Author: Kimberly

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Vevox Updates May 2026

Within this blog post, the Vevox @ Newcastle Team share details around the success of our Vevox adoption since its launch and details of a new User Interface coming in June 2026. 

Vevox's logo

Vevox Adoption 

Vevox has been our Audience Interaction System (AIS) at Newcastle University for coming up 3 years in August 2026. The Vevox @ Newcastle Team spent some time looking at our usage statistics with our Customer Success Manager and are delighted with its adoption during this time.  

Newcastle University is performing significantly above both the overall sector average and the Large University benchmark across the measured adoption period, consistently outperforming expected adoption levels. This strong early growth demonstrates a highly successful institutional rollout, with Vevox gaining traction quickly across academic staff and becoming embedded into teaching and learning practices faster than is normally seen. 

In the past year we have seen a 20% increase in the number of new Vevox adopters. Vevox users at Newcastle have also indicated a Net Promoter Score of 8 out 10 regarding satisfaction of Vevox usage.  

New User Interface 

There is an update planned for the Vevox User Interface (UI). Within the poll creation area, you will notice a different use of space. You can still see a list of all the content in your session, but there is now more emphasis on previewing what that content looks like. This makes it easier to manage your presentation and stay focused on what your audience will see. 

This update will be rolling out to your dashboard on Sunday 7th June from 6am UTC. For more information, please see the Vevox release information about this. 

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Global Accessibility Awareness Day 2026

Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) takes place on the 3rd Thursday of May each year. Individuals are encouraged to take an hour to experience first-hand the impact of digital accessibility (or lack thereof). This year GAAD takes place today on Thursday 21st May 2026.

Within this blog post, you can find out about asynchronous and synchronous content available to you to help you understand how to ensure your practice is accessible.

This blog content is relevant to colleagues in all roles across our University.

How can I increase my awareness and understanding of digital accessibility?

Asychronous resources

There are plenty of resources you can use to get started and learn about how you can make further considerations around accessibility and encourage others to do the same.

You can check out the following resources available at Newcastle: 

Accessibility in Practice Webinar

As well as engaging with the online asynchronous recordings, you can also sign up to attend our Accessibility in Practice online webinar to learn more about how you can ensure your digital content is accessible in practice. The next session is being delivered on Wednesday 1st July, 15:00-16:30. If you can’t make this session, please select the ‘declare interest‘ button so that you can be notified when a further session is added.

Additional resources

The University’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Team also deliver a Disability and Accessibility session aims to provide colleagues with baseline knowledge and skills to effectively support disabled students and colleagues at Newcastle University.

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Vevox: April New Features Release

Vevox have made a series updates to their features in their April product update.

Find out more about the new features available and improvements to existing features, including:

  • New question type: Matching
  • Introduction of ‘Quick Polls’
  • Customisation of Countdown Timer Sounds
  • Timer Display
  • Improvements to the AI Quiz Generator
  • PowerPoint Slides Embed in Present View
Continue reading “Vevox: April New Features Release”
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Inspera Digital Exams – New Digital Drawing Tool Available

Introduction

Inspera have developed a new digital drawing tool which has increased functionality beyond the existing drawing tool. In terms of what is new, the new tool allows you to enable the drawing tool at a question level, rather than at a test level. Colleagues can choose what questions they wish to enable the drawing tool on for their students to use in their Inspera digital exam.

The new Digital Drawing Tool is now available to use on Inspera as of Friday 27th February 2026.

Within this blog post you can find out how you can enable the new drawing tool on your Inspera exam questions in your question sets and the functionality available within the tool.

Continue reading “Inspera Digital Exams – New Digital Drawing Tool Available”
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Inspera Digital Exams: Allow Listed Resources Best Practice

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.

Continue reading “Inspera Digital Exams: Allow Listed Resources Best Practice”
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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”
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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 “
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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’.

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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”