Automatically marked questions in Inspera

Contents

Inspera offers a broad range of automatically marked and manually marked question types, which allows you to construct assessments of great variety. This article covers considerations on some of the remaining question types, including audio response questions, and questions involving graphics. Please see our example question set here for examples of many of these question types. For guidance on automatically marked questions such as multiple-choice questions, true/false questions, or text-based gap matching questions see here.

If you require further support or have more questions, please contact a member of AEPD, or the Educational technology team.

Hot spot questions

This question type asks candidates to select the appropriate area on an image in response to a question. Authors must set the image hotspots when creating the question. You can do this using a circle or square for a larger area of the picture, or for very specific area, for example a bone in an anatomy diagram, you can use the polygon feature to create very precise boundaries.

You will need to prepare a background image in advance, including any image editing you need to do such as adding boxes, arrows, or lines. Inspera does not offer any native editing options inside the tenant, so you’ll need to use image editing software beforehand. For simple cropping or resizing, MS Paint or Canva should be sufficient.

Ensure that your background image is of an appropriate size and resolution for all screens. 72 dpi is the standard web resolution. Your image should be around 620×400 pixels. Larger images can be harder to see on mobile phone screens, so consider cropping or resizing your image. Ensure you add an image description for screen reader software.

Try to avoid using red or green to indicate important areas of the image, as this makes your image harder use for users with colour vision issues (‘colour blindness’). Use this image checker to ensure your image is suitable.

When creating the hotspot areas on the image, ensure that there is sufficient contrast between the hotspots and the background image. This ensures your images is viewable for candidates with vision issues. You can change the contrast using the ‘background opacity’ option in the panel on the right of the question authoring screen. You can also increase the width of the hotspot boundary or change the colour. Again, try to avoid red or green boundary colours, as these are the most commonly problematic colours for colour blind candidates.

Graphic text entry questions

This question type allows candidates to label parts of an image. It is commonly used for diagrams such as anatomical diagrams or cell diagrams.

Ensure that your background image is of an appropriate size and resolution for all screens. 72 dpi is the standard web resolution. Your image should be around 620×400 pixels. Larger images can be harder to see on mobile phone screens, so consider cropping or resizing your image. Ensure you add an image description for screen reader software.

Note: this question type does not have single predetermined answer for candidates to drag to the image. Instead, they write their answer in the box that you define. Multiple correct answers are allowed: for example, a student could write collarbone, or clavicle, and be marked correct for either answer. You can add each correct answer for each question one by one in the question panel. Consider plurals and definite/indefinite articles. For example, would you accept “knee, the knee, knees” as all correct? Then you would need to add each of those answers to the correct answer option.

Graphic gap match question

This is very similar to the graphic labelling question, except that you give candidates a series of potential answers (called ‘tokens’), that they must then drag and drop to the appropriate area of the image (or ‘gap’).

The same consideration should be taken regarding image resolution, size, and colour blindness accessibility as above.

You can adjust the size of the token to fit the answer (for example, a shorter answer will require a smaller token) using the panel menu on the right.

This question type enables you to add distractor answers as with multiple choice questions, so please consult the advice on writing effective multiple-choice questions if you wish to use this approach.

Audio upload questions

This is a manually marked question, where candidates speak their response to the question. This question requires use of the microphone on the candidate’s device; therefore, it is not suitable for exam-type settings where all candidates are in the same room.

Note: candidates cannot upload an audio file that they have created in a different programme. Instead, the microphone is switched on and candidates create their response directly in Inspera. If you are using this question type, consider if this will enable your students to demonstrate the learning you are testing. For example, it may be appropriate to use this question type to test the pronunciation of a sentence in a language exam, but if you wish to use it for a group audio report of a project, a different question type such ‘upload assignment’ would be more appropriate.

Students can listen to their audio back and re-record it if they are unsatisfied with their initial response. This question type requires that students have a working microphone on their device and a quiet place to record. If you choose this question type, you should make students aware of this in advance so that they can make the necessary arrangements.