💡 After building your blueprint, you land directly in the Topics view — your JTA's domains have become exam topics, each with a weight, a description (if you chose Build with AI), and item targets. This is where you finalize the exam's structure before item writing begins.
❓ What did the platform just build for me?
Each domain from your JTA is now a numbered topic with a weight percentage (e.g., Basic Bilingual Classroom Communication — 14%), a topic description, and two item calculations: Items Per Form (how many questions from this topic appears on a single exam form) and Total Items (how many need to be written, including margin for items that don't survive review). The weights came from your task distribution; the item counts are derived from those weights combined with your exam duration.
Reviewing Your Topics
6.1 Review each topic's name, weight, and description. Confirm they accurately represent the exam you intend to build. AI-generated descriptions are editable at any time; click into any topic to refine.
6.2 Confirm the Topics badge in the upper-left reads 100%. This means your weights account for the full exam.
❓ Why does the weight need to hit exactly 100%?
Each topic's weight tells the platform how many exam questions should come from that content area. If the weights don't add up to 100%, the blueprint can't define a complete exam — there would be gaps or overlaps in coverage. The Items Per Form and Total Items columns are calculated directly from these weights, so an unbalanced blueprint produces unbalanced item targets.
💡 About the Normalize button: If your weights already total 100%, the Normalize button appears grayed out. That's not a bug, it means there's nothing to fix. It only becomes active when your weights drift off 100% (for example, after adding, deleting, or manually re-weighting topics). Clicking it redistributes the remaining percentage proportionally so you're back to a complete exam.
Adjusting the Structure
6.3 To add a topic the JTA didn't produce, click "Add Topic" at the bottom of the view.
6.4 To reorganize topics, use the "Move" toggle in the toolbar — it has two modes:
- Around: dragging a topic reorders it among its siblings (changes position, not hierarchy)
- Inside: dragging a topic nests it within another topic, making it a subtopic
❓ When would I nest a topic inside another?
Subtopics let you break a broad content area into more specific slices without cluttering the top level of the blueprint. For example, a "Communication" topic might contain "Verbal Communication" and "Written Communication" subtopics, each with its own weight and item targets. Use "Around" for simple reordering; switch to "Inside" only when you deliberately want a parent-child relationship — accidental nesting changes your exam's structure and item distribution.
6.5 To combine overlapping topics, click the Merge Topics icon (tag icon, upper-right toolbar). A modal will open, listing all topics with their weights:
- Select exactly two topics — first the topic you wish to merge, then the destination topic. Order matters: the first selection is absorbed into the second.
- Click "Merge" to combine them, or "Close" to back out.
❓ What happens to the weights when two topics merge?
The destination topic absorbs the merged topic — combining their weights and content under the destination's name. For example, merging "Classroom Communication Logistics" (12%) into "Basic Bilingual Classroom Communication" (14%) produces a single topic at 26%. Since the total still sums to 100%, Normalize stays disabled — but review the combined topic's description afterward, as it won't automatically rewrite itself to cover both content areas.
⚠️ Only two topics can be selected per merge. If you need to consolidate three or more, merge them in successive pairs.
6.6 Use the view toggles as needed: Show Topics Description (on by default) and Show Deleted Topics to review removed topics.
The Toolbar at a Glance (left to right, upper-right corner)
- Start Item Writing — your exit to the next step once topics are finalized
- Manage Contributors (person+ icon) — invite SMEs and authors to this blueprint
- Merge Topics (tag icon) — combine overlapping topics
- Export to CSV (download icon) — export the topic structure for stakeholder review outside the platform
- ⚙️ Settings — opens Advanced Settings for deeper blueprint configuration (item quantities, naming conventions, writing/review rules, AI options — see the Blueprint Settings deep-dive page)
Publishing & Moving On
6.7 When your topics, weights, and descriptions are final, click "Start Item Writing" in the upper-right.
6.8 A confirmation modal will appear: "Publishing the exam blueprint will finalize this version and redirect you to Item Writing." Click "Ok" to proceed, or "Cancel" if you're not ready.
❓ Wait. This publishes the blueprint too?
Yes. In this flow, publishing isn't a separate step — clicking "Start Item Writing" finalizes the current version of your blueprint and moves you directly into item writing. This is the platform removing a manual navigation step: one click both locks the structure and takes you where the work continues. If you need to make structural changes after this point, the blueprint versioning system lets you return to a Draft state — but items already written are tied to the published structure, so finalize thoughtfully.
⚠️ Before clicking, do a final pass through ⚙️ Settings: item type configurations, writing/review rules, and AI options (like Automated Enemy Detection) are best set before the blueprint is finalized and authors are invited. What SMEs can see and do is determined by these settings.
Next step → Step 7: Item Writing
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