Approval immediately transitions the item to an APPROVED state.

  

  Selecting Reject sends the item back to the author in a DRAFT state so that revisions can be made. Optionally, an email can be sent to the author and the reviewer can add custom notes into this message to explain the revisions that need to be made.

  

• Once an item has been approved, that version of the item is indelibly stored in the system and it can be used in item sets and exams. No further edits can be made to that version, nor can the item be deleted.

  If further edits are needed, you must first Start a new version of the item. This sends the item back to the DRAFT state and version number is incremented. Further edits can now be made without affecting the preceding version and anywhere that version is deployed.

  

  The other option is to Retire the item. This takes the item out of circulation (though current exam deployments of the item remain unaffected) and makes it unavailable to be added to future item sets and exams.

• When the item has been retired it it no longer available for use in item sets and exams.

  It can be restored to the item bank using the Start a new version option. This put the item back to the start of the workflow and it will need to go through the review and approval workflow before it can again be used in exams.

  

Versioning OSCE mark sheets

Extra care should be taken working through the version control process where global criteria have been used to create OSCE mark sheets.

There's a really important principle to remember which is that when the OSCE item goes through the review and approval process described above, a LOCAL copy of any GLOBAL criteria is taken and applied to the item's mark sheet. The link to the global criterion is still maintained in the background so if any changes are made they can be resynchronised with their global counterparts. This means that any changes that happen at the global level DO NOT automatically cascade to individual items (unless they are newly created version #1 and in DRAFT) and so unwanted changes do not unexpectedly find their way into items.

We have a dedicated article on updating mark sheet criteria here.