Sequencing

Along with Data Validation and Versioning, probably the most vexing problem confronting the Assessment package is how to handle conditional navigation through an Assessment guided by user input. Simple branching has already been accomplished in the "complex survey" package via hinge points defined by responses to single items. But what if branching/skipping needs to depend on combinations of user responses to multiple items? And how does this relate to management of data validation steps? If branching/skipping depends not merely on what combination of "correct" or "in range" data the user submits, but also on combinations of "incorrect" or "out of range" data, how the heck do we do this?

One basic conceptual question is whether Data Validation is a distinct process from Navigation Control or not. Initially we thought it was and that there should be a datamodel and set of procedures for checking user input, the output of which would pipe to a separate navigation datamodel and set of procedures for determining the user's next action. This separation is made (along with quite a few other distinctions/complexities) in the IMS "simple sequencing" model diagrammed below). But to jump the gun a bit, we think that actually it makes sense to combine these two processes into a common "post-submission user input processing" step we'll refer to here as Sequencing. (Note: we reviewed several alternatives in the archived prior discussions here.

So here is our current approach. We note that there are two scopes over which Sequencing needs to be handled:

So how might we implement this in our datamodel? Consider the "sequencing" subsystem of the Assessment package:

Data Modell Graphic

Specific Entities