Author: Kimberly

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Vevox: December New Features Release

Vevox have made some updates to their features which were featured in their December product update. Find out more about the new features available, including the introduction of: 

  • Live ‘Before and After’poll comparisons 
  • Demographic Segmentation   
  • Rich text options for question formatting 
  • Pie chart and number cloud displays available in the PowerPoint add-in 

‘Before and After’ Poll Comparison

It is now possible to run the same poll question twice and use a toggle option in present view after repeating the question in order to see a before and after comparison. This can be done live in your polls for you and your audience to see.  

This feature is only available in the present view of the Vevox Dashboard, and not in PowerPoint. 

Potential use cases: See shifts in understanding in lectures or training sessions. 

The ‘compare with previous poll’ toggle option icon in Vevox present view. 

Demographic Segmentation

It is now possible to identify trends with demographic segmentation functionality in questions. You can use the multichoice question type, to ask a demographic question such as ‘What stage of study are you in?’ at the start of your session. When you run any subsequent multichoice questions, you can choose to display the results by those demographics by using a toggle option. 

This feature is only available in the present view of the Vevox Dashboard, and not in PowerPoint. 

Potential use cases: See how answers or opinions differ among groups of students or participants. 

The ‘show a demographic split’ toggle option icon in Vevox present view. 

Rich Text Options for Question Formatting

Within the question creation area, there are now some rich text editing options available to help you when writing your questions. The new formatting available includes bold, italics, underline, bullet points, and new lines. 

The rich text editor options in the Vevox question creation area.

Pie Chart and Number Cloud Display in PowerPoint 

The option to use pie charts to display results and use number clouds as a question type were made available in the Dashboard present view back in September. They are now available in the Office 365 Vevox PowerPoint add-in. 

Additional information

For more information about Vevox, please see the dedicated Vevox webpage on the University’s Learning and Teaching website and also on Vevox’s own Blog.   

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Marking Workspace Updates in Inspera (Autumn 2024)

Introduction 

Over the last couple of months, Inspera have been making some updates to their Grade workspace. Graders may have noticed some name changes in the appearance or naming in the Grade area. Ahead of our Semester 1 assessment period, the Digital Exams Team wanted to share some information about the changes you will see. 

To complete marking within Inspera, graders will use the different workspaces in the Grader workflow: 

Continue reading “Marking Workspace Updates in Inspera (Autumn 2024)”
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Vevox: Recent new features released!

Vevox have made a few additions and improvements to their features in recent product updates. Find out more about the new features available, including the introduction of number clouds, pie charts and the chance for participants to add labels to their Q&A questions. There are also some suggested use cases on the new features which are optional for use. 

Rating Scale Question Type 

  • This question type allows you to ask participants to rate multiple items on a scale of 1 up to 10 and create labels for the highest and lowest values.  
  • Since you can ask participants to rate multiple items under one question, this reduces the need to create multiple questions. 
  • Suggested use case: rating scale questions could be used for evaluation type questions or surveys. 

Add images to options in multiple choice questions (MCQs) 

  • It is now possible to add an image alongside every answer choice – this means you can use images as answers, or even add them for decorative purposes to help engage with participants.  

Poll creation and updates within Microsoft PowerPoint and Teams integrations 

  • The ability to create polls directly within both the PowerPoint Add-in (as well as Microsoft Teams) is now possible. This is for all question types, including the newly introduced rating scale question type and images as answer choices. 

Participant-driven Q&A labels 

  • As a session host, you can create and choose labels to share with your participants. 
  • Participants can now add these labels to their questions/comments before adding them to the Q&A board. 
  • Suggested use case: If you are delivering a session which includes different topics, you may want the ability for your participants to label questions per topic, so you can answer questions relating to each topic at a time. 

Optional downvotes in Q&A  

  • Within the Q&A function, the ability to like or ‘upvote’ responses is useful to see agreement within your audience on what questions to answer or what views attendees are agreeing with, 
  • It is now possible to ‘switch on’ the option to ‘downvote’ responses. 
  • Suggested use case: This could be used for agreeing or voting on which ‘topics’ should be explored, etc. Perhaps as an opportunity to ‘narrow down’ things. 

Pie Charts  

  • Pie charts are now available as well as bar charts for displaying results on multiple-choice polls. 
  • They are only available for poll questions that have 10 answer options or less. 
  • Suggested use case: Based on what you are asking, you can decide if the data would be best presented as a bar chart or a pie chart. 

Number Clouds 

  • As well as word clouds, it is now possible to host number clouds. 

Interactive text wall for open text questions 

  • The text wall is a new upgrade to how the ‘Open Text’ poll type responses are displayed.  
  • Responses are organised into text blocks to make it even easier to view participant responses. 
  • The blocks are also interactive, so you can quickly click on a response to spotlight it, like you can with the Q&A function. 

