Posts

Posted on

Preparation for January Exam period (Inspera Digital Exams) 

The January Exam period (for 2026) is taking place from Tuesday 6 January 2026 to Tuesday 20 January 2026 (including Saturday 10 January and Saturday 17 January). Inspera Digital Exams will be running throughout this. This blog aims to share communications Module Teams are asked to share with their students ahead of their Inspera exams, along with information around support with marking once your Inspera digital exam is over. 

Communications for Students  

Module Teams are encouraged to share communications with their students if sitting an Inspera digital exam. Note: Students must know their own University log in details (username and password). It may not be possible to reset forgotten log ins on the day of the exam. Please remind students of this. Below is some draft text that you can use in an email and/or Canvas announcement.  

[Title] Preparing for your [MODCODE] digital exam: make sure you know your log in details  

To sit your upcoming Inspera digital exam you will need to know your University login details (username and password).   

Please check that you know your login details before the day of the exam and that you can successfully sign into a campus Cluster PC. If you do not know your login details on the day of the exam it may not be possible to reset them before the exam starts.  

Your username begins with a letter (usually c) followed by the middle 7 numbers from your student number, which you can find on your smartcard. E.g. if your smartcard shows your student number is 212345678, your username is c1234567.  

If you cannot remember your password, you can reset it online or you can contact the IT Service Desk for help. If you have your password but would like to change it to something that is easier to remember you can change your password online.  

To help you prepare for your assessment, you can try out our demo exams via Canvas. There is a locked down demo and an open book demo. Both demo exams reflect the same demo content. The locked down demo allows students to experience the in-person Inspera exam security, therefore this particular demo should only be taken within a Campus PC cluster (as the required software will be installed).  

There is also a student page on the Academic Skills Kit about Inspera which students may wish to look at ahead of your exams.  

Marking your Inspera Exams:  

We highly recommend those Grading on Inspera check out our dedicated website: Marking Exams in Inspera | Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle | Newcastle University. This has: 

  • Bitesize video guides 
  • Written guidance about how to navigate Grade  
  • How to use areas like the Grading Overview 
  • Instructions about reviewing auto and manual marking 
  • Confirming grades 
  • FAQs 

If you’re planning to release any feedback to students  directly on Inspera, please see our Inspera Feedback Release webpage. 

Questions: 

If you have any questions, please contact digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk where a member of our team can assist you.   

Got a quick digital exams question? Why not join our Teams Community about all things Inspera! 

A reminder about the upcoming Learning and Teaching conference:

Posted on

Inspera: Sharing Best Practice Event 2025

Introduction

Colleagues in the Inspera Digital Exams Team of the Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) invited colleagues from Inspera Assessment to visit Newcastle University for the third year in a row to host an on campus event with our users.

Fiona Orel and Ishan Kolhatkar visited Newcastle on Wednesday 5th November for this year’s ‘Inspera: Sharing Best Practice’ Event.

Our Inspera users were invited to come along to find out updates about using Inspera at Newcastle and upcoming features on the Inspera roadmap. The event is a great opportunity for colleagues to learn about how they can enhance their use of Inspera and ensure best practice. The Inspera Digital Exams Team arranged for some demonstrations on features and functionality listed in the agenda below.

The agenda included:

  • Welcome and Introduction – An update from the Inspera Digital Exams Team and update from Inspera Assessment around their Roadmap
  • Inspera demonstration – Rubrics Functionality, Manually Marked Multiple Attempts Assessments and Feedback Release Features
  • Questions and Discussion – Colleagues submitted their questions for Inspera to answer.
Continue reading “Inspera: Sharing Best Practice Event 2025”
Posted on

Update: ‘Attendance’ is now ‘On campus engagement’ in NULA

We’d like to share an important update about how student engagement data is presented in NULA. The metric previously labelled ‘Attendance’ has now been renamed to ‘On campus engagement’.

This change is now live in the system.

