Setting up a Program
In order for program information (data, descriptions) to be pulled into your Motivity Reports, they should be set up in a specific way.
We strongly recommend that when creating programs, you customize an existing program in our library or use a template as a starting point. Your CSC can show you how to set up a template during onboarding, and they can show you how to customize existing programs to fit your needs, offering suggestions for making our existing programs work for you.
If there are no templates that fit the needs of your current program, and you do want to create a program from scratch, follow these steps:
In the top right-hand corner, click “+ Program,” and select “Create from Scratch”
Enter your program name- remember, in Motivity, programs are goals. Organizations may assign labels to help filter programs by type.
Once you click “Create Program,” you will be prompted to enter a Goal Description, Protocol, and References. You can also set up Concurrency (the number of targets and sets that are visible in data collection simultaneously).
The default Concurrency setting is “None,” -- here you can see that I customized the “Basic” mode to show 3 targets and 2 sets at a time, as well as having the Maintenance targets always available for data collection.
Next, you will create sets (short-term goals) by clicking the + under the program name in the left-hand column:
You’ll modify the set to fit the program. In our example, the first set might be “Manding”, and the second set could be “Tacting”
Next, click the + under your set and choose the type of data you are collecting (in this example, skill acquisition), the way you’d like to collect the data (I chose Trial-by-Trial), and if you’re creating multiple similar targets or one unique target.
In our example, we’ll be selecting “multiple similar targets,” and adding in the colors as specific targets (select +Target), and in the popup, write out your targets. This will ensure that all of your individual targets are set up the same way:
From here, you can modify the properties, target interface, measurements, and opportunity outcomes for each target, as well as set the mastery criteria.
Once this is all filled out, you may want to add sets for the other types of targets (manding and intraverbals in our example). Instead of redoing the above steps, you can clone this set and change the wording as needed.
Click on the three vertical dots to the left of your first set, select clone, and then add in the new set names:
There are a few things to remember if you’re creating programs from scratch:
- Programs can only support 100 data targets. This is why we do not recommend setting up a program that includes all of the learner’s goals, as you’ll quickly hit 100 data sets. Instead, programs should be built for each goal in a learner’s report.
- Motivity has a few built-in steps to save you time, such as cloning and “multiple similar targets”
- Once a program is built, you can’t move the sets/targets into other programs. For example, if you build out a manding program that includes functional communication responses, but want to move the FCRs into a behavior program, you’ll need to archive the existing program and rebuild the set, manually reentering the data.
- Many Motivity templates for assessments and progress reports are set to pull in the program descriptions and graphs. Setting up your programs with the correct descriptions will save time when generating a report down the line.
Examples
In the example below, the BCBA set up a program for all of her learner’s goals. Over time, this program may reach the 100 data collection targets capacity and new targets won’t be able to be added. This type of setup will also prohibit reports from sorting programs by domain.
In this example, the BCBA set up a program for the learner (similar to the example above), and then used sets for each goal domain. They will run into the same 100 data target capacity issue.
The following examples highlight recommended ways to set up programs for your learners:
Under this learner’s active programs, they have an “actions” and “community helpers” goal:
The action goal has data collection for Listener Responding/Receptive, Tacting/Expressive, and Generalization.
When set up this way, the program is unlikely to meet the 100 data target capacity. The BCBA can add additional programs to their learners and keep building out their profile.
Here is another example of a Learner’s profile set up according to Motivity’s recommendations:
From the Dashboard you can see the behavior and skill acquisitions are separated, and the programs are individual goals:
If ever in doubt about the best way to set up a goal or goals, do not hesitate to reach out to your CSC for suggestions or recommendations!