As we near the end of the first academic year using the Newcastle University Learning Analytics (NULA) system, we’re taking a moment to reflect—and we want to hear from you.
NULA was introduced to support teaching and learning by giving colleagues greater insights into student engagement and progress. Over the past year, colleagues across the university have used the platform to inform tutoring conversations and connect with students in more meaningful ways.
Now, your feedback will help us understand what’s working, what could be improved, and how NULA can be better used to support students moving forward.
Share Your Experience
We’ve created a short survey (it takes less than 10 minutes to complete) to gather your thoughts. Whether you’ve used NULA extensively or only briefly, your perspective is incredibly valuable.
Your responses will directly influence how NULA evolves. We’re committed to ensuring the system continues to meet your needs and enhances the learning experience for all – thank you for taking the time to contribute.
What’s Next for NULA
We’re excited to share that several important developments are on the way:
Student app launch – September 2025
The student-facing version of the NULA app will be available for the start of the 2025/26 academic year, designed to give students greater insight into their learning and engagement. Dedicated resources for student will be made available on the Academic Skills Kit website.
New data sources for colleagues
From next academic year, the colleague-facing version of NULA will include ReCap lecture capture data and Library Reading List data—offering an even more comprehensive picture of student engagement.
These enhancements are driven by your feedback, and we’re committed to ensuring NULA continues to support your work in meaningful and practical ways.
The Inspera Digital Exams Team at Newcastle have set up and led on a user group for Inspera users at other institutions in the UK.
Through existing connections and the support of our Account Manager at Inspera, we have contacted colleagues in similar roles to ourselves (Learning Enhancement and Technology Advisers) to create a group where we can share best practice, learn from each other and have the opportunity to discuss aspects of our Inspera use.
The group first met in November 2024 and as of June 2025 has 33 members across 13 institutions. We have received lots of positive feedback on how useful the group is, and we have enjoyed meeting other fellow Inspera users.
The Inspera Leads at Newcastle are always looking for ways to improve the service our Digital Exams Team can offer and work with Inspera to share feature requests. The group have been sharing what their priorities are in terms of things we would like to see in Inspera so that we can share this with Inspera.
Inspera Priorities at Newcastle
Maddie and Kimberly of the Digital Exams Team, along with some of our academics who use Inspera, took part in some user research with Inspera in relation to marking and feedback.
In relation to marking and feedback, our key priorities are:
Release of feedback restrictions, i.e. flexibility to release essay feedback comments without releasing banks of MCQs.
Editing questions after an exam i.e. where mistakes have been found afterwards upon marking. A request has been highlighted whereby, for auto marked questions, users can use answer key corrections (like the functionality of MCQs) but for all for auto marked questions.
Data availability for questions used in exams. Inspera are currently working on their analytics, with a psychometric dashboard currently available for the Inspera Digital Exam Leads to access.
Other feature requests we support, which are in relation to question authoring, include:
Author tab to include example questions and question sets.
‘Tick box’ to confirm when a question set has been finalised.
Ability to have template of example question sets to share across users.
Being able to collapse sections in assessments to avoid having to scroll up and down when editing one of the later sections.
If you would like to know more about our priorities at Newcastle, you can get in touch with the Digital Exams Team via: Digital.Exams@newcastle.ac.uk.
We believe that accessibility is key to creating an inclusive and supportive learning environment for all students.
Our commitment to accessibility is reflected in the wide range of resources and tools we offer to ensure that every student can engage fully with their studies.
From the Canvas Baseline, which provides essential best practice information and promotes consistency across courses, to Ally for Canvas, which enhances the accessibility of digital learning content, we are dedicated to making education accessible to everyone.
In addition to these tools, we offer training and courses such as the Accessible Documents Training workshop and the Accessibility in Practice Canvas course.
Join us as we explore the various accessibility resources available at Newcastle University and discover how they can benefit you and your academic journey.
