In the last academic year, our cycle came to a close with the support of Resit and Deferral Digital Inspera exams. Overall, there were 103 Resit/Deferral Inspera exams which ran between 8-16 August, with 101 exams being held successfully on campus. The Digital Exams Team were delighted to see an increase in the use of content features for this period, showcasing the wide range of benefits Inspera can provide.
The removal of the minimum threshold for the August assessment period, (in 22-23 Inspera could only be used for Resits if a certain number of students were due to take the digital exam) saw a vast increase in the number of module teams using Inspera. We can confirm the removal of the minimum threshold was a success and all Inspera users can opt for a Resit in 24-25 if their Semester 1 and/or 2 assessment runs as an Inspera Digital Exam.
Inspera Training 24-25
Training for Semester 1 preparation is now available to book via the Newcastle University LMS. Please use the links below to book onto appropriate training as required:
Here are the important deadlines you need for the new academic year:
Deadlines for Semester 1 and 2 assessment periods
Task
Deadline
Deadline to complete the digital exam form for Semester 1
25 October 2024
Deadline to prepare question set in Inspera for Semester 1
15 November 2024
Digital exams: hard deadline to submit backup paper for digital exams to Exam Paper Portal for Semester 1
Within 2 working days of backup paper being sent to module team by LTDS, and no later than 6 December 2024
Deadline to complete the digital exam form for Semester 2
19 February 2025
Deadline to prepare question set in Inspera for Semester 2
8 March 2025
Digital exams: hard deadline to submit backup paper for digital exams to Exam Paper Portal for Semester 2
Within 2 working days of backup paper being sent to module team by LTDS, and no later than 11 April 2025
Deadlines for August assessment period
For Resits/Deferrals from Semester 1
Task
Deadline
Deadline to complete the digital exam form for the resit period exam (which was originally a Semester 1 exam)
17 March 2025
Deadline to prepare question set in Inspera
17 April 2025
Digital exams: hard deadline to submit backup paper for digital exams to Exam Paper Portal for the resit period
Within 2 working days of backup paper being sent to module team by LTDS
For Resits/Deferrals from Semester 2
Task
Deadline
Deadline to complete the digital exam form for the resit period exam (which was originally a Semester 2 exam)
1 July 2025
Deadline to prepare question set in Inspera
8 July 2025
Digital exams: hard deadline to submit backup paper for digital exams to Exam Paper Portal for the resit period
Within 2 working days of backup paper being sent to module team by LTDS
All information regarding deadlines for Inspera Digital Exams is also posted on the colleague facing website along with a wide range of helpful resources on all aspects of Inspera. Go to the Frequently Asked Questions section and deadline information can be found under ‘How should I prepare for an Inspera digital exam?’ and ‘Can I use Inspera for August assessment period exams?’.
Further Support for Students 24-25
ASK webpage
The Digital Exams Team have recently updated the student facing website which includes access to newly created demo exams for students to practice using Inspera.
We are pleased to share our Digital Assessment Training Programme for 2023-24. Our training sessions are delivered as webinars via Microsoft Teams.
Inspera Assessment (the university system for centrally supported digital exams) is supported by the Learning and Teaching Development Service with a range of training options open to all staff.
Follow the links below to find out more about each session and to book onto individual sessions via the University’s elements system.
We’ve refreshed our Inspera support guidance materials on the Learning and Teaching site, where you will now find links to our new range of webinars and marking how-to videos. We will continue to expand our online guidance resources over the summer.
Inspera Assessment (the university system for centrally supported digital exams) is supported by the Learning and Teaching Development Service with a range of training options open to all staff. We now have a new training session aimed at Professional Service colleagues due to run on March 9 from 3-4pm. You can sign up via Elements.
This session will introduce the digital exam platform Inspera, and how to support an Inspera digital exam.
Introduction to Inspera
Creating an account
Reviewing crated questions and question sets
Basic functionality including randomisation and question choice options
Allow listing and adding resources
Checking the student view
Entering or amending question marks
Inspera Scan sheets
Who should attend?
This webinar is suitable for any professional services colleague supporting an Inspera digital exam.
Inspera assessment is the University’s system for centrally supported digital exams. Inspera can be used for automatically marked exam questions, for manually marked question types including essays, or for exams with a combination of both.
New functionality has recently been launched that enables colleagues to do more with digital written exams.
Question choice for students
Candidate selected questions is used to give students taking your exam a choice of which questions to answer from a list.
For example in an exam where students need to answer 2 essay questions from a list of 6 questions, you can set this up so that a student can choose a maximum of 2 questions to answer.
How does it work for a student?
If candidate selected questions is used in an Inspera exam the student sees information above each question that shows how many questions to select in total, and how many they have already selected. To choose a question to answer they change the ‘Answering this question?’ drop down box to yes.
Screenshot showing student view of Inspera, with the option to choose whether to answer a question.
If a student starts answering a question without changing the ‘Answering this question?’ drop down box, Inspera automatically changes it to ‘Yes’.
