Item Development. ACARA requests that quotes are provided for each individual parcel for each domain. Where more than one parcel is quoted on, costs must be provided per parcel. ACARA will not accept test materials that have been used by the contractor in other test programs or that have been submitted to ACARA and rejected in a previous contract. Authoring review process The Contractor will be required to author all stimuli, items and metadata in ACARA’s online Assessment Platform (the platform). The system contains fields for the electronic entry of items and the related metadata. Metadata can also be uploaded in bulk by spreadsheet. All metadata fields must be accurately completed to comply with the item specifications. It is the Contractor’s responsibility to author all items directly into the platform. All item reviews take place within the platform. The item development phase will include opportunities for ACARA assessment teams and other stakeholders to review the items using pre-determined criteria defined in the item development guidelines and provide feedback for item refinement. The Contractor may be required to amend and/or replace test material in accordance with ACARA’s specifications and any instructions provided by ACARA during the review process. On submission of each batch of stimuli or items, an updated compliance table must be supplied to ACARA (excluding parcel 5), showing the progress of item development against the specifications. Submitted stimulus text and items will be reviewed, and assessed in one of the following categories: accepted without modification requires modification requires replacement. Modified and replaced stimuli and items will be resubmitted and continue in the review cycle until all specifications are met and accepted by ACARA. All stimulus texts and items that do not pass the review stages (including for content or IP compliance issues) will have to be replaced so that the number and balance quoted for is met. All work completed by contractors must be kept highly secure during all phases of the work. All personnel involved in the work must be fully aware of the security requirements. This includes the electronic transmission of materials.
Item Development. ACARA requests that quotes are provided for each individual parcel for each domain. Where more than one parcel is quoted on, costs must be provided per parcel. The total numbers of items procured for each parcel is the number delivered at the end of the project. Contractors will develop a small number of excess items for each parcel to allow for rejection of items by ACARA at review. ACARA will not accept test materials that have been used by the Contractor in other test programs or that have been submitted to ACARA and rejected in a previous contract. Contractors are required to meet ACARA’s Accessibility Guidelines which are based on WCAG 2.0 AA. Basic item formats authored directly in the platform are compliant. Stimulus texts, images, diagrams and tables, which are either created outside the platform and uploaded as resources or created inside by writing/modifying HTML source code, must meet ACARA’s accessibility requirements. Contractors are able to purchase third-party images for inclusion in stimulus texts and items. These purchases can be made through ACARA’s preferred stock image collection provider using ACARA’s existing contract.
Item Development. This chapter describes the procedures followed during item development. For the Smarter Balanced assessments, only a very brief overview of the process will be included, as ETS expects that the Smarter Balanced consortium will include a thorough discussion in their report.
