.. _Beta_Testing:

#############################
Beta Testing a Course
#############################

When a course is being designed in Studio, the course team can choose **View
Live** to assess their progress in designing the course, test their work, find
gaps and errors, and mimic the student experience. To gather information about
the overall experience of taking a course, you can also conduct a beta test of
the course.

Beta testers have early access to the course. Beta testers are not members of
the course team or staff: they don't have information about "how it's supposed
to work". They use their own computers and internet connections to view videos,
follow links, and complete problems. They interact with the course exactly as
students will, but see the course materials before other enrolled students do.

* :ref:`Beta_Process`
* :ref:`Qualities_Testers`
* :ref:`What_Test`
* :ref:`How_Testers_See_Course`
* :ref:`Add_Testers`
* :ref:`Add_Testers_Bulk`
* :ref:`Issue_Reporting_During_Course`

.. _Beta_Process:

******************************************
The Beta Testing Process
******************************************

During a beta test, you gather information about the experience of taking your
course in an effort to improve its quality. The phases of the beta testing
process, and some questions that you may find useful to consider as you prepare
for each phase, follow.

#. **Planning**: What are your objectives for the test? What is the schedule for
   testing?

#. **Recruitment**: How many testers do you need? How much time do you expect
   testers to spend? When do you need them to complete their feedback?

#. **Provide access to your course**: Can testers access your entire course
   immediately, or are its sections and subsections available at different
   times? How will that affect the schedule?

#. **Collect feedback**: How do you want testers to provide feedback? Who checks
   for feedback, and how often?

#. **Evaluate feedback**: How is feedback evaluated? Who decides what changes to
   make as a result, and on what schedule?

#. **Conclusion**: How do you acknowledge the efforts of your testers? What do
   you share with them about the results of their efforts?

There is no one answer to any of these questions. They are included here as
background on the role that beta testing can play in the preparation of your
course.

.. _Qualities_Testers:

***************************************
Qualities of Good Beta Testers
***************************************

A beta test is valuable in part because it is unscripted. Your beta testers are
not following a predetermined series of steps, or using a particular computer
environment, when they access your course. When you recruit beta testers,
however, you may find these skills and characteristics to be helpful.

* Curiosity.

* Attention to detail for identifying problems and inconsistencies.

* Solid communication skills for reporting problems to course staff. 

Your beta testers should also have varying levels of knowledge about the course
content:

* To recognize when material is wrong or missing, at least one tester should
  know the content well.

* To identify material that is unclear, at least one tester should be less
  familiar with the content.

Depending on the objectives you set for your beta test, you may want to consider
recruiting testers who use assistive technologies, who have different native
languages, or who have varying levels of familiarity with computer software.

=========================================
Using Course Staff as Beta Testers 
=========================================

Course staff can provide valuable feedback about your course. However, they are
typically stakeholders in the success of your course and have a significant
amount of knowledge about it. As a result, they can be too close to the course
to interact with it in the same way as students will. They can also be either
reluctant to provide feedback, or overly zealous.

If you do want a staff member to be a beta tester, a different, second email
address must be used for this additional role. The privileges of the course
staff role override those of a beta tester, so a second registration on the
site, activation, and enrollment in the course are necessary using this second
email address. The staff member must log in using the second email address (with
the beta tester role) in order to experience the course as a student.

.. _What_Test:

*********************************
What to Test
*********************************

Beta testers should interact with everything in the course. 

* Click all links.

* Watch all videos.

* Download video transcripts and other files.

* Complete all problems. 

As they work, beta testers log issues and questions for the course team.

.. note:: Beta testers can make discussion posts and wiki contributions. You may want to ask your testers not to make posts or contributions about unreleased courseware, and alert your discussion administration team to watch for posts from the beta testers.

.. _How_Testers_See_Course:

******************************************
How Beta Testers See Course Content
******************************************

To beta test a course, you: 

* Define a number of days before section and subsection release days for testing
  to begin.

* Identify beta testers.

Designated beta testers see course content before students can. Beta testers
access courseware:

+-------------------------------------------+------+------+
|                                           | Yes  |  No  |
+===========================================+======+======+
| Before the Course Enrollment Date         |  X   |      |
+-------------------------------------------+------+------+
| Before the Course Start Date              |  X   |      |
+-------------------------------------------+------+------+
| Before the section Release Day            |  X   |      |
+-------------------------------------------+------+------+
| Before the subsection Release Day         |  X   |      |
+-------------------------------------------+------+------+
| Before the unit is Public                 |      |   X  |
+-------------------------------------------+------+------+
| Before a draft replaces a live unit       |      |   X  |
+-------------------------------------------+------+------+

The course team can continue to add content in Studio after the beta test
begins. When new content is ready for testing, be sure to change the
**Visibility** setting for any units that are Private to Public. See
:ref:`Units` or :ref:`Publishing Your Course`.

================================
Define When the Beta Test Starts
================================

To define the start of the beta test, you use Studio to specify a number of days
before the release day that is defined for each section and subsection in your
course.

