The Learning Enhancement and Technology Team in the Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) are hosting a Digital Education Technologies Showcase Day on Monday 1st September 2025 between 12 and 3pm in the Boilerhouse.
This is a fantastic opportunity to meet the teams and people behind our Digital Education Technologies here at Newcastle. This will include: Canvas, ReCap, Vevox, Inspera (Digital Exams), Assignments (Canvas, Turnitin and New Canvas Quiz), Buddycheck, NULA, NU Reflect, AI, H5P, as well as the Numbas Team and Digital Adoption (M365 and Adobe).
This event is aimed at both academic and professional services colleagues already using these systems who want to take that step further, as well as new colleagues who want to learn about the digital technologies available.
The event will take place as a drop in, so you don’t need to sign up. If you would like to make any suggestions around what you would like to see at the event, please complete our Microsoft Form.
More information will be shared about this event over the summer.
Inspera have been working on the release of a psychometric dashboard for data on Inspera exams. The dashboard is built using AWS QuickSight and provides insights into assessments conducted on the Inspera platform. The QuickSight Dashboard is part of Inspera’s phase 1 in their strategy for introducing Test-Level Analysis. You can find out more about the Psychometric Dashboard on Inspera’s website.
What can Inspera users access at the moment?
Phase 1 allows the Digital Exams Team to have access to an administrative dashboard, but by Phase 3 Inspera hopes to have this integrated into the Inspera platform, where colleagues currently create questions and grade exams. There is not currently an estimated date for this to be available, but we will be keeping up to date with all developments.
If colleagues are interested in accessing data, the Digital Exams Team can provide a PDF download from Inspera exam’s scheduled from 1st December 2024 onwards that have been graded and marks confirmed. Note: there are some limitations in how much can currently be shared in the PDF but a fuller view is expected later in 2025.
What data is available?
Information around the sort of data available is noted within this section and has been extracted from the Psychometric Dashboard page on Inspera’s website. Within this blog post, you can find out about all the different type of data available. Some screenshots are included but check out the Psychometric Dashboard page on Inspera’s website for further graphics.
Vevox have made some updates to their features in their March product update. Find out more about the new features available and improvements to existing features, including:
Loiana Leal, Lecturer in Modern Languages, in the School of Modern Languages has recently developed a case study around their use of Inspera for digital assessment via digital examinations in a language module for formative and summative assessments.
Head over to the Case Study database to read all about Loiana’s work of using Inspera in their POR2010 – Level B Portuguese HE Intermediate module.
As we approach the Semester 2 (24/25) question set deadline on 7th March 2025, the Digital Exams Team are sharing another post about question set functionality in Inspera.
You may also wish to check out our first blog post from Semester 1: Question Set Functionality in Inspera Digital Exams – Part 1. This first post covers a lot of the functionality around making your questions and enabling functions such as randomisation, random pulling and candidate selected questions. In this new post, we will cover some of the other functionalities available. These include:
How to share question sets with colleagues,
Accessing and printing PDF copies of the question set,
Duplicating your question set.
Sharing question sets with colleagues
There are a couple of ways you can share your question set content with other colleagues or your external examiners.
For other colleagues on your module team, you may find it useful to add them as a ‘contributor’ to your question set. This will allow them to view questions and preview them in Inspera. This is also particularly useful if you are creating the content together with another colleague.
How to add contributors to your question set:
Open Inspera (this can be done by clicking on your previous exam within Canvas assignment area)
Click on the Author tab
In the search bar type the question set name/module name
Find the question set you wish to print and click on the name to open this
Select the person icon icon (on the left hand side of the icons in the top right corner)
Search the person’s name and select them as a user from the drop down menu that appears
If you would like them to receive an email about this, please keep the ‘notify via e-mail’ box ticket
Click ‘Share’.
Please note: if you cannot find a user when searching for their name, it is likely that they have not accessed Inspera via Canvas yet, and therefore do not have an Inspera account. They would need to access Inspera via Canvas to activate this, and for their name to show in the list. There is guidance available on the self enrol Inspera guidance course on Canvas.
For external examiners, it is possible for you to add them as a contributor as well and ask them to access Inspera via Canvas. You may also wish to consider the option of downloading a PDF copy of the question set content from Inspera in order to share the question set content with them.
Accessing and printing question sets as PDFs
Within your question set in Inspera, it is possible to access and print your question set as a PDF. This could be to share a copy with External Examiners, or to create a paper copy if you are hosting a mock exam where you want a back up paper copy available just incase.
How to print your question set:
Open Inspera (this can be done by clicking on your previous exam within Canvas assignment area)
Click on the Author tab
In the search bar type the question set name/module name
Find the question set you wish to print and click on the name to open this
Select the print icon in the top right corner
On the right hand side click ‘download question set’
The download may take a minute or two to prepare, once ready select download now
The download will be in your downloads folder
Should you wish to change what is available on your PDF, you can use edit Settings. Once within the Print screen, drop down the settings bar.
Settings allow you to:
remove maximum marks
remove ‘documents’ or instruction pages
remove certain questions from the PDF (i.e. hide auto marked questions)
How to edit the PDF of your question set
You can edit your PDF using ABBY Finereader. You can familiarise yourself with the FineReader video guides, and detailed written user guides which have been shared by NUIT.
How to duplicate your question set
Once you have created a question set, you can re-use it. The Digital Exams Team recommend duplicating your Question Set and then editing, this means there’s a clear audit trail of the Question Set used in prior years.
How to duplicate your question set:
Open Inspera (this can be done by clicking on your previous exam within Canvas assignment area)
Click on the Author tab
In the search bar, type the Question Set name/module name (in this example a ‘demo’ Question Set is being searched for)
Find the question set you wish to duplicate and click into the tick box (on the left hand side)
An options bar appears along the bottom, click ‘duplicate’
A message will appear about the duplication, click ‘continue’
Click into this new ‘copy of’ question set
You can re-label the name of the question in the top left corner using the pencil icon.
You can now make any changes to the Question set for an upcoming exam.
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 demo of setting up and adding questions to your question set.
NULA provides valuable insights into student engagement by consolidating a range of data sources. As colleagues, we know that interpreting this information effectively can make a real difference in supporting student success. To help you make the most of this powerful tool, we’d like to announce the launch of a new webpage dedicated to helping colleagues better understand and use the data provided by NULA.
What’s New?
This new resource has been designed to support colleagues by providing:
Examples of NULA data: using dummy data, there are practical examples of student engagement to explore and draw inferences from
Tips for interpreting trends: videos are provided to support interpreting the data, highlighting key trends and data points, in each practical example
Visualising key differences in the student profile view
As a reminder, the student profile in NULA offers two distinct views that provide complementary insights into engagement:
2 weeks display under Modules: the metrics within the Modules section give a focused, short-term view of a student’s engagement over the last two weeks, allowing you to spot recent trends and patterns.
Historic view under Engagement history: this offers a longer-term perspective, showing patterns and trends over time to identify consistent behaviours or shifts in engagement.
Additional Support
For further guidance, additional support is also available through the Traffic Lights and Metrics pages. These resources offer deeper insights into interpreting NULA data and understanding key indicators.
It is now possible to upload your students to grading committees via the csv upload option. This blog post works through the steps required to set up grading committees via CSV upload.
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.
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.
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.
