Category: Other

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Reading group in LTDS

A little while ago we started a small reading group for colleagues in the Learning and Teaching Development Service to share ideas and discuss current issues and publications related to learning and teaching in Higher Education.

We set ourselves a couple of parameters to encourage engagement, as we had tried a journal club previously to not a great deal of success.

This time we decided to limit ourselves:

  • to things that could be read or digested in around less than half an hour
  • to try too keep the readings short and digestible
  • to keep the discussion sessions to 30 minutes
  • to use small groups for discussion of themes, impressions etc

Over the past few groups we have:

Our next group will explore microcredentials by looking at the recent QAA quality compass paper – which way for micro credentials.  

This will be the first meeting of a slightly expanded group which includes colleagues from FMS TEL .

We have one person running the group for 6 months (Me!) and I look after collating suggestions which come in from anyone who wants to suggest something. I try to have a range of different types of materials and cover a range of learning and teaching related viewpoints as our group has people who work in policy, practice, pedagogy, quality assurance, data and governance, professional development and all the intersections thereof.

Last time we listened to a radio programme about closed captions, which really made me think about how we approach captioning in HE. Some great ideas resulted from the session and it certainly got us talking!

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Inspera Customer Story

In this post we will share a recent customer story that Inspera created alongside our Inspera Digital Exam Co-Leads, Maddie and Kimberly.

Customer Story

At the 2026 International e-Assessment Awards in London, Newcastle University was the winner of the Best University Digital Assessment Programme.

The recognition marked a major milestone in a journey that began in the 2021/22 academic year. What started as a rapid response to pandemic-era take-home testing has evolved into a fully invigilated, campus-wide digital exam operation that rivals traditional paper-based testing.

You can read the full customer story on the Inspera website.

Inspera and Newcastle University Logos
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Migrating Canvas Classic quiz to Canvas New quiz

Canvas has informed us that they will no longer develop or improve Classic Quizzes and recommend using New Quizzes instead. Although there is currently no confirmed date for the removal of Classic Quizzes, we also recommend making the transition to New Quizzes where possible, particularly for any new quizzes you create.

You can identify whether a quiz is Classic or New by looking at the rocket icon next to the quiz name:

· A solid rocket icon indicates a New Quiz.

· An outlined rocket icon indicates a Classic Quiz.

· A greyed-out icon indicates that the quiz is not published.

A screenshot of the three icons for New Quiz, Classic Quiz and Unpublished Quiz

To help you understand the differences between Classic and New Quizzes, please see the feature comparison table.

If, after reviewing the features, you feel your Classic Quiz is suitable for moving to New Quizzes, Canvas provides a straightforward migration option. Please see the guidance on how to migrate a Canvas quiz to New Quizzes.

If you have reviewed the New Quizzes features and do not feel that your quiz can currently be migrated, please get in touch via LTDS@newcastle.ac.uk to arrange a Teams call to discuss your requirements and the options available.

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Canvas Assignments: SpeedGrader improvements

Improvements have been released to Canvas assignments that use SpeedGrader and Rubrics. Visually it will look slightly different, but all previous functionalities will remain, with some additional features available.

Guidance for how to use these can be found on Canvas Assignment page of the Learning and Teaching website

Details of the improved functionalities are as follows:

SpeedGrader

The Document Viewer will load much faster, which is particularly beneficial to modules with large cohorts of students, where there is a long list of assignment submissions.

When navigating through the submissions via the drop-down menu, an eye icon will appear to indicate which submission you are currently looking at in the Doc Viewer.

The assignment submission status now appears in SpeedGrader, allowing you to flag a submission as Excused, Late, Extended etc.

When using Sections to mark, the process of selection the section has been improved. It is less fiddley to click on the right section, as the section menu remains visible until you click apply. It is also possible to look at multiple sections at the same time.

Detailed information can be found on How do I use SpeedGrader with Performance and Usability Upgrades.

Enhanced Rubrics

Canvas Rubrics have a few improvements that will help with the usability when creating rubrics and marking submissions.

It is now possible to alter how the rubric is viewed. There is the classic view you will be familiar with, alternatively you can choose to have the rubric displayed horizontally or vertically.

You can now import and export Rubrics, including exporting completed rubrics, that have been used to mark assignments.

Rubrics can be created and stored in draft status, and you can archive old rubrics when they are no longer required.

Further information can be found on the Canvas Enhanced Rubrics guidance.

Student Assignment Enhancements  

There are also improvements to the students view when submitting an assignment. As before, the submission page clearly displays the due date, the link to the Assignment Brief (which is added when the assignment is set up), the number of allowed attempts and the rubric is visible if one has been attached. A new feature is the Progress status bar, which will update when the student has submitted their assignment and then again when feedback has been released. When the student is looking at their Grades and Feedback, if a Rubric has been used, this will be displayed by default, clearly indicating the levels the student has attained against each criterion.

Up to date guidance on these improvements are available on the ASK website and more details can be found on What is Assignment Enhancements?

If you have any queries or need further guidance, please contact ltds@newcastle.ac.uk.  

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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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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.

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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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NULA features and improvements for 2025/26

As we begin the new academic year, NULA has introduced a range of new features and enhancements in the staff-facing system designed to make learning analytics more accessible, informative, and useful. These updates build on feedback from colleagues and aim to provide clearer insights into student engagement, easier navigation of the system, and more practical tools to support tutoring conversations.

Metric help pop-over

To make NULA’s metrics clearer and easier to interpret, a new metric help pop-over has been introduced. This feature provides quick, accessible explanations of each engagement metric—such as attendance, Canvas activity, submissions, and days since last activity—along with the data sources used to calculate them. By simply clicking on the hotspot icons in the student list or student overview pages, staff can see detailed guidance without leaving the page.

Student attendance grid view

The student attendance grid in the student overview has been upgraded to give staff more flexibility and clearer insights. Instead of a fixed 30-day snapshot, colleagues can now filter attendance by a date range, with a simplified table view, making it easier to spot patterns that matter in student conversations.

Tiers

The new Tiers feature makes it easier to filter and navigate student data by School, Faculty, or course. Depending on their role within the system, this means staff can quickly focus on the level of detail most relevant to them, whether looking across a whole Faculty or drilling down to a single course. Tiers also pave the way for more granular engagement metrics, giving a clearer picture of how students are engaging.

Student Engagement history

The student engagement history on a student overview page has been enhanced to give staff greater flexibility when reviewing patterns over time. You can now apply date range filters to focus on specific periods and choose to view individual data sets—including attendance, submissions, or Canvas engagement—separately. This makes it easier to spot trends, identify changes in behaviour, and have more informed conversations with students about their engagement.

These updates improve NULA’s usability and provide staff with clearer, more flexible insights into student engagement. Additional features and enhancements will be introduced throughout the year, continuing to expand the system’s capabilities and support for staff and students.