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 support on the Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle website
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 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.
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.
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.
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
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 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
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:
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.
View all sessions and sign up here
“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
If you’d like to find out more about Inspera visit the Digital Exams with Inspera Assessment webpages. There is also an Inspera Guidance Canvas course, simply click the link to self-enrol.
If you have any questions about the launch events or Inspera Assessment, please email digital.exams@newcastle.ac.uk.