#. In Studio, from the **Settings** menu select **Advanced Settings**.

#. In the field for the **Days Early for Beta Users** policy key, enter the
   number of days before each section and subsection release day for beta
   testers to have access.

#. Click **Save Changes**.

===========
Example
===========

.. Is this example helpful? how can we assess whether it is frightening/confusing to course team, or helpful?

Beta tester access to courseware for a course with **Days Early for Beta Users**
= 20 and 2 sections:

+-------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| Course Enrollment Date = 31 August        | 31 August; earlier if enrolled by course staff |
+===========================================+================================================+
| Course Start Date = 15 September          | 26 August                                      |
+-------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| section 1 Release Day = 15 September      | 26 August                                      |
+-------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| section 2 Release Day = 22 September      | 2 September                                    |
+-------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| subsection 1 Release Day = 22 September   | 2 September                                    |
+-------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| subsection 2 Release Day = 24 September   | 4 September                                    |
+-------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| subsection 2, unit 1 Visibility = Public  | 4 September                                    |
+-------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| subsection 2, unit 2 Visibility = Public; | 4 September for Public version;                |
| draft in progress                         | No access to draft                             |
+-------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+
| subsection 2, unit 3 Visibility = Private | No access                                      |
+-------------------------------------------+------------------------------------------------+

In this example, the beta testers cannot access all of the courseware when the
beta test starts on 26 August: they can access section 1 but not section 2. You
may want to provide a schedule of section availability to your testers so that
they can plan their time appropriately. Future release dates do not display to
the beta testers in the courseware.

.. _Add_Testers:

*********************************
Add Beta Testers 
*********************************

Before you can add beta testers:

* You need the email address or username of each beta tester. 

* Each beta tester must register and activate a user account for that email
  address/username.

When you add beta testers, note the following. 

* If the beta test starts before the course **Enrollment Start Date**, testers
  cannot enroll themselves in your course. However, you can enroll the beta
  testers prior to the **Enrollment Start Date**.

* If you add the beta testers after the defined start of the beta test, and they
  are enrolled in the course, they see your course on their dashboards when they
  log in.

* If you add beta testers before the test starts, or if they are not enrolled,
  they do not see your course on their dashboards. You can enroll the beta
  testers in the course yourself, and you may want to send an email message to
  remind them when the test begins.

.. _Add_Testers_Bulk:

================================
Add Multiple Beta Testers
================================

If you have a number of beta testers that you want to add, you can use the
"batch add" option to add them all at once, rather than individually. With this
feature, you have options to enroll the beta testers in the course (before or
after the **Enrollment Start Date**) and send an email message to notify the
beta testers that they have been added.

To add multiple beta testers:

#. View the live version of your course.

#. Click **Instructor**, and then click **Try New Beta Dashboard**.

#. Click **Membership**. 

#. In the **Batch Beta Tester Addition** section of the page, enter one or more
   addresses or usernames separated by commas or line feeds (the Enter key). You
   can also copy data from a CSV file of email addresses and paste it here.
 
#. To enroll the beta testers in your course, leave **Auto Enroll** selected. If
   the beta test starts before the course **Enrollment Start Date**, testers
   cannot enroll themselves in your course.

#. To send an email message to the beta testers, leave **Notify users by email**
   selected. An example of the message that is sent to a beta tester who is not
   enrolled (or auto enrolled) in the course follows.

.. image:: ../Images/Beta_tester_email.png
  :alt: "You have been invited to be a beta tester for <course name> at <URL>. Visit <link> to join the course and begin the beta test."

6. Click **Add beta testers**.

To remove the Beta Tester role from one or more users, enter their email
addresses in the **Batch Add Beta Testers** field and then click **Remove beta
testers**. 

.. note:: The **Auto Enroll** option has no effect when you click **Remove beta testers**. The user's role as a beta tester is removed; course enrollment is not affected.

================================
Add Beta Testers Individually
================================

To add a single beta tester:

#. View the live version of your course.

#. Click **Instructor** then **Try New Beta Dashboard**.

#. Click **Membership**.

#. In the **Administration List Management** section, use the drop-down list to
   select **Beta Testers**.

#. Under the list of users who currently have that role, enter an email address
   or username and click **Add Beta Tester**. 

   If the beta test starts before the **Enrollment Start Date** of your course,
   you can also enroll the beta tester. See :ref:`Enrollment`.

To remove the Beta Tester role from users individually, find the user in the
list of beta testers, and then click **Revoke access** to the right of that
user's email address.

.. _Issue_Reporting_During_Course:

*********************************
Issue Reporting During a Course
*********************************

Despite the efforts of the course team and the beta testers, additional
problems, questions, and issues can occur while a course is running.

* Often, students report issues by asking questions in a discussion. Your
  discussion administration team can watch for posts that indicate problems.

* To let students know the best way to report problems, you can post information
  on the **Course Info** page or post it in a discussion.

.. per Mark 19 Feb 14: eventually we want to provide more guidance for students:  course issues > use discussions, platform issues > submit issue to edx.