Live/dynamic wordclouds in PowerPoint 

  • Live word clouds are now available in the PowerPoint add-in. 
  • This matches the functionality to see the wordcloud update as responses come in like you see when using the Dashboard view. 

Additional information

For more information about Vevox, please see the dedicated Vevox webpage on the University’s Learning and Teaching website and also on Vevox’s own Blog.  

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Question Set Functionality in Inspera Digital Exams

What is a question set? 

A question set is a group of questions created in Inspera. In Inspera you can make individual questions, or you can set up a question set and create a group of questions in there. Individual questions can also be imported into your question set.

Creating your question set

Accessing Inspera 

All colleagues (and students) access Inspera via Canvas. Colleagues can either access a ‘test’ exam set up in their Canvas Sandbox area, or by going through an existing Inspera exam. 

Naming your question set 

You should give question sets meaningful names, e.g. ‘MOD1234 Semester 1 Exam 202425’. This makes it easier to identify the question set for the current academic year. Question sets are created in the Author tab of Inspera.

Naming your individual questions 

There are a variety of question types you can create in Inspera. You can see the full list of automatically marked question types and manually marked question types for more information. 

Remember to rename your individual questions too, so that you can easily find them in the question set. Each new question is automatically given the name ‘New Question’ so if you are creating question sets with multiple questions in, giving them a meaningful name will help you find specific ones later. 

If you need to update a question, a meaningful name will make it easier and quicker to locate. 

Adding labels to your questions

Adding labels to your individual questions can also help with locating and re-using your questions in other question sets. 

If you’d like to know about adding labels and using filters to find questions, please see our dedicated label filtering blog post. 

Content creation in question sets 

There are various features you can use within Inspera to enhance your question sets. These are optional features you can apply within your question set. 

For example, you can randomise the order in which the questions appear for students when they sit they exam. You can also use the random pulling feature to pull a sub-set of questions from a larger bank of questions, so that each student receives a different combination of questions. 

If you are using both manually marked essay questions, and a set of multiple choice questions, you are able to put these into what is known as sections. This means you could apply randomisation to the multiple-choice questions only. You could also use another feature on the essay questions known as candidate selected questions. 

There is a dedicated Content Creation Features website on our Learning and Teaching Inspera site which lists the full details on these different features. 

Question set deadlines 

Once the Module Leader has completed their Digital Exam Form to confirm the details about their Inspera Digital Exam, the next step is to start creating their question sets. 

Question sets are created by the module team and shared with the Digital Exams Team via email to Digital.Exams@newcastle.ac.uk.  

The question set deadlines for 2024/25 are detailed in the following table: 

Semester Question Set Deadline 
Semester 1 15th November 
Semester 2 7th March 
Semester 1 August Resit (Semester 3) 17th April 
Semester 2 August Resit (Semester 3) 8th July 
A table with the question set deadlines for each semester.

Training webinars 

The Digital Exams Team deliver a training webinar ‘Creating and managing exam questions in Inspera’ which colleagues can sign up to via the Elements training system. The training session covers an on-screen demos of setting up and adding questions to your question set. 

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Digital Assessment Upcoming Training Webinars

The Digital Assessment Team in LTDS have various training webinars covering our Digital Assessment tools starting in the next few weeks.

You can check out the full list of sessions, dates/times and the links to book in our list of sessions.

Inspera Digital Exams

Inspera for Professional Service colleagues

6 November 2024, 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM

Creating and managing exam questions in Inspera

2 October 2024, 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM

7 November 2024, 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM

Marking an Inspera exam with auto marked questions

16 December 2024, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

22 January 2025, 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM

Marking and moderating an Inspera exam with manually marked questions

17 December 2024, 11:00 AM – 12:00 PM

23 January 2025, 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM

Digital Assignments: Canvas and Turnitin

Creating and Managing Digital Assignments

2 October 2024, 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM

Online Marking & Feedback (Canvas)

4 December 2024, 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM

Online marking and feedback (Turnitin)

11 December 2024, 9:00 AM – 10:00 AM

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Label Filtering Improvement for Questions in Inspera

Improvements to filtering

Users can add labels to individual questions to help with general organising and for locating questions with specific content. 

Inspera have created the option to filter on labels that have been added to questions. Until now, if filtering on more than one label, the result has been to show all content with any of these labels. We know there is a need to search for all content that has all the selected labels. It is now possible to be able to filter on more than one label simultaneously. 

Using labels in practice… 

You can add labels to questions in your question set. For example, you may wish to label your questions with the topic (e.g. Topic X, Y OR Z) but you may also want to add another filter, such as the year the question is from. When searching the question bank of all your questions in Inspera, it is now be possible to filter so that you can find questions that are say from ‘2023/24’ and from ‘topic X’, rather than all questions coming up with either of those filters.

