ANS is the digital assessment platform of Hanze. ANS is fully web-based and can be used for developing, administering, and analyzing digital knowledge tests, both for learning purposes and decision-making purposes. ANS provides excellent opportunities to use item banks, allowing for efficient workflow and improving the quality of assessments. ANS supports various question and test types. In principle, we use ANS for digital knowledge tests, while other types of assessments (e.g., assignments and evaluations based on observations) are conducted in the LMS Brightspace.
Two ANS environments
Hanze has two ANS environments available: a production environment and an education environment.
The production environment is where the ‘real’ exams are developed and administered. The education environment is a practice and experimental environment, separate from the production environment.
Using the education environment for practice or experimentation ensures that the production environment is not cluttered with practice data.
The education environment is set up so that all staff can immediately create (and, if needed, delete) a course and an item bank themselves. No special permissions are required.
Note: This differs from the production environment, where teachers and department administrators do not have the rights to create courses or item banks.
The production environment is where the ‘real’ exams are developed and administered. The education environment is a practice and experimental environment, separate from the production environment.
Using the education environment for practice or experimentation ensures that the production environment is not cluttered with practice data.
The education environment is set up so that all staff can immediately create (and, if needed, delete) a course and an item bank themselves. No special permissions are required.
Note: This differs from the production environment, where teachers and department administrators do not have the rights to create courses or item banks.
In the production environment:
- All staff with an active Hanze account are registered as users with the role Staff.
- Digital Assessment Supporters (DTOs) are registered as users with the role Hanze Department Admin / Department Administrator.
- (Prospective) students and course participants with an active Hanze account are registered as users with the role Student.
- You can log in to the production environment (https://ans.app/users/sign_in) with your Hanze account via the ‘Log in with your school account’ window.
In the education environment:
- All staff who log in to ANS automatically have an active account with the role Staff.
- Digital Assessment Supporters (DTOs) have the role Hanze Department Admin / Department Administrator.
- You can log in to the education environment (https://edu.ans.app/users/sign_in) with your Hanze account via the ‘Log in with your school account’ window.
Two main structures within ANS
ANS contains two main structures: item banks and courses.
Item Banks
An item bank is a collection of items (i.e., questions) for a specific assessment purpose. Within an item bank, you can (optionally collaboratively) develop and modify exam questions. Staff members can view and edit item banks, while students do not have access rights.
You can request an item bank through your own Digital Assessment Supporter (DTO). Regarding naming conventions, we recommend starting with the four-letter code of your school, followed by a descriptive name. For cross-school item banks (e.g., language skills), we recommend using the term HANZE. From the item bank, it is possible to schedule exams in multiple courses.
More information about item banks can be found in the following articles:
Courses
All courses in ANS on the production environment are automatically created based on data from Osiris.
As a teacher, you will see in ANS the courses to which you are linked in Osiris. (Only staff registered in Osiris as a teacher for one or more exams associated with the course, where the digital exam type is ANS or ANS Software, are linked to the course in ANS.)