Why we’ve made this change

The ‘Attendance’ metric in NULA shows a student’s engagement across all in-person, timetabled sessions available to them in their active modules — including both monitored and non-monitored activities.

Because this metric reflects more than just formal attendance, we felt that ‘On campus engagement’ better captures the full picture of a student’s participation in scheduled learning opportunities.

What this means for staff and students

Students will notice only a label change — from ‘Attendance’ to ‘On campus engagement’. There are no changes to the underlying data or calculations.

We’ve updated this terminology consistently across:

We’ve also expanded our messaging to students to make it clear that the on campus engagement metric is not a formal attendance record and will not impact academic records.

What this looks like

In the student interface:

In the staff interface:

Supporting student understanding

We will be communicating this update through our student channels, but if students come to you with questions, please feel free to use or adapt the message below:

Your ‘on campus engagement’ in NULA shows the opportunities available to you to take part in all timetabled events in your active modules. This gives you a clearer picture of your overall engagement and can help you notice any gaps so you can make informed choices about how you learn.

Please note that ‘on campus engagement’ data in NULA is not your formal attendance record and will not impact your academic record.

The system is designed to give you real-time insights that support your learning and any conversations with your personal tutor or support teams. It is not used in a punitive way.

If something does not look as expected, it may be due to data processing delays or how activities have been recorded.

For more information, please visit the NULA pages on the Academic Skills Kit website.

Posted on

Update to the workflow for setting up Turnitin assignments

Over the summer, work took place to improve the security, functionality, and performance of Turnitin assignments in Canvas. This means there is a slight change of workflow when setting up a new Turnitin assignment. 

You are no longer be required to select Turnitin as an “External Tool” from the Submission Type assignment settings. This step occurs on the assignment homepage instead, select Turnitin from the Assignment Settings (3 dots) button when creating a new assignment.

Guidance on the new steps to setting up a Turnitin assignment can be found on the Learning and Teaching website.

Please note that change will only affect how you create new Turnitin assignments; any pre-existing Turnitin assignments will still be available and any Turnitin assignments already set up for 2025/26 will not need to be changed. 

If you wish to copy an assignment from a previous year, follow the guidance for Using the Turnitin Assignment Copy tool.

It is now possible to submit a Turnitin assignment on behalf of a student, via the Turnitin inbox. Simply select ‘Submit on behalf of student’, and a drop down menu appears of all students attached to the course in Canvas. Select the student you wish to submit for, confirm your selection by clicking continue, then follow the steps to choose a file and upload the submission.

If you have any queries, please contact ltds@newcastle.ac.uk

Posted on

Inspera: Enable students to view Essay feedback comments without auto marked questions becoming visible

Inspera’s feedback release aims for transparency for all exam questions, however this had caused limitation for Module Teams wishing to releasing Essay comments as feedback, without revealing correct answers to automated marking. A new workaround is now available.  

Enabling Essay comment feedback only:  

  1. When marking an Inspera exam which includes Essay feedback comments that you wish to be visible to your individual students, comments must be saved as visible to candidate in Grade i.e.  

  

a. Feedback comments for individual student submissions are known on Inspera as ‘annotations’ and/or ‘page notes’. To see more about annotations or page notes go to Marking Exams in Inspera | Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle | Newcastle University and navigate to ‘How to mark manually marked questions using Inspera’.   

    1. You must finalise marking to enable feedback release i.e. marks must be confirmed. 
    1. Navigate to the Deliver tab for your exam.  

    a. You can do this by clicking Options and then ‘Open test in deliver’:   

      1. Within Deliver, scroll down and click ‘Show/hide details’ next to ‘Options’.  
      1. Tick Share comments with candidates (on the right hand side)  

        

      a. Please ensure you do not tick ‘Enable Candidate Report’ 

        Possible limitations:  

        Using this method means:  

        • Students would be unable to see final marks on Inspera however this would still be shown on Canvas Gradebook.  
        • There’s no per question marks breakdown visible.    
        • Students see the question and their submitted answers only if an annotation or page note was left for them by a Marker.   
        • Leaving a page note for all candidates on a particular question becomes disabled when using this feedback option.  

