Overview: Adding other content

An Item is formed of an Interaction, or a set of interactions, which can be accompanied by other types of content. Interactions allow the candidate to interact with the item. Other content – resources such as media and text – can be used as supporting material for the test question or task being created.

Both Interactions and any other content are inserted into an item during the item authoring process. This section of the User Guide contains chapters on the form of the other content which you can use in items.

The main type of content you may wish to add is what are called Assets in TAO. See the chapter Adding assets to an item for information on how to use resources from the Asset Manager in your item.

If you want to create a (text) passage to add to the item (and have the Ignite/Premium edition of TAO), see the chapter on the Passage editor. If you are using TAO’s Community edition, follow the instructions in Inserting a passage (or shared stimulus) to add a passage to your item from outside of TAO. You can also enter text into your item for direct use by Inserting a Text Block and then putting text into it (this method can be used for adding resources either in the form of supporting material, or to text-based interactions).

There is also a chapter on Using math expressions in items, as well as a chapter on the Word processing options which are available.

Finally, a description of the End Attempt option is included here, which can be inserted into your item if you’d like to give test-takers the option of exiting an item without submitting a response.