Definition types

The project Definition establishes the project structure by telling Blue what or whom is being evaluated (the subject of the evaluation), who is doing the evaluating, and how the two are related. Definitions, like datasources, are established by the Blue administrator before the project can begin, unless your project is using a default Typical Survey Definition or Simplified Survey Definition.

A Definition forms the basis of all projects, tasks, questionnaires, and reports in Blue and contains the following information:

• the subjects of an evaluation.
• the groups of participants in an evaluation.
• the privileges of the groups of participants.
• how groups link to subjects.
• the relationship between subjects.

How is a Definition used?

When you create a new Project in Blue, you must select which Definition should be applied in order to inform Blue what type of Project you are creating.

There are several different types of Definitions that can be created in Blue, each with a different purpose:

Subjects

Used when only one type of entity (e.g. instructor, course, class, employee) will be evaluated. Has the ability to have both a private and public rater audience.

For example, a subject could be a board of directors for an institution, employees in a company, courses in a university, or laboratories at a scientific facility. While the raters could be a group of known students or colleagues as well as an unknown group of raters.

Typical survey (w/o subjects) definition

Used for general topic surveys, typically for an internal population that would only be completing a single survey. A typical survey definition requires a user datasource that is normally synched with a SIS or LMS for automatic participant updates.

Simplified survey definition

Used for ad hoc, general topic surveys, typically for public surveys where the participants may be external to the organization/institution. A simplified survey definition requires no datasource and participant data can not be used by any other Blue projects.

Primary/secondary subject definition

Used when two entities are evaluated in relation to each other, where a direct, one-to-one relationship exists between both entities (e.g. course-instructor; employee-manager. The primary subject is the entity being evaluated; the secondary subject is evaluated in context to the primary subject.

Examples of a primary/secondary subject pairing include a course and a teacher, a project and a project manager, a restaurant and a chef, or a hotel and a general manager.

Multiple secondary subject definition

Used when there are multiple secondary subjects for one primary subject (e.g. more than one instructor is teaching a course/class and both the course and the Instructors are being evaluated).

Examples of multiple secondary pairings include multiple teachers in relation to one course, all of the academic departments in relation to a university, or several project managers in relation to one project.

Data Integrity Gateway (DIG)

This DIG definition is only used for DIG projects or projects that use DIG datasources.

Additional definition components

Groups

Within your definition, you are also presented with the opportunity to create the groups of individuals that will be participating in your evaluation project, as well as what privileges (aka rights) will be assigned to each group. For example, your students would be added as a group with the privilege to Fillout the evaluation forms; department heads might be added as a group with the privilege for report viewing. In setting up your groups, you will also be telling Blue the datasource from which to pull each group’s information (e.g. your Students data will be coming from your user datasource).

Filters

You also have the opportunity within the definition to create filters of your data. Filters will allow you to set, at the definition level, which subjects that you want to include or exclude within your project (e.g. only courses within a certain department or time period will be evaluated; only instructor-led courses will be evaluated).

Languages

If you will be creating a multi-lingual project in Blue, you can enable additional language captions within the definition.

Examples

1. If you are conducting a Course Evaluation using Blue, your Project is going to need:
   • One User Datasource that contains a Data Block with all of the people data (students, Instructors)
   • One Object Datasource that contains a Data Block with all of the course data
   • One Relationship Datasource that links people with the course data and dictates their role (Instructor vs Student vs other)
   • Multiple Secondary Subject Definition (recommended) or, at a minimum, a Primary/Secondary Subject Pairing Definition in order to be able to evaluate both the Courses and the Instructors
2. If you are conducting a 360 Evaluation using Blue, your project is going to need:
   • One user datasource that contains a data block with all of the people data (subjects to be rated and their raters)
   • Subject definition, as only people (e.g. employees, managers) are being evaluated
3. If you are conducting a Survey (using a Typical Survey format), for example an employee exit survey or a student experience survey, your Project is going to need:
   • One user datasource that contains a data block with all of the people data (individuals who will be participating in the survey)
   • Typical survey definition, as you are conducting a singular survey for general topic content but that will like to your organization’s/institution’s participant data