Inspera Assessment was selected as our digital exam system following a rigorous procurement process, which began with requirements mapping workshops in February 2020, attended by over 60 academic and professional services staff.
In 2021/22 Inspera will be the standard tool for centrally supported digital exams, and will be used for all modules that have a present-in-person digital exam in MOFS (with the exception of any specialist digital exams that require Numbas).
Inspera will be available for additional new digital exams from 2022/23 onwards. There will be opportunities during the academic year to see demonstrations of the software and learn more about the new types of assessment it makes possible. To discuss a potential new Inspera digital exam please contact digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk.
Further information on preparing for exams in 2021/22 and the types of assessment possible with Inspera is now available on the Inspera pages of the Learning and Teaching website. This also includes information on how to prepare students for Inspera digital exams and links to student facing resources on the Academic Skills Kit webpages.
A combination of 360° interactive images and interactive hotspot formative assessment tasks have been used to greatly enhance the Health and Safety lab training materials delivered in the School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sport Sciences.
Within the school, there is a range of labs used in practical sessions. In previous years, preparatory Health and Safety Materials have been distributed on paper, or via PDF, however, one of the challenges of this mode of delivery is that some students do not necessarily engage with this material, resulting in some students not being well-prepared to work in these potentially hazardous environments.
These resources have now been moved to Canvas, and are available as general basic lab health and safety training in their own module. This module is targeted at Stage 1 Undergraduate students, though Stage 2 and 3 also have full access to the module for revision purposes. The module includes training on
Basic Health and Safety
Fire safety
General chemical, biological and physical hazards
General lab safety
Codes of practice
As well as module resources, there are also 360 lab tours that students can use to familiarise themselves with the lab environments, clicking through the images to ‘walk’ around the lab they might be using in the future.
A low-quality version to illustrate what students see when navigating the lab in 360.
The course concludes with quizzes and some ‘hidden hotspot’ tasks that students can use to test their own knowledge in hazard identification tasks. Interactive images like the one above have extra information inserted, which means that when students click on certain areas, information is displayed.
The interactive hotspots are created using the tool Theasys – 360 VR Online Virtual Tour Creator. One of the main advantages of using this tool is that the hotspot areas are hidden, meaning students have to explore the images in greater depth to discover the hazards. While there is a cursor change when a student hovers over the right spots, this is still much more hidden than in other tools, which highlight the hotspots with circles or other icons.
After the students have finished exploring the image, they can reveal all of the hotspots to find any they may have missed, allowing them to test their own knowledge. This could be enhanced even further by setting a Canvas quiz in the module or asking students to write a summary of the hazards found.
In addition to assessing students formatively, these 3D images and hotspot tasks provide a chance for students who may be anxious about the lab environment to explore these areas virtually first. This helps to minimise the risk of students being overwhelmed by the new space. Pairing the input with the virtual tours and, crucially, the chance to check knowledge builds confidence for all students, helping them feel well-prepared and knowledgeable about the lab environments before they even cross the threshold.
