Category: Digital Technologies

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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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NULA Update V1.19

With the launch of the Newcastle University Learning Analytics (NULA) system we will be posting regular blog updates to inform our users of the latest developments within the system.

Finding students

We have updated how the lists of students are displayed; you can now find your personal tutees when selecting students you are “directly” linked to. To find any other students you can use the “by modules” or “by courses” options. A full guide on how to find students is available on the learning and teaching website here.

Tagging

The ability to tag a stuent using the star icon next to the students name is now available.

You can then filter a list of students to only show tagged/untagged/all students as shown below.

Student overview

When you view a student’s profile the first item you will be presented with is the student overview, which shows a quick snapshot of the students most recent engagement and lists some basic information such as the students contact details and personal tutor.

For further information on NULA and additional resources, visit Learning Analytics (NULA) | Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle | Newcastle University Or contact the team at learning.analytics@newcastle.ac.uk

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Introducing student to Newcastle University Learning Analytics (NULA)

To introduce NULA to students Jasmine Banks, Education Officer at the Students’ Union, found out more about the system in conversation with Dr Lindsey Ferrie, Academic Lead.

They discuss:
How NULA will benefit you
What you can expect
What you need to do

Watch our Introducing NULA video featuring Jasmine and Lindsey and read Jasmine’s article on the Student Noticeboard to find out how students are being updated.

Why this is important for colleagues

Students are being reassured that NULA is there to help support their learning, not to monitor or judge them. Keeping this in mind can help you talk to students about their data in a way that feels open, positive, and focused on their success.

What’s next?

Students have been encouraged to watch Jasmine Banks’ conversation with Dr. Lindsey Ferrie to learn more about NULA, and we recommend you do the same. This will give you a deeper insight into the messages they’re receiving, enabling you to mirror this approach in your tutoring practice.

For further information on NULA and additional resources, visit Learning Analytics (NULA) | Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle | Newcastle University Or contact the team at learning.analytics@newcastle.ac.uk

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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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Canvas October 2024 Updates

Over October there have been a series of updates to various features within Canvas including New Quizzes, Assignments and Discussions.

In this blog post, we will cover what is new in Canvas for October 2024.

How to Navigate this Update

This update is broken down into pages dedicated to updates for each of the Canvas Features.

By selecting the page numbers below, you will be taken to the update for each Canvas feature.

Included in this update is:

New Quizzes Updates (Page 2)

  • Add Time to Existing Quiz Sessions
  • Manage Student Result View
  • Submitted Date Displays in Moderate Log
  • Attempt Log Stopped Viewing the Canvas Quiz Page

Assignment Updates (Page 3)

  • Assign to Interface Change – “Assign To” Location Change

Discussions Updates (Page 4)

  • Edit button added to Discussions Index Page
Pages: 1 2 3 4
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Inbox Updates 

Over the summer there have been a series of updates to the Inbox within Canvas.

In this blog post, we will highlight some of the key changes to the Inbox and how you can utilise these changes in your courses.

Video Overview

Add Auto Response

All users can now create an Auto Response message in the Canvas Inbox. This works similar to an email Out of Office message however this only within the internal messaging system in Canvas.

An example of this can be found below:

To do this:

  1. In the top left corner of the Inbox, select the cog icon
  2. From the dropdown menu select “Response On”
  3. Add the Start and End Date
  4. Add a Subject
  5. Add a Message
  6. Select “Save”

Add Signature to Messages

All users can now create a personalised signature on their Inbox messages in Canvas. This works similar to a signature in Emails and is assigned to internal messages in Canvas.

An example of this can be seen here:

As you can see above, my contact details have automatically been added to my message.

To do this in your own inbox:

  1. In the top left corner of the Inbox screen, select the cog icon
  2. Select the “Signature On” button
  3. Add your personalised signature in the box provided
  4. Select the “Save” button
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Announcement Updates

Over the summer there have been a series of updates to the Announcements feature within Canvas.

In this blog post, we will highlight some of the key changes to Announcements and how you can utilise these changes in your courses.

Video Overview

Mark All As Read Button

In Announcements, a Mark all as read button is available.

This update allows users to quickly and efficiently mark all announcements as read. Previously, each message would need to be manually marked then a bulk action applied. With this update, all messages can be marked as read with a single button click.

Notification for Changed Content

In Announcements, instructors can notify students when an announcement has been updated.

This feature prevents missed information, allowing users to respond promptly and appropriately to the new information.

Previously there was no way to alert recipients that there had been a change to an announcement other than posting the message again or sending another message informing students of the change.

Availability Dates

In Announcements, the delayed posting field is changed, in addition to the Available from field, instructors can add Until dates.

The update enables instructors to specify a date when the announcement will no longer be visible to students.

Announcements Timestamp

In Announcements, the Created date is hidden from students, and the Last edited date is only shown if the announcement was edited after being published. Additionally, the Posted date now reflects when the announcement became available.

This update helps prevent any confusion between the Posted and Last edited dates for students.

In the above screenshot, we can see in the teacher view, we can see the creation and the posted date (point 1).

In the student view below, we can see that we only have the posted date (point 2).

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SpeedGrader Updates

Over the summer there have been a series of updates to the SpeedGrader tool within Canvas to improve the ability to provide feedback.

In this blog post, we will highlight some of the key changes to the SpeedGrader and how you can utilise these changes in your courses.

Submission Comment Drafts

In SpeedGrader, after adding a submission comment, if this has not been saved, a Draft pill displays indicating that this comment has not been saved and a warning message is presented alerting the teacher that the comment has not been saved.

Previously there was no clear indication that a comment had been submitted and this would lead to students not seeing comments/feedback in their assignments.

With this update, it is clear for a teacher to see the status of a submission comment.

You can see in the example below that the submission comment has not been submitted and we have a draft pill alongside our comment:

When we press submit on this comment, the draft pill disappears which means the comment is visible to the student:

Rich Content Editor (RCE) In Submission Comments

In SpeedGrader, some Rich Content Editor (RCE) features are available when using submission comments. The available RCE features include:

  • Heading
  • Bold
  • Italic
  • Underline
  • Font colour
  • Insert Hyperlink
  • Bullets

This allows teachers to style feedback and provide further resources via linking. In the example below, you can see a link is provided to further resources to assist the student:

This functionality is available at the top of the submission comments box as demonstrated below:

Equation Editor in Submission Comments

In SpeedGrader, an Equation Editor function has been added to the Rich Content Editor. This feature enables instructors to incorporate math equations into their submission comments.

In the below example, you can see the new equation editor function within the submission comments in SpeedGrader:

Randomise Students in Submission List

In SpeedGrader Settings, instructors now have the option to randomise the order of students within each submission status. This update helps mitigate grading fatigue and biases by ensuring a random sorting of students. Additionally, it enhances grading efficiency by maintaining this random order within submission statuses.

Below are step by step instructions on how to do this:

  1. In the top left corner of the SpeedGrader, select the cog icon
  2. From the dropdown menu select “Options”
  3. Within SpeedGrader options, select “randomise students within a submission status”
  4. Select the “Save settings” button

Please note that when the randomised students, the preference is saved as the default in the browser for the course. When logging in on another device, instructors must select the sort by options again.

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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.