        If you have any questions specifically about your feedback use case, please contact digital.exams@ncl.ac.uk . 

        For general information about all feedback release options please see our dedicated feedback release website. 

        Posted on

        Inspera Digital Exams Update – 2025/26 Academic Year 

        Inspera Digital Exams Team 

        At the start of Semester 1 and Semester 2, the Inspera Digital Exams Team contact the Module Leader of any centrally supported summative Inspera exams that are due to happen that Semester. We will request that a Digital Exams Form is completed to provide the team with lots of useful information. 

        You can find out more about the process of using an Inspera Digital Exam from start to finish for Semester 1, Semester 2 and for mid-semester exams, which we refer to as ad-hocs In our Digital Exam Journey PDFs. 

        Continue reading “Inspera Digital Exams Update – 2025/26 Academic Year “
        Posted on

        New Canvas Gradebook Feature

        View Hidden Grades

        In the Gradebook Settings of the Canvas Gradebook area, a View Hidden Grades indicator option is available. This will allow Teachers and Admins to see an icon marking any grades that have not yet been posted to students.

        This will help you quickly identify which grades are hidden from students, reducing confusion and ensuring more accurate communication about grade visibility.

        This feature is available for use from 25th September 2025.

        How do I use this feature?

        To use this feature, you would navigate to the Gradebook area of your course in Canvas.

        You would then locate the ‘Gradebook Settings’ by selecting the settings option (cog icon) in the top right corner of the screen. Once here, you will navigate to the ‘View Options’ tab where you will be able to select the ‘View hidden grades indicator’. This enables the hidden grades indicator within the Gradebook of the particular course you are in.

        The gradebook settings area in Canvas Gradebook where you can enable ‘view hidden grades indicator’.

        What does the feature look like in action?

        In the Gradebook, an orange indicator displays which grades have not been posted next to each grade where this is applicable.

        An orange dot shown against a grade in the Canvas Gradebook to indicate the grade has not been posted.
        An orange dot shown against a grade in the Canvas Gradebook to indicate the grade has not been posted.

        Find out more

        You can find out more about the functionality of the Canvas Gradebook on the Canvas Course Navigation website, under the heading ‘Grades’.

        Posted on

        Digital Education Technologies Showcase Day: Summary

        The Learning Enhancement and Technology (LET) Team in the Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) were joined by colleagues from NUMBAS, Library Reading Lists, Digital Adoption, FMS Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) Team and representatives from the Artificial Intelligence (AI) in LTDS.

        The LET Team were delighted at the turnout on the day and the fantastic conversations that were able to take place. Find out more about the event and what colleagues thought about the event within this blog post.

        Stalls set up at the Showcase Day event
        Stalls set up at the Showcase Day event.
        Continue reading “Digital Education Technologies Showcase Day: Summary”
        Posted on

        YouTube videos in Canvas may now include adverts

        Colleagues using Canvas should be aware of a recent change affecting YouTube videos embedded within their courses. Due to updates in YouTube’s monetisation policies, videos embedded directly into Canvas may now display adverts.

        This change will take effect on 22nd September 2025.

        This is happening as over the recent years, video content has become a staple in learning environments and monetisation of that content has become increasingly important to those creators, many of which are educators themselves. As a result, Google/YouTube has evolved its model and approach to this.

        It applies to both newly added and previously embedded videos, and the adverts are controlled entirely by YouTube.

        Unfortunately, there is no way to disable these adverts within the standard Canvas environment.

        To warn viewers of the potential of adverts being displayed, Canvas has introduced a new content overlay warning. This message appears before a video plays, alerting viewers that the video may contain advertising.

        On desktop browsers, the warning is shown prior to playback, while on the Canvas mobile apps, it appears at the top of the page.

        An example of this notice can be seen below:

        Image from Instructure Canvas Community Website

        If you have any questions regarding this change, please contact ltds@newcastle.ac.uk.