Elevate Standards Alignment projects allow you to organize your alignment work into manageable, scheduled pieces. You can partition projects into Phases or label them for Review, and create Assignments for your team. Apply schedules and select specific standards or assets so that the project fits your needs.
Glossary of Terms
- Asset Collection – A group of assets that will be aligned or reported together. Asset collections could consist of all assets in a particular grade, or all assets that are part of a particular group, such as all objectives from a series of lessons.
- Assignment – A collection of assets to be aligned to a collection of standards, assigned to a particular user. Can be viewed by choosing My Assignments from the Projects menu.
- Completed Project – A project whose end date is in the past. Can be viewed by choosing Manage Projects from the Projects menu.
- Partition – To divide a project into subsets such as Phases, Review, and Assignments.
- Phase – A division of a project, created by clicking the “partition” link next to an existing project. May contain Reviews or Assignments.
- Project – A collection of assets to be aligned to a collection of standards on a given schedule.
- Review – A division of a project, created by clicking the “partition” link next to an existing project. May contain Assignments.
- Schedule – The start and end dates associated with a Project, Phase, Review, or Assignment. Visible on the right side of the All Projects or My Assignments pages.
- Standards Collection – A group of standards to be aligned to a group of assets. This could be all standards in particular states, or only Reading standards from ELA documents, for example.
Creating a New Project
The Projects menu contains access to create and edit all projects, manage resources, and view assignments. Users with administrator logins can access and edit all active or completed projects.
To create a new project:
1. Select Create New Project from the Projects menu. This takes you to the Manage Projects screen, with a pop-up box in front where you can enter the parameters for the project.
- Description – Text that will identify the project throughout the application.
- Start Date – Date the project work begins.
- End Date – Date the project ends. After this date, the project moves to the Completed Projects section of the screen.
- Asset Collection – Group of assets that are being aligned in this project. (Select an existing collection or build a new collection).
- Standards Collection – Group of standards that are being aligned in this project (select an existing collection or build a new collection).
- Status Set – The asset status, currently Defined – Confirmed – Aligned (or build a new set).
- Assigned To – The person responsible for managing the project.
- Project Resources URL – A link to any external guides or resources needed for the project.
- Tracking Number – Assign an ID for your use internally.
- Default Alignment Tool – The method of alignment to be used for this project: Align by Intermediary (select a type of intermediary in the next drop-down menu) or Align by Standards Tree.
- Intermediary Type – Choose either: Concept Taxonomy (to align to standards related to concepts you specify) or AB Topic Taxonomy (to tag assets with topics).
- Handpick Mode – Use this to override the account handpick mode for this project.
2. Click Create.
You are taken back to the Manage Projects screen. From here you can edit the project using the “edit” link next to the project, or you can partition the project using the “partition” link, which allows you to break the project into parts.
Editing a Project
Click the “edit” link to return to the project creation options. You can make changes and click Save. You can also click Copy to make a copy of the project or Archive to completely remove the project from your Projects screen. If you want to merge a project into another one, select a project from the drop-down menu at the bottom of the edit screen and click Move To.
Partitioning a Project
Click the “partition” link next to a project to divide it into parts. Partitioning is not required, but it can assist in dividing the alignment work into smaller pieces that are easier to track and report.
The “partition” link opens the partition editing screen. You can divide a Project into phases, review, and assignments. You can use any combination of these for your projects.
If the partitions are used, the hierarchy is as follows:
Project
Phase
Review
Assignment
You can choose to utilize any or all levels in the hierarchy. It is not required that you use them all. Customize the project the way your team works, or just work at the project level if you wish.
The partition editing screen is similar to the project editing screen. You can enter the same fields as for a project, only these will apply to this specific partition only.
Partition Type: Select Phase, Review, or Assignment.
Other Fields: For information on the available fields, refer to the descriptions of each provided above.
Click Create to create the partition. This returns you to the Projects screen. Once the partition is created, the project will have a red arrow button to the left of its name on the Manage Projects screen.
Click the red arrow button to review the partitions of that project and edit or add partitions to any of them.
Any Assignments created within a Project, when assigned to a user, will be viewable by that user when they log in and choose My Assignments from the Projects menu.
When you edit a partition, you have the option to move that partition to another project or under a different partition using the “Move To” drop-down menu. You can also archive that partition using the Archive button. Archived partitions are no longer accessible from the Projects tab.
Managing Projects
Select Manage Projects from the Projects menu to view the main Projects screen. Projects and project partitions are listed on the left side of the screen, in order of their end dates. The project or partition is on the left, with the Workflow Status of the assets in the middle and the associated Schedule on the right. Completed projects are listed at the bottom of the screen.
Clicking on a project or partition of a project takes you to an alignment page to work on the associated alignment work.
Assignments
Once Assignments have been created in a project or a partition of a project, they are available by choosing My Assignments from the Projects menu. Refer to Accessing Assignments for more information.