Canvas Baseline
The Newcastle University Canvas Baseline outlines the essential requirements for all University modules within the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It ensures students receive a core set of materials, including programme-related information and details about learning, assessment, and skills for each module.
The Baseline aims to create consistency across modules, provide clear guidance on available information and resources, and offer a foundation for module development while enhancing student engagement through Canvas.
More information on the Canvas Baseline can be found on the Canvas Baseline pages on the Learning and Teaching Website.
New Courses Guidance
The Get your Canvas courses ready has a checklist section provides a step-by-step guide for preparing Canvas courses. This includes checking your courses for accessibility in both Canvas and Ally.
More information on New Course Guidance can be found on the New Courses Guidance page on the Learning and Teaching website.
Ally
Ally for Canvas is a tool integrated into Newcastle University’s Canvas platform to enhance the accessibility of digital learning content. It automatically generates alternative formats of course files, such as MP3, electronic braille, ePub, and HTML, making it easier for students to access materials in the format that suits them best.
For instructors, Ally provides an accessibility score for uploaded files and offers guidance on how to improve them. This helps ensure that course content is inclusive and accessible to all students.
More information on Ally in Canvas can be found on the Ally for Canvas page on the Learning and Teaching website.
Accessible Documents Training
In this workshop we uncover why accessible practices are so important for our students and colleagues.
The workshop includes short activities to introduce participants to tools and techniques to ensure digital materials are accessible, and includes audience interaction via Vevox.
If you are interested in taking part in this training, please contact: ltds@newcastle.ac.uk
Accessibility in Practice – Canvas Course (Self Enrol)
Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) host an Accessibility in Practice Canvas course. The course provides you with some core information, skills, and techniques for embedding accessibility into your teaching, learning, and work practice, and in making your digital resources accessible to everyone.
Accessibility benefits everybody, not just individuals with additional needs. You can self enrol on the course to complete at your own pace.
Ally is an external tool integrated into Canvas that automatically checks course materials against WCAG 2.0 accessibility standards and provides feedback on their accessibility. It’s important to note that Ally doesn’t evaluate the quality of your course content; it simply assesses how well the content meets accessibility standards.
This video provides an overview of Ally in Canvas and how it works within our Virtual Learning Environment:
Alternative Formats
A beneficial feature is that it also enables students to download accessible alternative formats of published module materials, without the need to create and upload these ourselves. These formats are made available with the original file, so students can find everything in one convenient location.
While the alternative formats are created for you, you can, if you want, disable alternative formats for any individual content item for whatever reason (a good example being translated versions of texts on foreign language courses).
Alternative formats made available by Ally are:
Tagged PDF;
HTML;
e-Pub;
Electronic braille;
Audio (text-to-speech conversion);
BeeLine Reader;
Course Accessibility Report
Accessibility Summary
The course accessibility report acts as a complement to the existing accessibility indicators. It provides an accessibility summary and overview at the course level.
The report gives an overall accessibility score for the course, which is an average of the accessibility scores of all course materials. Scores range from Low (0-33%), Medium (34-66%), High (67-99%), to Perfect (100%).
Detailed Feedback
It identifies specific files that need remediation, categorizing them by accessibility score and issue type. This helps instructors prioritize which content to fix first 1.
Guidance and Corrective Actions
The report provides detailed explanations of why certain issues are problems and offers step-by-step instructions on how to fix them.
Instructors can even upload corrected versions of files directly within Canvas.
The aim of this week is to help you strive to make all your learning resources as accessible as possible. This also extends to our video content, which plays a crucial role in the educational experience.
In this blog, we will explore the importance of video captioning and how it can be effectively implemented using the Panopto system (also known as Recap).
When we refer to video content, we mean recordings provided to students for educational purposes. These recordings are typically delivered via Canvas and include lecture recordings, teaching presentations, and other instructional videos.
By ensuring that these videos are captioned, we can enhance accessibility for all students, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing, non-native English speakers, and individuals who benefit from reading along while listening.
What is ReCap (Panopto)?