When they have selected the maximum number of questions, the student cannot start answering any more questions. However, if they change their mind about which question(s) they want to answer, they can simply change the ‘Answering this question?’ drop down to no, and select a different question instead.
How does it work for a marker?
A marker only sees answers to the questions that a student has chosen to answer.
As students can only submit answers for the maximum number of questions they are allowed to choose, this means you can say goodbye to the dilemma of trying to work out which questions to mark when a student has misread the instructions and answered too many questions!
How can I use it in my exam?
The Candidate selected questions function is available when you are authoring a question set for an Inspera digital exam. Find out more in the Inspera guide for Candidate selected questions.
Rubrics for marking
You can now create a rubric to use for marking any manually marked question type in Inspera. Rubrics allow you to build the assessment criteria for an exam question into Inspera, and use them in your marking.
Choose whether you want to use a quantitative rubric to calculate the mark for a question, or a qualitative rubric as an evaluation and feedback tool, and then manually assign the mark.
How to introduce a rubric for your exam
When you are creating the exam question in Inspera, set up the rubric you want to use for marking that question. The Inspera guide to rubrics for question authors explains how to create a rubric and add it to your exam question.
If you’ve chosen to use one of the quantitative rubric types, as you complete it the student’s mark for the question will automatically be calculated. If you’ve chosen a qualitative rubric, once you’ve completed the rubric use it to evaluate the student’s answer and help you decide on their mark for the question.
You can choose to add feedback to the candidate in the box below the level of performance you’ve selected for each criterion (you can see an example of this in the image below).
Screenshot of the Grader view of a sample points-range rubric in Inspera
Want to learn more about using Inspera for digital exams?
Come along to a webinar to learn about creating exam questions or marking in Inspera.
Enroll onto the Inspera Guidance course in Canvas to learn about Inspera functionality at your own pace.
Find out about the process to prepare an Inspera digital exam, and how the Digital Assessment Service can help on the Inspera webpage.
Contact digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk if you have questions or would like to discuss how you could use Inspera for a digital exam on your module.
Inspera Assessment, the University’s system for centrally supported digital exams, launched for the 21/22 academic year. A key part of understanding how we better use digital exams is to consider ways to improve the student experience of taking a digital exam. Following the launch, the Learning and Teaching Development Service (LTDS) asked for student feedback from those who took a digital exam in 21/22.
142 students submitted their feedback.
Here are our findings:
65% of students were somewhat or very satisfied with their overall experience of taking their exam using Inspera.
Results of the Inspera Student Evaluation
How easy is Inspera to use?
81% of students found starting their Inspera exam somewhat or very easy.
80% of students found handing in/submitting their Inspera exam somewhat or very easy.
When asked to compare a written exam paper and an Inspera paper which included written questions where students could type their answers, 63% of students stated they found it somewhat or much better using Inspera.
Is Inspera better for Take Home or on Campus PC cluster exams?
85% of students were somewhat or very satisfied with their overall experience of using Inspera for their take home exam(s).
73% of students were somewhat or very satisfied with their overall experience of using Inspera for their PC Cluster exam(s).
Thoughts for the future
Inspera seems to be a hit with students overall; the experience of using it is largely positive, with Inspera Take Home papers gaining the highest satisfaction scores. PC Cluster Inspera exam satisfaction scores showed the majority of students were satisfied with their overall experience. Feedback clearly indicated many students felt re-editing written answers works well in Inspera (and is better than trying to edit paper based written exams).
The most common concern raised was around plagiarism. LTDS is keen to work with colleagues to alleviate student concerns and ensure that the provision is developed and supported going forward.
LTDS opened its provision for digital exams to all modules, and the number of planned digital exams for 22/23 has increased.
To better support students before their exam, the LTDS recommend students practise with Inspera. Our survey showed 60% of students tried at least one demo before their main exam; we’d like to get that figure up! Practice exams can help with learning to use the tool and they are accessible via Canvas.
Inspera Assessment is the University’s new system for centrally supported digital exams. Academic colleagues, Professional Services colleagues and Postgraduate Students who teach are invited to Inspera Launch Events for live demonstrations, the chance to meet with our Inspera colleagues and to find out more from the Digital Assessment Service here at Newcastle. The events will showcase:
The student experience of taking a digital exam, and the tools they have available.
Different question types including automatically marked questions, for example Multiple Choice, Fill in the Blank and Hot Spot questions.
Essay questions- students can type their answers and incorporate drawings or written calculations into their online answers where needed.
Setting up exams in Inspera and some of the key options available.
Multiple ways to grade assessments so you can choose the best approach for your assessment.
How you can easily schedule an Inspera exam if you’d like to introduce this in your module.
There will also be plenty of time for questions and discussion.
Following feedback from colleagues we have moved the in-person sessions to the 9 and 10 November. The online session will still take place on the 12 October.
“The introduction of Inspera Assessment for digital exams is a big step forward for education, assessment and feedback at Newcastle University. This new system enables us to ensure digital exams are accessible to all our students, increases the University’s digital exam capacity in the long term and will play an important role in supporting more authentic assessment.”
Professor Tom Ward , Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Education
