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:
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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 |
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.
Users can add labels to individual questions to help with general organising and for locating questions with specific content.
Inspera have created the option to filter on labels that have been added to questions. Until now, if filtering on more than one label, the result has been to show all content with any of these labels. We know there is a need to search for all content that has all the selected labels. It is now possible to be able to filter on more than one label simultaneously.
You can add labels to questions in your question set. For example, you may wish to label your questions with the topic (e.g. Topic X, Y OR Z) but you may also want to add another filter, such as the year the question is from. When searching the question bank of all your questions in Inspera, it is now be possible to filter so that you can find questions that are say from ‘2023/24’ and from ‘topic X’, rather than all questions coming up with either of those filters.
If you have any questions, feel free to contact the Digital Exams Team via Digital.Exams@newcastle.ac.uk.
Digital Exam Support Assistants (DESAs) are PGR students who support invigilators in digital exam venues to help students troubleshoot any technical issues using the safe exam browser software. Safe Exam Browser is software which works alongside Inspera offering a secure ‘locked down’ digital exam. Inspera Assessment is the University’s Digital Exam system used for present-in-person, secure online assessments.
DESAs are on-hand to support students and invigilators to troubleshoot issues faced when accessing Inspera for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) exams. Exam invigilators have reported that the presence of DESAs makes them feel more confident in digital exam venues. Feedback has stated that DESAs have been a ‘confidence booster’ and that invigilators ‘couldn’t do it without them’. Invigilators reported that the DESAs were responding to queries quickly which has also been stated by students who had DESA support.
39 students submitted their feedback on their Semester 1 22/23 BYOD exam. When asked how satisfied they were with the technical support available in their exam, two thirds of students (67%) reported that they were satisfied or very satisfied.
Students reported that ‘those who requested support were dealt with quickly and there was little hassle.’
We asked some of our DESAs how they found their experience in the role this year. Check out some of the quotes below:
“I had a wonderful experience with the team. Enough training was given to staff. Would like to work with the team again. Thanks for giving me the opportunity.”
“Regarding my experience in the DESA role this academic year, it provided me with a valuable opportunity to contribute to the Digital Assessment Office and engage with fellow students. The role not only enhanced my understanding of digital assessment practices but also allowed me to develop essential skills in communication and collaboration. I am grateful for the experience and the chance to be a part of improving the assessment process at Newcastle University.”
We are pleased to report that the DESA role will be returning in the 2023/24 academic year. This support provision has been crucial in supporting our students with any troubleshooting during their BYOD digital exams. For more information you can email the Digital Assessment Team.
You can find out more about Inspera in our other blog posts on Inspera and on our Inspera Digital Exams webpage.
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.
This webinar is suitable for any professional services colleague supporting an Inspera digital exam.
Inspera joined us via zoom for a presentation about the new Inspera Assessment software.
The presentation was delivered by Graeme Redshaw-Boxwell and Susan Barfield from the Learning and Teaching Development Service, who were joined by Suzanne Keys and Harvey Tayman from Inspera. Graeme and Susan discussed the journey Newcastle has taken with Digital Exams, why we are excited about the new software and what it will allow future digital exams to do. Suzanne and Harvey went on to demonstrate the assessment software, from a student and academics perspective.
This is the link to the recording from the session.
The following questions and answers were discussed during the sessions
I want to introduce a digital exam using Inspera, what can I do next?
Digital exams for semester 1 are only available for modules that have this listed in their 2021-22 MOFS. If you wish to run a digital exam for 2022-23, when you complete your 2022-23 MOF select “PC Examination” for the Assessment Component.
If you are interested in running a digital exam in future and would like to find out more, please see our Digital Exams webpages, or contact digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk .
We would like to pilot it on some modules, where do we start?
Please see the Digital Exams webpages for information on how to get started. I you have a semester 2 exam that you would like to turn into a digital exam, please email digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk to discuss.
What capacity is there for digital exams with large cohorts?
We have previously supported exams with over 400 students and it possible to manage large cohorts, although this may be over several venues.
Can external examiners access?
All Canvas users have access to Inspera. If your external examiner has been set up with a Canvas account, they can access Inspera.
Can you download a copy of the exam paper?
It is possible to download a PDF version of the exam.
Can I download feedback
It is possible to download students’ submissions, feedback annotations and marks as two separate PDFs.
Can you use Turnitin to check for similarity on typed essay questions?
Turnitin has been integrated into Inspera, so it possible to check a student’s submission for similarity. The Turnitin marking tools are not available, so it is not possible to use QuickMarks.
How do we ensure the academic integrity of digital exams?
It is possible to use a lock down browser on cluster room PCs and students’ own devices exam for digital exams. Ahead of the exam, the students will be asked to install the Safe Exam Browser software on their own laptop if it is bring your own device exam. To start the exam, they must run Safe Exam Browser, which will lock their PC from being able to access anything else. When they submit their exam and close lockdown browser, they can use laptop as normal.
It is not possible for a student to access an exam that requires use of Safe Exam Browser without using Safe Exam Browser. There are warnings in the monitor module if a student had tried to exit the lockdown browser.
The Inspera Assessment, Digital Exam Launch will continue with two more sessions taking place in person on the 9th and 10th November, click for further details and to book a place
