Inspera Customer Seminar Nordics 2022: What did we learn?

Last week we hosted the Inspera Customer Seminar 2022, the first event with 100% focus on our Nordic customers. It’s been two and a half years since we had the opportunity to run one of our live seminars and we were delighted to see representatives from over 20 universities in Norway, Sweden and Iceland share their Inspera experiences and best practices.

The group of 75 attendees – including System Administrators, IT Technicians and Learning Technologists – were placed into mixed groups from different universities, offering everyone the maximum opportunity to learn something new. We wanted the groups to get ‘hands on’ with Inspera during our workshops and to walk away with a tangible action plan for immediate smarter usage. 

As part of our customer-centric approach, we sent out a survey before the event which asked customers what they wanted to see on the agenda. The overriding answer was networking and collaboration – so we ensured this theme was at the forefront of each and every one of our workshops and presentations. 

"A really well-organised seminar! I valued the many workshops and interaction with other higher education institutions from Sweden, Norway and Iceland. It was great that Inspera made the effort for us to meet in person."

Patrick Dorls
Learning Technologist, Malmö University and Service Manager, SUNET (Swedish NREN for Higher Education)

Establishing routines and procedures

After some initial house rules – including encouraging everyone to get into the spirit of the day with an occasional “Woo-hoo!” – we got down to business. Host Linda Jerdenius, Service Delivery Manager at Inspera, kicked off the first “Workflow during exam periods” workshop. The move from home exams to school exams and from paper assessments to digital assessments means there are changes to the way universities handle workflow. The groups were encouraged to think about the routines and procedures that can help students facing the pressures of exam time. Once the groups started swapping stories, it became clear that all universities have very different approaches.

“Everyone thinks they are doing it the right way until they talk to other universities,” said Magnus Rittnor, Account Manager at Inspera. “As universities transfer to digital assessments, the way they work becomes more transparent and because they can see all the settings and functions they are using, it’s much easier to compare with how others are doing it.”

Plotting assessment paths

With the groups nicely warmed up, we returned from refreshments to enjoy the “Assessment Paths” session. Freya Egan, Onboarding and Implementation Consultant at Inspera, delved into the topic of how universities can connect a selection of tests during a semester. Our customers were very positive about the user-friendly layout and experience of the Assessment Path and how it reflects the way universities actually work. This collaborative session uncovered some really interesting discussions about how to support more complex user stories and develop new ways of assessing students that are both flexible and user-friendly.

The flexibility of Inspera means that not only can customers forge their own path, but they can also learn a lot from each other in terms of functionality and best practises. The second workshop on Thursday, “Configurations in Inspera Assessment”, allowed our customers to take a closer look at the current functionality that isn't being used to its full potential. Several customers discovered functionality they didn’t realise existed that could make a difference to the way they work today – which was exactly what we wanted from the session!

"Overall we are delighted with the seminar. My team especially liked the workshops; sharing experiences with others. We found it enjoyable to participate in the workgroups and it was nice to hear what others were doing and share what we are doing. The presentations were also to the point."

Hreinn Pálsson
Director of Examinations, University of Iceland

Inspiration for the future

On Thursday morning, we stepped outside the Nordics for a moment to welcome Sam McKenzie, Inspera Customer Services Manager, AU & NZ, in a live link from Brisbane. Sam delivered an enthusiastic presentation for the "Get started and grow" session, where she offered useful and inspiring ideas for creating reusable question banks that offer a variety of ways to assess knowledge – an area her region has experienced great success in. Following Sam’s session, our groups put what they’d learnt to use in a hands-on workshop about creating inspiring question sets.   

The overall aim of this seminar was to provide our customers with the opportunity to meet and learn from each other, to discover quick wins they could implement to bring positive change in the here and now and create a platform where we can gather real-time feedback from our most engaged clients. That’s why we were pleased to be able to include a presentation from one of our customers, Matthías Sigurður Magnússon from the University of Iceland, addressing how to extract statistical data from the Inspera platform.

We rounded off the seminar with our fourth and final workshop, “Annual Cycle – pulling it all together". Host Magnus Rittnor invited customers to spend twenty minutes compiling the content, ideas, and thoughts covered during the seminar into an annual cycle spreadsheet. This was the main takeaway for our audience – a solid roadmap for the coming year containing quick wins which they could share in the group and then take away to discuss with their colleagues.

At Inspera, we pride ourselves on being customer focussed. While Nordic customers have lots in common, they also use Inspera differently and are curious to learn how everyone else operates. This seminar gave us a chance to hear what functionality customers like, how they are using it and what we can do to improve their experience.

We can’t wait for the next opportunity to get together and learn more!