Inspera Update – May 2026

Colleagues, this May 2026 Inspera update provides a summary of recent updates to Inspera, organised by role within Inspera and notification of forthcoming developments which we currently have access to for testing purposes.   It concludes with some reminders in preparation for setting up your assessments for semester 3/Block 5.

Summary of Recent Inspera Updates

Grading

Normalized Grading Scale

This update will make it easier to align the grades shown in Inspera with those presented in Aula.  This new grade scale option is available in Assessment settings, under ‘Use Grade Scale’. It calculates grades directly from marks achieved on a continuous scale from 0 to n with two decimal point precision, so aligning with the percentage grade calculated when marks are passed back to Aula. 

Mark by Question

Graders will now be able to choose if they want to mark by Candidate or mark by Question. Depending on the option chosen, the Inspera User Interface will adapt accordingly.  For more information see New Navigation in Marking.

Student view

Candidate Notes and Highlights

Students will now have the option to highlight important text and create personal notes while taking a test. More details found here: Notes for Candidates

Authoring

New Drawing Tool

The new Drawing Tool has been launched to enhance how candidates visually express their work within the platform. Inspera help centre articles:

Adding drawing tool to questions

How to grade questions with drawings

How to use the drawing tool (for candidates)

New developments for testing

The following features are being enabled on our Inspera Staging Server, which is our test environment for forthcoming developments from Inspera.  If any colleagues would like to explore these features, then please contact Martin Jenkins (ab5926@coventry.ac.uk) who can provide access to the Staging Server. 

• Drawing Question type
  • This new Question Type makes the drawn submission the primary method of submission.  It will allow you to add images and text as a background canvas, which serves as a starting point for students. These images can be locked to prevent them from being moved or unlocked to allow candidates to interact with the pre-uploaded image.
• Grading workflow
  • The new grading workflow will allow Coventry to design their own unique workflows, ensuring that submissions are allocated to relevant graders / moderators as required.   We will be getting early access on our Staging Server during May 2026.
• New Authoring Interface
  • Inspera will also be releasing a new Authoring interface in 2026.  This is available currently on our Staging Server and will be demonstrated on the ‘Forthcoming Inspera Developments’ sessions that are detailed below.