Panopto, also known as Recap, is a video platform at Newcastle University. This system facilitates the recording, editing, and sharing of video content, making it an essential tool for both educators and students.
The primary reason for using Panopto is to enhance the learning experience. By providing students with access to lecture recordings and other educational videos, Panopto allows them to review material at their own pace. This flexibility is particularly beneficial for revisiting complex topics and catching up on missed lectures.
Moreover, Panopto significantly contributes to accessibility. It supports students with diverse learning needs by offering features such as video captioning, ensuring that all students, including those who are deaf or hard of hearing, can benefit from the content.
Captioning in Panopto (ReCap)
The ReCap service (Panopto) provides the ability to add ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) generated captions to your recordings.
The University recognises that automatically generated captions are not 100% correct and have published a captions disclaimer for viewers.
We recommend reviewing automatically generated captions and making light-touch edits before making them available.
How Do I Edit Captions in Panopto (ReCap)
The support pages of the Panopto website offer great advice on how to work with captions in Panopto.
The How to Edit or Delete Captions guide provides a comprehensive guide on how to edit or delete captions in Panopto. It outlines the steps required to access the caption editor, make necessary adjustments to the text, and save changes.
The guide also covers how to delete captions if they are no longer needed. Additionally, it includes tips for ensuring caption accuracy and improving the overall quality of video content. This resource is essential for anyone looking to enhance the accessibility and usability of their Panopto recordings.
Welcome to Day 2 of our Accessibility Awareness blog series. In this post, you can learn about aspects of document design to help you create documents that are accessible from the go. By ensuring that your documents are designed in an accessible format when you create them, anyone using them have the opportunity to engage with the content from the get go. Making a document accessible does not need to happen after the fact. You can do it as you create, and make a difference from now.
Our Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) have created a helpful crib sheet available that covers the do’s and don’ts to enable you to design documents for a diverse range of learners. Take a look at the Designing for Diverse Learners resource – and why not save a copy to your ‘favourites’ or put a copy in your office space?
We’ll now dive into some of the guidance from the Designing for Diverse Learners resource in more detail to understand ways you can design documents to ensure that they are accessible:
On each page, you’ll find essential digital document design guidelines along with step-by-step instructions on how to implement these changes in your own digital documents.
You can check out some of our hints and tips for marking Inspera Digital Exams or our dedicated website.
To access your exam(s) to mark, click the link within the assignment point in Canvas. You must be a teacher or teaching assistant on the Canvas module, and this will attach you to the exam in Inspera.
If you need to search for a specific student, within the Inspera ‘Grading Overview’ section, use the search bar – you can search for a student ID.
To download raw marks from Inspera, as an Excel file. Click the ‘Options’ button at the top right of the Grade screen and navigate to ‘Downloads’. Select ‘Marks and Explanations as Excel file’.
Digital Exams are always set up initially with the Canvas assignment associated with your Inspera exam as out of 100 points. (If you’d like students to see raw marks, please edit the Canvas assignment points area to match that of your total Inspera marks).
For manually marked questions, Markers can add Annotations to student submissions. (Within students submitted text, click and hold the left mouse button to select the text you want to annotate. Click Annotate).
Once marking is complete in Inspera, don’t forget to Confirm Marks, this will complete the grading step and push the completed marks from inspera to Canvas Gradebook.
Video demonstrations: There are a range of marking videos available on the Inspera website which provide on-screen demonstrations of grading tasks. See Video guides for Markers.
Feedback Release: If you would like to release feedback to your students on your auto or manually marked Inspera questions, check out our dedicated feedback release webpage.
Further questions? If you have any questions about marking an Inspera exam, please contact the Digital Exams Team via Digital.Exams@newcastle.ac.uk
Internal Inspera Teams Community (Digital Exams using Inspera Assessment @ Newcastle)
The Digital Exams Team have set up a Newcastle University community via a new Teams group. This new community will:
Enable colleagues who use Inspera for their Digital Exams, to ask general questions in a dedicated area
Create a space for colleagues to share ideas and best practice and/or learn from others experience.
