ElmEngage / Help & guides

Instructor guide

Prepare a reviewed version. Lead participation. Release considered feedback.

At a glance

Attendance, participation and achievement remain separate.
Publish fixed content; release feedback separately.
Human decisions—not AI—commit marks.

Personal teaching and class joining

Independent teaching does not require institutional affiliation. Institution administration is optional for central structure, memberships, roles and reports.
Approved class rules are Open enrollment, Roster restricted and Approval required. Joining applies to the exact class only and never grants administrative or support authority.
The current checkpoint is closed: Personal classes presents the rules but does not create a class, account, invitation or enrollment. Activation requires managed identity verification, approved delivery and authenticated acceptance.

These approved joins do not require owner preapproval of every student email. Editable name, ID and email still do not prove identity or transfer history; legacy linking stays closed.

Common questions

Can I join now?

Not through this closed adapter. Use your administered account and existing class process. First-password setup at /auth/invite does not enroll you or activate the owner; genuine invitation-flow evidence remains pending.

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Who reviews access?

The instructor reviews the class request with current permission, required MFA, reason and audit; another person’s marks are never transferred.

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Start with your section

Open My sections and select the section assigned to you. Available actions depend on current section permissions, not your account name or institution role.
Use Roster to review enrolled recipients. For CSV import, stage the file, review conflicts and confirm the batch. Preserve student IDs as text, including leading zeros.

Roster CSV is limited to 5 MB and 5,000 rows. Assignment groups, case groups and race teams are different structures.

Common questions

Why is a section action missing?

Ask your institution administrator to review the exact teaching assignment and permission. Signing in or holding an administrative role does not supply teaching authority.

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Author, validate and publish

Open Assessments, create an editable draft and choose a formative quiz or ungraded poll. Add supported choice, true/false, short/open, matching or numeric questions and reading content as appropriate.
Configure keys and points for graded items; use rubrics for supported manual responses. Preview and validate the draft, then explicitly publish with publication permission. Publication creates an immutable version; it does not open an assignment.
Use the supported private image workflow for picture choices or case stimulus. Add alternative text and review the actual image; do not treat external image URLs, audio/video or general stem media as supported imports.

Draft authoring and bank edits use current section authority without an additional MFA requirement. Marking and release changes have separate MFA rules.

Common questions

Can I repair a published question in place?

No. Prepare a new version for future work. Existing versions, frozen attempt forms and historical evidence do not change. For defective items in closed assignments, use the separate reasoned exclusion workflow.

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Reuse banks and review AI drafts

Create or open a same-section bank. Review CSV staging before commit; the question-bank importer accepts its documented template, up to 5 MB and 2,000 rows. Copy reviewed revisions into an authorized draft.
For random-draw assignments, validate the bank revision and blueprint compatibility before publication. Each started attempt uses one frozen form; bank edits do not replace its questions.
AI authoring accepts bounded pasted teaching text or supported text extraction from PDF/DOCX, with synthetic content only. Review evidence, keys and wording; approve exact reviewed questions before importing to the same-section draft or bank.

No OCR, web research, autonomous publication or AI grading. Quotas and provider pauses may make generation unavailable; do not repeatedly dispatch an uncertain request.

Common questions

Why does a bank edit not update my copy?

Copies are independent draft content with provenance. Explicitly review and copy a newer revision for future publication; historical versions and attempts stay fixed.

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Set audience, access and timing

Create an assignment from the reviewed version. Keep whole-section targeting or explicitly select valid same-section assignment groups. Publication freezes the deduplicated eligible audience; a passcode never grants enrollment.
Set availability, duration, navigation and attempt rules before opening. If needed, set or replace the optional write-only passcode; it is not shown back to staff. Failed student guesses are throttled.
With required scoped authority and verified MFA, record a reasoned recipient window or extra time in minutes or percentage. Preview the effective deadline. Per-recipient timing freezes at their first attempt; availability caps time and resume/takeover never extends it.

Percentage extra time is 0–200%, rounded up from base minutes; total duration cannot exceed 1,440 minutes. These policies do not bypass eligibility or attempt limits.

Common questions

Does more time reveal answers earlier?

No. Disclosure guards account for unfinished eligible work and saved windows. Do not bypass a blocked release or reveal.

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Record attendance; lead live participation

Open a section attendance session and share its code/QR. Students sign in and explicitly confirm check-in while eligible and within the window. Review history and reasoned correction requests separately.
For live work, create a lobby from a supported version, save configuration, then open, close and advance questions. Choose a supported individual/team Space Race or reusable ungraded exit ticket where compatible.
Review private responses with current permissions. Explicit reveal controls what appears on the classroom projection; private exit text is not projected. Races freeze scoring participants/team size and have no speed bonus.

Codes locate sessions, not physical presence. Live responses and exit tickets never record attendance. Signed negative scoring and numeric rounded-comparison modes are not live-compatible.

Common questions

Can I undo revealing answers?

No. Revealed information cannot be made unknown again. Reuse of the same known version is subject to cross-mode disclosure restrictions.

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Review marks and release feedback

Open Marking for the assignment. Read private responses only with scoped marking authority. Manual, rubric and objective override changes require current permission, verified MFA and the requested reason; own attempts cannot be marked by yourself.
Keyword assistance and optional AI advice are suggestions only. AI applies only to supported nonblank short/open responses. Review the response and rubric yourself; Accept fills editable fields, then your separate Save commits a human mark. Private AI rationale is not student feedback.
After the assignment is closed and release guards allow it, preview selected disclosure components and explicitly release. Regrades and item exclusions remain private until a new release. Exclusion/reinstatement needs a reasoned closed-assignment preview and confirmation; original evidence stays immutable.

Negative overrides are limited to eligible signed-scoring objective items. Manual/rubric and legacy bounds are unchanged. AI never commits or releases on your behalf.

Common questions

Why is my new mark not visible to the student?

Students read the last explicitly released snapshot, not current private marks. Review the outdated release indication and explicitly re-release when ready. Pending manual work and hidden score components do not become visible aggregates.

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Weight available evidence and export

Open the section gradebook with report permission. Compare Current private results with Last released snapshots. Configure eligible formative assignments and explicit positive weights with publication + release + report permission and verified MFA.
Review the shown policy before Save: latest eligible attempt in the selected view, not best or average. Released view uses the latest released eligible attempt; a later unreleased attempt does not replace it.
Missing, unreleased and pending manual scores are not silently zero. Excused and fully excluded/zero-point evidence leave the denominator. Gradebook excusal needs override authority, MFA and a reason; it does not edit attendance or original marks. Export authorized CSV or follow the independent attendance report link.

Weighted percentage uses available included scores, preserves signed negatives and shows no percentage for an empty denominator. Completion is separate; neither is an official final course grade. CSV stops if access or its visible revision changes.

Common questions

Do private regrades change student progress or CSV?

Not before explicit release. Student totals, completion and export use released evidence only. Disclosed weights and reasoned excusal status are visible policy changes.

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Resolve unknown outcomes safely

Keep the current page open when an operation is unknown. Use its explicit Check/recovery control to read the exact outcome. If the first read fails, explicitly check again; do not send another Save.
Only an authoritative not-found result may enable an explicit same-request resend where offered. If access is denied, stop: private controls must clear and old responses cannot restore permission.

A timeout is not proof that nothing committed. Refresh required by a workspace is authoritative readback, not permission to repeat the change.

Common questions

Is this a connection problem or an access change?

Follow the displayed distinction. Connection errors need a later read; permission/MFA denials need current authority or session verification. Contact Us can receive a review request but cannot grant academic access.

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