Following an earlier post Investigating new assessment technologies, UCEM has taken the decision to trial the Inspera assessment platform. The trial will take the form of a pilot on our existing modules starting in the Spring semester. The modules identified for the pilot span the range of academic levels and the decision to use the Inspera platform provides an opportunity to develop alternative assessment methods to those currently deployed on out hybrid Moodle/TurnitIn platform.
The current list of modules identified for this trial will be:
- Management Finance and Science (MAN7MFI)
- Principles of Marketing (MAN7AIM)
- Building Economics (QSP7BEC)
- Procurement and Tendering (QSP7SPT)
- Digital Technologies (TEC4DIG)
- Construction Technology 1 (CON4TE1)
Terminology Mapping
After onboarding with Inspera, it is clear that the Inspera product requires an understanding of its key concepts. Construction of what we traditionally identify as an assessment requires the creation of one or more questions grouped as a Question Set. This Question Set is then attached to a Test which completes the Assessment we current know it. This method of construction is quite powerful and permits the same Question Set to be reused, may be at a different time. Ideal for the resubmissions process we recently introduced.
The diagram below illustrates how the Inspera constructs become our assessment.
Source: UCEM (2021)
The fundamental component of every Test/Assessment is the question and Inspera offers a range of question types. These types fall into two categories based on how they are marked. This can be automatically marked questions such as multiple choice and True/False questions. Manual marked questions include short answer (Essay) and file submission. Inspera offers additional questions types particularly in the automatically marked category, these include matching/pairing, drag and drop and math entry.
Working with our Learning Design team it has been possible to map the available question types to the assessment requirements intended in the selected pilot modules. For the first time, Inspera will allow us to receive student submissions in video format which will be an interesting avenue to explore.
Inspera user roles
The Inspera platform uses several roles each performing specific tasks. As an example, an Author has the ability to create and edit both questions and question sets. A Planner defines the Test itself. The next stage is to analyse the current processes and assign the correct role to everyone’s function in the UCEM assessment process.
