Create a Common Assessment: For Admins & Coordinators

Before You Begin

Before creating a Common Assessment, you need an assessment in Wayground. You can easily create one using all state‑aligned question types from scratch, use questions from the Wayground library or Import your own assessment with Wayground AI. For step‑by‑step guidance, see the article on how to create an assessment in Wayground.

Tip: Make sure all questions are tagged with the correct standards before creating the Common Assessment. Standards-aligned reporting only works when questions are mapped to specific standards. If standards are not tagged, the report will only display question-based results.

Note: You must have the Admin, School Admin, or Assessment Coordinator role to create a Common Assessment. Educators cannot create Common Assessments. If you need this capability, contact your Admin to update your role.

Start the Common Assessment Creation Flow

1. Go to the assessment you want to use.

2. Click the Create button in the Common Assessments section at the bottom left of the assessment page.

Step 1: Configure Your Assessment

The first page of the creation flow is the Configuration page. Here you set up all the core details and settings for your Common Assessment.

Basic Details

• Title: Give your Common Assessment a clear, descriptive title. Use a consistent naming format (e.g., “Grade 8 Unit 2 Mathematics”) so Common Assessments are easy to identify and manage.
• Subject: Select the subject for this assessment.
• Grade: Select the appropriate grade level(s).

Schedule

• Start Date & Time: Set when the testing window opens. Teachers can administer the Common Assessment in their classes only after this time.
• End Date & Time: Set when the testing window closes. After this time, teachers cannot administer the Common Assessment in their classes, and all paused sessions close automatically.
• Recommended assessment Duration (Optional): Set a time limit for students. The Common Assessment does not auto-submit when the timer expires — it only ends when the student submits or the teacher ends the session.

Assessment Integrity

• LockDown Browser: Require students to take the assessment in the LockDown Browser, preventing access to other apps, websites, or browser functions. 

  • Allowlisted Applications: You can specify which applications do the students have access to, while the students take the assessment in the LockDown Browser. 

For example, if the Common Assessment requires access to Zoom for proctoring or includes links to external resources like a Wiki article, news site, or YouTube video, you can allow these so students can access them during the assessment.

If LockDown Browser is disabled, the assessment opens in a full-screen with an Anti-Cheating Monitor, where the teacher will be notified whenever a student tries to open another tab or switch to another tab on their device during the Common Assessment. Learn more about Anti-cheating monitor here.

Note: 

• Students who do not have it installed will be prompted to download it before starting the Common Assessment. Read the installation guide here.
• Lockdown Browser only works on Mac, Windows, and Chromebook devices. Please reach out to support@wayground.com if you need support for another device. More about System Requirements for LockDown Browser here.

• Shuffle Questions: Randomizes the order of questions for each student to reduce risk of copying amongst students.

• Shuffle Answer Options: Randomizes the order of answer choices for multiple-choice questions to reduce risk of copying amongst students.

• Allow Teachers to View the Assessment: When disabled, prevents teachers from previewing the assessment content.

• Allow Teachers to View the Class Report: Controls whether teachers can see performance data of their class.

• Allow Teachers to Add Student Records: Enable this setting to let teachers enter responses on behalf of students who need a scribe or completed the assessment offline. When enabled, teachers see an Record Student Response button in their Class Report. They must provide a reason for each entry (e.g., accommodation, etc), which is logged and visible to administrators in the Admin Report.
  

Universal Tools & Accommodations

Configure tools needed for the assessment to ensure an accessible testing environment for all students.

For each support tool (calculator, read-aloud, etc.), choose one of three options:

• Enabled: The tool is available to all students taking this Common Assessment.

• Disabled: The tool is not available to any student.

• Teacher Set Accommodation: The tool is available only to students whose teacher has enabled it in their individual profile.

Control whether the Reduce Answer Choices accommodation is applied in this Common Assessment:

• Disabled (Default): All students see the full set of answer choices. This aligns with state test formats for high-stakes assessments.

• Teacher Set Accommodation: Students see reduced answer choices only if their teacher has enabled this accommodation in the student’s profile.