Build a supportive community network of like-minded colleagues.
Enable the Digital Exams Team to share updates about Inspera such as feature developments, improvements and Roadmaps.
The Digital Exams Team will monitor this community to ensure members are on track for enhancing their Inspera digital exam and provide support queries relevant across all disciplines.
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) is an international event intended to get everyone talking, thinking and learning about digital accessibility and inclusion.
This year the event will be held on 15 May 2025.
To honour GAAD, we will be posting a series of blog posts and videos highlighting issues and provide guidance on accessibility issues (more on that later in this post).
Let’s begin by exploring what digital accessibility means, identifying the individuals it affects, and challenging common misconceptions about accessibility.
What is Digital Accessibility?
Digital accessibility refers to the ability of people with disabilities/impairments to independently consume and/or interact with digital.
This can include web content and applications (including on mobile devices).
The Diverse 21st Century Learner
Digital accessibility is often perceived as a set of practices aimed solely at helping individuals with disabilities. However, accessibility is much broader and benefits everyone, regardless of their abilities or circumstances. By incorporating accessibility into digital design, we create inclusive environments that enhance usability and convenience for all users.
Our learners come from a wide range of backgrounds, each with unique needs shaped by their individual circumstances. Unfortunately, these needs are sometimes overlooked, particularly in terms of accessibility.
These learners could include:
Learners with Visible Disabilities
This can include individuals with visible disabilities, such with mobility impairments, visual impairments, or hearing impairments.
Learners with Invisible Disabilities
This could include users with invisible disabilities, such as cognitive impairments, mental health conditions, or chronic illnesses.
Learners with Temporary Disabilities
Users experiencing temporary disabilities, such as a broken arm or temporary vision impairment.
International Students
Students from different countries who may face language barriers and cultural differences.
Professionals Seeking more Education
Working professionals looking to further their education.
Learners with Different Preferences
Users with specific preferences, such as those who prefer dark mode or larger text.
Parents
Parents who may be juggling multiple responsibilities and need efficient and accessible digital tools.
Commuters
Individuals who frequently travel and use digital tools on the go.
Learners Who Use Mobile Devices
Users primarily accessing digital content via mobile devices.
Offline Users
Users who prefer or need to access content offline due to limited internet connectivity.
With knowledge of who our potential learners could be, we can help create digital content that is accessible and helps towards meeting their needs.
What is Happening This Week
To help our colleagues and students at Newcastle to engage with accessibility content, colleagues in the Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) are going to be sharing blog posts each day during this week on Digital Accessibility.
Schedule of Posts
Tuesday 13th May 2025 – Document Design Fundamentals
Wednesday 14th May 2025 – Creating Accessible Videos in Recap (Panopto)
Thursday 15th May 2025 – Anthology Ally in Canvas
Friday 16th May 2025 – Accessibility Resources Available at Newcastle University
Global Accessibility Awareness Day (GAAD) takes place on the 3rd Thursday of May each year. Individuals are encouraged to take an hour to experience first-hand the impact of digital accessibility (or lack thereof). This year GAAD takes place on Thursday 15th May.
Participate Directly
There are many ways to get involved. The GAAD webpage recommends ways that individuals can participate directly– for example, you can:
Think about how you can make your events and meetings more accessible – whether it’s the moment you start planning, writing communications, and looking at how these are hosted (online, in-person or hybrid).
The GAAD webpage also shares how we can spread awareness. One of the suggestions is sharing blog posts. To help our colleagues and students at Newcastle to engage with accessibility content, colleagues in the Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) are going to be sharing blog posts each day during the week that GAAD falls in (week of 12th May). We will be writing and sharing content for you to engage with, including additional resources available to you, around digital accessibility.
Resources
There are plenty of resources you can use to get started and learn about how you can make further considerations around accessibility and encourage others to do the same. You can check out the following resources available at Newcastle:
