New functionality for Inspera digital exams: question choice and marking rubrics

Inspera assessment is the University’s system for centrally supported digital exams. Inspera can be used for automatically marked exam questions, for manually marked question types including essays, or for exams with a combination of both.

New functionality has recently been launched that enables colleagues to do more with digital written exams.

Question choice for students

Candidate selected questions is used to give students taking your exam a choice of which questions to answer from a list.

For example in an exam where students need to answer 2 essay questions from a list of 6 questions, you can set this up so that a student can choose a maximum of 2 questions to answer.

How does it work for a student?

If candidate selected questions is used in an Inspera exam the student sees information above each question that shows how many questions to select in total, and how many they have already selected. To choose a question to answer they change the ‘Answering this question?’ drop down box to yes.

Screenshot showing student view of Inspera, with the option to choose whether to answer a question. Below the question title is some text which reads 'Answering this question? 0 of 2 questions selected.' There is a drop down box at the right of the text with the options 'Yes', 'No', 'Undecided' available to select.
Screenshot showing student view of Inspera, with the option to choose whether to answer a question.

If a student starts answering a question without changing the ‘Answering this question?’ drop down box, Inspera automatically changes it to ‘Yes’.

When they have selected the maximum number of questions, the student cannot start answering any more questions. However, if they change their mind about which question(s) they want to answer, they can simply change the ‘Answering this question?’ drop down to no, and select a different question instead.

How does it work for a marker?

A marker only sees answers to the questions that a student has chosen to answer.

As students can only submit answers for the maximum number of questions they are allowed to choose, this means you can say goodbye to the dilemma of trying to work out which questions to mark when a student has misread the instructions and answered too many questions!

How can I use it in my exam?

The Candidate selected questions function is available when you are authoring a question set for an Inspera digital exam. Find out more in the Inspera guide for Candidate selected questions.

Rubrics for marking

You can now create a rubric to use for marking any manually marked question type in Inspera. Rubrics allow you to build the assessment criteria for an exam question into Inspera, and use them in your marking.

Choose whether you want to use a quantitative rubric to calculate the mark for a question, or a qualitative rubric as an evaluation and feedback tool, and then manually assign the mark.

How to introduce a rubric for your exam

  1. When you are creating the exam question in Inspera, set up the rubric you want to use for marking that question. The Inspera guide to rubrics for question authors explains how to create a rubric and add it to your exam question.
  2. After the exam has taken place, use the rubric to mark the students’ answers.
  3. If you’ve chosen to use one of the quantitative rubric types, as you complete it the student’s mark for the question will automatically be calculated. If you’ve chosen a qualitative rubric, once you’ve completed the rubric use it to evaluate the student’s answer and help you decide on their mark for the question.
  4. You can choose to add feedback to the candidate in the box below the level of performance you’ve selected for each criterion (you can see an example of this in the image below).
Screenshot of the Grader view of a sample points-range rubric in Inspera.
Screenshot of the Grader view of a sample points-range rubric in Inspera

Want to learn more about using Inspera for digital exams?

Come along to a webinar to learn about creating exam questions or marking in Inspera.

Enroll onto the Inspera Guidance course in Canvas to learn about Inspera functionality at your own pace.

Find out about the process to prepare an Inspera digital exam, and how the Digital Assessment Service can help on the Inspera webpage.

Contact digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk if you have questions or would like to discuss how you could use Inspera for a digital exam on your module.

Three Rivers Conference 2023: Innovations in Learning Tuesday 27 June 2023

Logo for the Three Rivers Conference, Innovations in Learning

** Deadline Extended to 4 March to Join a Working Group **

This online partnership event is an excellent opportunity for the region’s 5 universities (Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland, Teesside) to come together and share ideas. This year’s event will focus on Innovations in Learning.  The keynote speaker for the conference is Prof Chris Headleand, NTF.

The conference/call for abstracts is open to colleagues and students from the 5 universities.

Get involved


1. Submit an abstract. The call for abstracts is now open, closing on 2 May 2023.
 
2. If you have a special interest in Student Retention or Doctoral Training join a working group by 4 March. These cross-university working groups will meet online in the lead up to the conference and present and host sessions on the day.  

3. Save the date, and register to attend.

Find out More

For more information visit the Three Rivers website.

Learning and Teaching Conference: Review

Education for All: Learning Together

The Newcastle University Learning and Teaching Conference took place on March 31. This year’s theme was all about learning together, sharing effective practice, and exploring an education for all.

The event was opened by Professor Tom Ward, PVC Education, and was followed by a keynote presentation from Professor Paul Ashwin, Professor of Higher Education and Head of Department for Educational Research at Lancaster University.

As a result of the fantastic response to our call for submissions we ran several parallel sessions throughout the day, including over 40 workshops, lightning talks and presentations. Video recordings of the event presentations are now available to view via ReCap.

Conference poster and video winners
A massive congratulations to Ashley Reynolds and Eleanor Gordon who won our video competition with their demonstration of how animations can be used to enhance teaching and learning, and to Anna Reid and Vicky Gilbert who won our poster competition with Learning dogs; a winning ‘pawtnership’.

Thanks also to everyone who entered and voted for our winners. All posters are still available to view and video submissions are available in a ReCap playlist.

Conference feedback needed
If you attended the conference, or if you registered but were unable to attend, we would greatly appreciate your thoughts and feedback. This will help us improve our Learning and Teaching Conferences in the future.

EAMS: 13 – 24 June, 2022

The School of Mathematics, Statistics & Physics will host the fifth international conference on E-Assessment in Mathematical Sciences (EAMS). The conference aims to bring together researchers and practitioners with an interest in e-assessment for mathematics and the sciences. It will consist of a mix of presentations of new techniques and pedagogic research, as well as workshops where you can get hands-on with leading e-assessment software including our own Numbas.

EAMS 2022 is an entirely online conference with a mix of live sessions and web-based activities, and plenty of opportunity for discussion and collaboration. Before the conference starts there will be a programme of optional training workshops available for participants to get hands-on with state-of-the-art maths e-assessment software.

Live talks will take place over Zoom at 9am and 4pm BST (UTC +1) each weekday, with recordings available later. The online format and longer timescale allow participants to engage more deeply with the material presented.

The call for talk and workshop proposals is currently open. If you have some research or an innovative technique related to mathematical e-assessment that you would like to present, then please submit an abstract at eams.ncl.ac.uk/call-for-speakers by 13th May. We’re actively seeking to increase the diversity of our attendees and speakers, and particularly encourage speakers from groups under-represented in previous editions of EAMS to submit proposals.

To attend the conference please register for free at eams.ncl.ac.uk/register.

Learning Communities Toolkit

Students around a table

Working alongside student interns, Newcastle University HaSS colleagues have developed a new Learning Communities toolkit – a range of accessible and reusable ice-breaker and community-building resources. Available via Canvas Commons, this toolkit is ideal for educators looking for ways to encourage and facilitate effective learning communities within their module groups.

Why is a learning community needed?
Developing a learning community amongst a group of students can be hugely beneficial. Not only does it provide students with the opportunity to come together in a safe place to share opinions and ask questions, but it also allows them to feel a sense of belonging and connection with other students (this is particularly useful where minority groups are concerned). Learning communities also provide academic benefits: encouraging attendance at lectures, active engagement, and group collaboration. This toolkit provides a range of ideas to get you started and support you along the way in the development of your learning community.

How to use this toolkit
We’ve published our Learning Communities toolkit on Canvas Commons to make it easy to find, download and reuse in your own courses. To help you find activities quickly, we have organised them into three separate categories: Icebreakers, Building Community Activities, and Maintaining Community Activities.

You can preview and download the toolkit here:

https://lor.instructure.com/resources/bb4c049eeff34e15b2091c6fd4755651?shared

National Teaching Fellowship Scheme (NTFS) and Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) : University application process

Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence and National Teaching Fellowship logos

The internal call for 2022 NTF and CATE nominations has now ended (deadline for nominations was Wednesday 10 November 2021 at 12.00 noon).

Application to be an institutional NTF nominee

Nominations will be considered at a panel meeting in November, chaired by the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education and consisting of current Newcastle NTFs and members of the Learning and Teaching Development Service. All higher education providers are eligible to enter three nominations to NTF. Following this panel meeting the 3 successful nominees will work with NTF mentors to develop their full claim submitted to Advance HE in March 2022.

Application to be an institutional CATE nominee

Nominations will be considered at a panel meeting in November, chaired by the Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education and consisting of current Newcastle NTF/CATE winners and members of the Learning and Teaching Development Service. All higher education providers are eligible to enter one team that can clearly demonstrate having an impact on teaching and learning through collaboration. Following this panel meeting the successful team will work with CATE mentors to develop their full claim submitted to Advance HE in March 2022.

For further information get in touch with LTDS@ncl.ac.uk

QAA invites expressions of interest for Chairs and Deputy Chairs for Subject Benchmark Statement Reviews

QAA is inviting expressions of interest from the academic and subject community to act as Chairs and Deputy Chairs for the review of 14 Subject Benchmark Statements. QAA leads the development of Subject Benchmark Statements and reviews them on a cyclical basis to ensure they are useful as possible for discipline communities and can fulfill a range of purposes across the sector, including course design and providing support for securing academic standards.

Members of the academic and subject communities are encouraged to apply. More information on how to submit an expression of interest is available on the QAA call for expressions of interest web page. The deadline to submit an expression of interest is midday on Monday 4 October 2021.

For full details please visit the QAA website.

Outstanding Contribution to Feedback

Group of students

Dr Michael Waugh from the School or Arts and Cultures recently won Outstanding Contribution to Feedback at The Education Awards run by Newcastle University Students’ Union. Michael shares his approach below.

When I was contacted about producing a piece for the Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle University Blog, a result of my two recent TEAs for Outstanding Contribution to Feedback, I was quite apprehensive. Reading through previous posts and case studies on the topic, I found a lot of emphasis on strategy, curricular design, formalised processes – none of which I felt reflected my own practice. I wouldn’t say I do anything particularly innovative or have an especially unique approach to providing feedback, and I was surprised (not to mention incredibly honoured) to be awarded in such a category.

Instead, I have always operated in a more personable and individualised manner, a recurring theme in students’ nomination comments for my TEAs. I never feel like I’m doing anything out of the ordinary; I just try to take the time to get to know my students, even on big modules and programmes, making it easier to respond to the specific needs of each person I teach. Universities have a tendency to split the academic and pastoral aspects of student life too much, with students being allocated to personal tutors that they might never meet in a lecture or seminar room and learning from lecturers that refuse or neglect to discuss any issues that don’t pertain to their module and its assessments.

Continue reading “Outstanding Contribution to Feedback”

Podcast 006: Ideas in Academic Practice: An Audio Tour of the Newcastle University Branch Campus Sites

006: Ideas in Academic Practice: An Audio Tour of the Newcastle University Branch Campus Sites

Listen to episode 6 of the learning and teaching podcast.

You may (or may not) already know that Newcastle University has two branch campuses; one in Malaysia and one in Singapore. In this episode Sue Gill from the Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) and Dr Paul Hubbard (Associate Dean of Academic Affairs at New Med and currently based at our Malaysian Campus in Johor) look at what academic life is like in a branch campus, what the learning and teaching issues to consider are, and how Covid changed the branch campus experience.

This discussion point, taken from the meeting of the Academic Progress Board in 2021, looks at the two main branch campuses in South East Asia. In this wide ranging conversation Paul takes various aspects of the branch campus life, including

  • Location – what does it mean to be 10,837km away from Newcastle?
  • Culture – how do these campuses compare to our Newcastle campus?
  • Role – what does Paul do on and for the campus?
  • Connections – what are the links from the branch campuses and the broader University?
  • Experience – what does learning and teaching look like?
  • Pandemic – how Covid changed the branch campus experience?
  • Value – what is the importance of these campuses?

This is the second of a set of podcasts developed from the meetings of the Academic Progress Board of Studies and for more information on the work and support of the Academic Progress Team please contact: apt.lts@newcastle.ac.uk or visit https://www.ncl.ac.uk/ltds/professional/

New webinars: School and Programme Data and The Power of Feedback: Student Surveys

Students on campus

The Educational Governance Team have developed new webinars for 2021-22 for academic and professional services staff in Schools. 

School and Programme Data

The first session aims to help make more use of the range of available programme data to inform and identify areas of effective practice and where actions are needed to address issues. 

The sessions are split into two parts and are bookable via Elements at:

Part 1 will focus upon how to use the new Power BI dashboard which brings together programme and school data from recruitment and admissions through to progression and award.  The dashboard also provides links to the various internal and external student surveys results.   The session will show you how to drill down in the data to look at trends and at specific student groups.

Part 2 will allow participants to explore in more detail specific uses and interpretation of the data to help inform decisions at Board of Studies and for reflection in Annual Monitoring and Review reports.

The Power of Feedback: Student Surveys

The second session relates to the student voice and how to encourage students to engage with surveys.  An overview of all the range of survey activity that takes place over an academic year both nationally (National Student Survey, Postgraduate Taught/Research Experience Survey) and internally (stage evaluations, informal module check-ins) will be provided and an exploration how the survey results can be used to inform changes to the student experience. 

Space will be available in the session to discuss with colleagues’ ways in which surveys are promoted and methods used to improve student engagement across the institution.   

This session will run twice per semester and is bookable at:

If you have nay queries about any of the sessions please get in touch with LTDS@ncl.ac.uk