Once you have selected the study name you want to work with (from the Studies tab), select the Instruments tab.

Study Content is the first screen you will see. Study Content includes all instruments currently in your study.

If this is the first time you have accessed this screen, you will not see any instruments listed under the Study Content title. In this case, the first thing you should do is add an instrument(s) to your study or create an instrument.

Assessment Center offers many instruments for your use. The default search results are all public instruments. You may want to narrow the list of instruments by searching for instruments using the criteria below:

Study: You can also select to see instruments included other studies. Note that you will only be able to view instruments with public status or instruments from studies in which you are a team member. Use the dropdown menu to select a Study. The default is All Public.

Type: Choose from Item Bank/CAT (Computer Adaptive Testing) or Short Form. The default is all.

Domain: Choose from instrument domains (e.g. Fatigue, Pain). Note that you can only select one domain at a time. If you want to search multiple domains, you will need to conduct multiple searches or specify All. The default is All.

NOTE: This button is in two places: at the top of the instruments list and at the bottom of the list.

NOTE: If you conduct another search, the instruments already added to your study cannot be selected. This will prevent you from adding the same instrument to your study multiple times.

The default content on the Add an Instrument search results page is a list of all public instruments. These are available for you and all Assessment Center users to include in a study.

Complete the information required, including the name of your new, custom instrument, its domain, description, language, type and, IRT Model.

The Instrument name will be a hyperlink. You may click on this hyperlink to view the instruments contents and add items to the instrument.

A public instrument is one created by another user that has been made available for use by all Assessment Center users. The items in a public instrument cannot be changed or deleted. You use them as they are in your study/instrument.

A custom instrument is an instrument that has been developed by a study team, but has not yet been made public. Custom instruments are only available to designated study team members.

If you want to modify a custom instrument (e.g. add, create or delete items), access the Instrument Details page by clicking on the instrument name hyperlink. You can only make changes to an instrument with a status of under development.

You can rearrange your instrument or item list to the order you want them to be displayed. Modifications are made to instrument order from the Study Content page and to item order from the Instrument Detail page. Just modify the default order by entering numeric values in the Order fields to the left of the instrument name or the item ID.

The Order field on the Study Content (instrument order) and the Instrument Detail (item order) pages should be used to order instrument and items for display purposes. This field will help you review the instruments/items you have included and determine whether you need to add or remove any.

You may assign random administration methods and item order on the Instrument Customization page.

You may assign random administration methods and instrument order on the Arm/Assessment Details page.

Use the plus sign to display all items of an instrument. Use the minus sign to hide the items.

There is no delete function in Assessment Center. Assessment Center is a tool designed manage research studies therefore all activity will have a record.

In an effort to retain the history of all the instruments and their items, Assessment Center offers the Include/Exclude and the Hide features (see below) to help you retain the desired appearance of your study without jeopardizing the integrity of the data.

Including an instrument/item in your study makes sense. But why would you want to exclude a particular instrument/item?

One possibility is that at some point you added a certain instrument to your study or item in your instrument, and then decided not to administer it, for whatever reason. Assessment Center does not actually delete objects. Rather, to protect the integrity of the instruments and items that are available to all users, Assessment Center uses features such as Include/Exclude and Hide to help you manage the appearance of your study.

To exclude an instrument/item, click on the checkbox in the Include column. The page will refresh, removing the check and moving the now excluded instrument/item to the bottom of the list.

Check the Hide Excluded Instruments (Study Content page) or Hide Excluded Items (Instrument Detail page) checkbox if you do not want to see excluded instruments/items.

If you do want to see all instruments/items ever added to your study, including the ones you have excluded, make sure this box is unchecked. As you scroll through the list you will notice all excluded instruments/items will appear at the bottom of the list with the corresponding hyperlinks disabled.