What is allow listing?
Within Inspera, the standard exam set up is a secure locked-down exam environment where students are only able to access their Inspera Digital exam. They are unable to access internet search engines, their own notes or other applications.
Web pages and PDF documents can be ‘allow listed‘ so that they can be accessed securely within an Inspera Digital Exam. Allow listing of web pages or documents is completed while creating your Question Set.
The resources (when allow listed) are made available for students in locked down Inspera Digital Exams. A network filter ensures students are not able to navigate away from the page specified. All links, except allow listed resources, are blocked.
This blog post has been created to share some best practice around allow listing use in order to ensure the best experience for our students.
What is the best practice around using allow listed resources?
The Inspera Digital Exams Team have collated some guidance of best practice of using allow listed resources, particularly around PDFs.
- Inspera advise that a maximum of 10 resources (PDF and URLs combined) can be attached to a single question set.
- You should consider how many pages your PDFs are and whether students will have sufficient time in their exam to engage with the material. Where possible you should reduce the number of resources and pages to information that is required.
- If your PDF is greater than 30 pages, it is advised that you bookmark your PDFs to support your students with using these in their exam.
- Please ensure that your allow listed PDF is attached to your question set ahead of the question set deadline. This allows the Team to complete sufficient testing. Please contact Digital.Exams@newcastle.ac.uk if you feel you cannot attach the PDF by the deadline to allow us to liaise with you.
- Allow listed URLs should also be attached to your question set at the point that you submit this to the Digital Exams Team.
Why use allow listing?
Allow listing enables students to gather required information without the need to have a non-locked down, fully open book exam. This can be a great way to ensure academic integrity whilst giving student authenticity for specific aspects of their exam, such as reference data.
What sort of PDF and URL content do Module Teams typically allow list?
There are various types of PDF and URL content that we see module teams ‘allow list’ in their Inspera Digital Exams:
- Module Teams may wish to give students access to specific bits of content from their teaching – such as a series of PowerPoint slides, which they can convert to a PDF.
- Formula sheets could also be provided as a PDF allow list for students to reference in their exam as needed.
- Online calculators can have their URL allow listed for students to access for any calculations. The Digital Exams Team are able to recommend specific online calculator URLs that are functional in an Inspera Digital Exam.
- Some language-based modules will use online character palettes which students can copy and paste into their exam.
How to add allow listed resources to a question set
For guidance on how to add PDFs or URLs to your question set, please visit the Inspera Content Creation Features webpage for full instructions. See the section called ‘Allow listing’.
How to bookmark PDFs
For guidance on how to bookmark your PDFs, please also visit the Inspera Content Creation Features webpage for full instructions. See the section called ‘Allow listing’.
Further resources
The Inspera Digital Exams Team have created and continue to main a set of Inspera webpages with lots of information and guidance on the different aspects of Inspera.
If you have any questions about the use of allow listing, including bookmarking of PDF resources, please contact digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk.