Initial Assessment. The initial assessment takes place at the outset of students' use of ALEKS, immediately after Registration and Tutorial (See Sec. 3.9). We strongly recommend that this initial assessment, which has the character of an orientation to the system for student users, take place in a supervised computer lab setting to ensure that students do not receive help or collaborate. In creating or editing a class account, the instructor can stipulate that the initial assessment be allowed only from school (See Sec. 7.17.).

As mentioned above, the initial assessment is optional for students using ALEKS in Financial Accounting, unless the instructor chooses to require it. Students who have prior knowledge of Accounting may with to take the initial assessment, in order to move past material that they are familiar with. If the initial assessment is skipped, the student will begin with the most basic material in the course.

Completion Assessments. ALEKS also assesses students automatically when they complete the syllabus for a course. If the assessment does not confirm the student's mastery of the syllabus materials, they will return to the Learning Mode. More than one Completion Assessment is thus possible, but as a rule ALEKS will not reassess the student if only a small number of topics need to be relearned.

Requested Assessments. Assessments can also be requested by the instructor for individual students or for entire courses. For example, the instructor, department, or college may wish to have "midterm" assessments under supervision to guarantee sound results. ALEKS allows the instructor to schedule the assessment for a particular date and time (See Sec. 6.5.1). Students logging on to ALEKS within the time period specified for the assessment will automatically enter Assessment Mode.

The instructor simply announces the assessment for a certain time and place. Just prior to this time the instructor prompts the course assessment in the Instructor Module (See Secs. 7.9--7.10). The next time students log on they will automatically enter the assessment. Note that a requested assessment "resets the clock" for automatic assessments, so that students will not be assessed with undue frequency. Also, among the options for a requested assessment is one to prevent automatic assessments within a certain number of days prior to the requested assessment (See Sec. 6.5.1).

NOTE. In some ALEKS products, there is an option to request the assessment on a particular slice or slices of the pie chart. When this is done, there will be a note regarding the estimated number of questions needed for the assessment. Often, assessing on more than one slice of the pie chart will result in an assessment that is longer than desired; therefore, this feature is usually most effective when only a single slice is selected. The instructor also has the option of letting ALEKS select an appropriate slice for each student, based on their individual progress.