How to filter using labels

  1. Go to Author, and then select Questions 
  1. You will then select ‘filter’. 
  1. Select the ‘labels’ drop down and search for the labels you wish to find via the search box. You can then select these via the tickboxes. 
  1. Use the ‘any’ button if you would like to find any questions using any of the label(s) selected, or use the ‘all’ button if you wish to find questions that have all of the labels you have selected. This will exclude questions that only have one of the selected filters. 

If you have any questions, feel free to contact the Digital Exams Team via Digital.Exams@newcastle.ac.uk.

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Inspera: June 2024 – New Features and Resources  

New Feature: Grading of Candidate Selected Questions (CSQs) 

If you are marking an Inspera exam where students have been given an option to answer certain questions from a range of question options (i.e. students answer one out of three possible questions), this is known as Candidate Selected Questions (CSQs). When in use, the grading per student function (where markers would move to the next student awaiting grading using the downward direction arrow), meant that markers were shown the next student in the list, even if they had answered an alternate option.  

Now, markers who move to the next student using the direction arrow next to the student information (as shown below), will find clicking the down arrow will take them to the next student who answered the same question option. This means that marking of a particular question can be achieved. 

More information about the candidate selected questions feature can be found on the Inspera Help Centre.   

New Feature: Deleting Multiple Questions 

It’s now possible to select more than one question and delete in bulk. Previously, the deletion was only possible per question. Deletions should only occur if you no longer wish to use the question, for example, if you found errors or will no longer use the question in future.  

Deleting questions can be done via the Author Tab.  

To delete multiple, select the tick boxes on the left hand side of the questions you wish to delete. 

Multiple questions can be deleted simultaneously by using ‘move to trash’ – a pop up which will appear on the bottom panel. 

New Resources

The Digital Exams Team have created some new resources for colleagues. We have a brand-new website dedicated to the use of Grading Committees in Inspera. This website provides users information about what these committees are, how to use them and Frequently Asked Questions area.  

We have also recently released information on our colleague facing Inspera webpages relating to Inspera Feedback Release, as well as an Inspera for Professional Services Colleagues area.  

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Inspera Marking: Hints and Tips

As we enter the assessment marking period, the Digital Exams Team want to share some marking ‘hints and tips’ for Inspera Digital Exams. Check out some of our hints and tips listed below. 

Hints and Tips

  1. To attach yourself to an exam as a grader, make sure you click the link from the Inspera assignment point in Canvas. This takes you into the ‘Deliver’ area of the exam and you can click the ‘Open in Grade’ button to enter the ‘Grade area’. 
  1. If you need to search for a specific student, within the ‘Overview’ section of the Grader area, you can search for a student number to locate their submission. In the screenshot below, ‘stutestX’ is a placeholder for a student ID. In your exams you will see student numbers listed instead. 
  1. If you are in the Grade area and need to go back to the Deliver area (for example, to set the feedback settings), there is a shortcut available. Click the ‘Options’ button at the top of the screen and navigate to ‘Shortcuts’. Select ‘Deliver’ and click ‘Open test in Deliver’, 
  1. It is possible to download raw marks from Inspera as an Excel file. Click the ‘Options’ button at the top of the screen and navigate to ‘Downloads’. Select ‘Marks as Excel file’, 
  1. As standard the Digital Exams team will set up the Canvas assignment associated with your Inspera exam as 100 points. This means (once released) students will view their Canvas Gradebook mark as a proportion. If you’d like students to see raw marks, please edit the Canvas assignment points area to match that of your total Inspera marks.  
  1. For manually marked questions, Graders can add Annotations to student submissions. Within student submitted text, click the left mouse button and move the mouse across the text you want to annotate. Click Annotate:  
  1. Within the Grade ‘marking’ area there is a search icon for students now for all graders. When marking, use the bottom panel to navigate to specific students using their ID. For example: 

Further Support

Webinars

The Digital Exams Team run two dedicated marking webinars which colleagues can book onto: 

These training webinars cover a range of marking workflows, including how to amend auto-marked questions and adding annotations to manually marked questions such as essays. 

Videos

There are a range of marking videos available on the Inspera L&T website which provide on-screen demonstrations of grading tasks. 

Feedback Release

If you would like to release feedback to your students on your auto or manually marked Inspera questions, check out our dedicated webpage on Inspera Feedback Release for further information.

Further questions?

If you have any questions about marking an Inspera exam, please contact the Digital Exams Team via Digital.Exams@newcastle.ac.uk.  

If you have any hints or tips that you think we could add to the above list, please do share them with the Digital Exams Team.