Tip: For high-stakes Common Assessments (unit tests, quarter finals) that should mirror state test formats, keep Reduce Answer Choices set to Disabled. For lower-stakes common assessments, consider allowing Teacher Set Accommodation.

Reporting

• Performance Bands: Define accuracy ranges to group students into performance bands. The defaults are:
  • Did Not Meet: <40%

  • Partially Met: 40–70%

  • Met: 70–90%

  • Exceeded: >90%

• Accountability Goal: Set a target percentage of students expected to reach the Met + Exceeded bands. This goal appears throughout the Admin Report, spotlighting student groups that meet or miss the target.
  

Other Settings

• Require students to answer all questions: Enable this setting if you want to mandate students to answer all questions before submission. Students will not be allowed to submit unless they have attempted all questions. Students will not be allowed to submit unless they have attempted all questions.
  

Step 2: Assign to Teachers

The second step of the creation flow is the Sharing page. Choose how to distribute the Common Assessment to teachers.

2.A. Assign via Courses

Courses use your district’s rostering data (from Clever, ClassLink, or manual setup) to automatically assign the right teachers that teach classes for a course. 

Select the course, term and school(s) from the dropdown.

Wayground assigns the Common Assessment to all teachers teaching that course in the selected term and school(s).

2.B. Assign via Teams

Teams are reusable groups of teachers that you define.

• Select an existing team or create a new one.

• All teachers in the selected team will receive the Common Assessment.

When you select schools during assigning, School Admins at those schools automatically gain access to the Common Assessment and their school reports.

Admins always have access to all Common Assessments in the organization.

Managing Access to the Common Assessment

You can view and manage teachers and admins directly from the Common Assessment — there’s no need to navigate elsewhere.

Viewing Teachers and Admins

Open any Common Assessment and navigate to the membership view to see:

• All teachers assigned to the Common Assessment

• All admins with visibility into the Common Assessment

• How each person was added (via Team, Course, or role-based access)

Membership Rules

• Admins & School Admins: Always get visibility based on school selection. If a new admin is added to Wayground after the Common Assessment was created, they still get access. If an admin is removed, they lose access.

• Teachers: Synced from Teams/Courses. New teacher additions continue to be synced until the Common Assessment end date. Membership changes outside these windows do not affect access to the Common Assessment.

• Common Assessment Creators: Can view and manage teachers and admins directly from the Common Assessment — there is no need to navigate to Library > Teams. The membership panel shows all assigned teachers, admins, and how each person was added.

Editing and Reopening a Common Assessment

After creating a Common Assessment, your editing ability depends on its status:

• Scheduled (before start date): You can edit both assessment resource content and settings.

• Active (between start and end date): You can only adjust the end date, access and reporting settings.

• Ended (after end date): You can edit the Teams's school's access list and reporting settings.

You can also reopen a Common Assessment after it has ended to extend the deadline, allowing additional students to participate. This is useful for disruptions such as snow days or student absences.

If you shared the assessment with a custom team, you can add or remove teachers by clicking on the Edit button from the Manage Access page. This will lead you to the Teams section in My Library, from where you can add or remove teachers.

Tips & Best Practices

• Tag all questions with standards before creating the Common Assessment for standards-aligned reporting.

• Use a consistent naming convention (e.g., “[District]: [Subject] [Grade] Unit [#]”) for easy identification.

• Set performance bands and accountability goals upfront so they’re in reports as soon as data comes in.

• Choose the right assignment method: Courses for large-scale district distribution, Teams for specialized groups or pilots.

• Run a practice Common Assessment with LockDown Browser before a high-stakes assessment to verify device readiness.

Learn more about Common Assessments on Wayground:

• An Introduction to Common Assessments by Wayground
  
• Roles and Permissions for Common Assessments
• Accessing and Understanding Common Assessment Reports
• Manage and Monitor Common Assessments: For Admins & Coordinators
• Administer & Manage Common Assessments in Your Class: For Teachers
• How to Join & Take a Common Assessment: For Students
• Installing and Using LockDown Browser by Respondus with Wayground