This article outlines the workflow for creating and delivering an assessment in Inspera, starting from authoring the questions, through scheduling of the assessment onto grading and post-moderation. This is a high level article that outlines the workflow that you will need to follow, the detail of how to undertake the different steps is provided by links to support articles on the Teaching Knowledge Base and/or the Inspera Help Centre.
Please ensure that when creating, questions, Question Sets or Tests (assessments) that these are clearly named using the recommended Naming Conventions
1 – Authoring the Question Set
A Question Set is the collection of questions that will be scheduled for an assessment. The table below sets out the actions required at this step and links to support articles.
| Action | Guidance |
| Create individual questions | Creating questions and question sets |
| Create Question Set, using Sections to organise the test and introduce randomisation features. When creating Question set, add any resources students need access to and set design settings. | Creating questions and question sets Sections Adding resources in Question Sets Design settings |
2 – Pre-Moderation
Once the Question Set has been created it must be moderated. It is important at this stage to ensure that the assessment has been authored for digital delivery.
To give moderators access to the Question set by sharing access (Invite co-authors).
External Examiners are not currently being given access to Inspera. To share Question Sets with Externals, the Question Set can be downloaded, with correct answers – Print and download Question Set.
3 – Introducing your students to Inspera
It is important that students are provided opportunities to familiarise themselves with the Inspera platform. Demo tests can be created, these are open tests which do not require a username and password; it does though mean no score is provided to the students and no data stored on Inspera.
Demo tests can only be created by users with Extended Access. If you would like a demo test created then please contact the Education Technologists (learningenhance@coventry.ac.uk). There are generic demo tests available on the student facing CU Inspera Guidance support site.
It is also recommended to create a practice test for students, these will also provide a good formative opportunity. These will be set up as per the steps outlined below in Scheduling the assessment.
4 – Scheduling the assessment
It is recommended that when scheduling an assessment this is done using the Aula-Inspera integration, this will ensure that all students on your Aula spaces will have access to the assessment on Inspera. NB: the Aula-Inspera integration opens a new test Setup page on the Inspera production tenancy.
The article How to prepare an Inspera Assessment outlines the options that need to be run through in scheduling an assessment. In summary these are:
- Setting name of test and selecting Question Set
- Setting timings for the assessment
- Set test Options: includes General Settings, Security, Exam Day, After test, Grading workflow and Explanation of grades. See How to prepare an Inspera Assessment for examples.
- Setting Design options – these can be pulled through from the Question set using the ‘Fetch from Question Set’ option
- Setting Assessment Settings – making choice as to whether a Grade Scale is used. Available Grade Scales include:
- Pass/Fail – can be used for Core Assessments
- Undergraduate and Postgraduate
- 0-100 – can be used to equate to a percentage score
If colleagues need access to the assessment, for example as a Grader, Invigilator or any other role they can be added – Test settings – adding contributors to test.
5 – Marking and feedback
The article Grading in Inspera provides a summary of how marking and feedback can be undertaken in Inspera. The steps involved in marking the students’ work and releasing the marks and feedback to the students are outlined below:
| Action | Guidance |
| Mark student work via Grade module | Set marks on questions |
| Add feedback Annotations on students work Individual assessment level feedback. This is provided using Explanation of GradesGeneric cohort level feedback, provided using the Assessment Feedback function | Annotations and Page Notes Explanation of Grades. Assessment Feedback |
| Release marks and feedback Select Confirm to close marking and release marks. At this point feedback will be released, however note that Explanation of Grades need to be released separately |
Students will be able to access marks and feedback, to the level specified in the ‘After Test options’ when the assessment was scheduled via the Candidate Dashboard. Through this dashboard students can view both upcoming and previous assessments.
Where marks need to be downloaded from Inspera for upload to Aula, the option to use is Download Marks as Excel file. This is explained in this article – Download marks and grades as csv. This file provides the basis for creating a csv file to upload marks into the Student Success App on Aula.
6 – Post moderation
Colleagues can be added to assessments as a Grader to undertake post-moderation. Please note it is important to ensure that ‘One Grader can Confirm’ is selected under the ‘Grading Workflow’ options otherwise the moderator and all other Graders will need to confirm marks before they can be released to students. They can be added following these instructions – Test settings – adding contributors to test.
As External Examiners are not currently being added to Inspera samples of student work and feedback will need to be downloaded. These do need to be downloaded separately, the feedback is pulled together on the Candidate Report.
- Downloading sample student submissions
- Individual submissions – these can be downloaded, showing correct answers for automatically marked questions, from within the Marking workspace in Grade.
- Downloading all submissions for an assessment – available under ‘Options’ in the top menu bar in Grade.
- Downloading sample student feedback, using the Candidate Report
