Category: Buddycheck

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Meet the Digital Exams Team

As the new 2023-24 academic year begins, we’d like to introduce the Digital Exams Team here in LTDS, who lead on the University’s Digital Exams via Inspera. A team of Learning Enhancement and Technology Advisers work together to facilitate digital exams through Inspera Assessment. Inspera Assessment is the University’s Digital Exam system used for present-in-person secure online assessments.

Meet the Team

First up we’ve got Maddie Kinnair who is one of our two Inspera Co-Leads. Maddie joined the team in September 2022 and has worked within the area of Learning and Teaching for 6 years. Maddie first joined HE in 2014 and has previously worked in the School of Computing, HaSS Faculty and within Central Services.

Maddie is also the lead for our peer assessment and feedback tool Buddycheck.

Next up, we’ve got Kimberly May-O’Brien, our second Inspera Co-Lead. Kimberly joined the team in July 2023, having worked at the University since 2019. Kimberly previously worked in the School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics, as well as the central Equality, Diversity and Inclusion team.

Finally, we have Susan Barfield who started working at the University 13 years ago, initially in NUIT as part of the ReCap team, she then joined LTDS in 2019 as lead on online marking and feedback using Canvas and Turnitin, whilst also supporting digital exams.

More Information

You can find out more about Inspera and the training webinars and videos available to colleagues via the LTDS website.

If you have any queries around Digital Exams, you can contact the Digital Exams Team via Digital.Exams@newcastle.ac.uk.

Numbas is the other centrally supported Digital Exam platform. You can contact the Numbas team via Numbas@ncl.ac.uk.

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Buddycheck Updates

There has been a system update to Buddycheck which alongside some improvements to the student view has opened up some new functionality when creating evaluations. The major changes that users will notice are described below. User guidance available on the Digital Learning webpages has been updated to reflect these changes.

Creating an evaluation and reusing questions

When creating a new evaluation you will now be asked to add a title before moving to the full evaluation set up page. There is now the option to use a previous evaluation as a template. To use existing questions in a new evaluation you now need to select an old evaluation as a template.

Buddycheck create evaluation screen with title entry and template selection hihglighted

Student introduction

There is now an option to add in an introduction to the evaluation for students. This will appear to students before they begin an evaluation alongside some new additional guidance on the question types included in the Buddycheck evaluation.

Student introduction test entry

Question ordering

Question order can now be updated by using drag and drop. You can preview, edit or remove questions from an evaluation using the appropriate icon.

question ordering alongside edit, preview and delete icons

Adjustment factor cap

It is now possible to set a minimum and maximum value adjustment factor cap for an individual evaluation.

The adjustment Factor is the average rating of the student divided by the overall average rating for all members of the team. This is used to adjust the individual student mark

It is possible to use either the capped adjustment factor or the original factor with no cap applied when deciding final marks.

For more information on how the adjustment factor may impact marks see the adjustment factor guidance and the adjustment factor excel example.

adjustment factor amendment options

Adding team questions

Alongside the existing ability to create scored questions, it is now possible to create team questions that ask students to answer a 5-scale question about the team as a whole (strongly agree to strongly disagree). Team questions do not contribute to the adjustment factor. 

Team question creation screen

Option to ask students to ‘motivate’ peer question score

When creating a peer question it is now possible to ask students to optionally motivate  scores, i.e. provide a comment as to why they have selected a score for their peer. This is now possible as part of the question rather than through the use of open questions at the end of the evaluation.

Motivation selection toggle and student view of question

For any queries on these changes please contact LTDS@ncl.ac.uk or see the guidance at the Digital Learning webpages.

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WebPA Replacement: Buddycheck Pilot

There is a need to replace WebPA as the University’s VLE integrated tool for peer evaluation of group work contribution. WebPA is open source and this leaves the University vulnerable to system failure with a lack of technical support. There have been a number of bugs and stability issues impacting on the usability and reliability of WebPA that have caused disruption for staff and students.

The viability of a number of options has been considered in order identify a product that has high usability i.e. has a simple workflow for setting up and managing an evaluation, and that offers as a minimum the same functionality that is available in WebPA. Buddycheck has been identified as an option that meets these essential requirements and offers VLE integration. Buddycheck has a simple workflow for setting up evaluations and allows customisation of questions, rubrics, terminology and default settings.

Buddycheck is being piloted during Semester One 2019/20. A number of Semester One modules have signed up to take part but there may be capacity to support more. If you are interested in taking part in this pilot please contact LTDS@ncl.ac.uk with details of the group assessment.

WebPA will remain available in Blackboard until the end of 2019/20 and users will be supported by LTDS, however the intention is that it will not be available once the University moves to Canvas at the beginning of 2020/21.