Welcome to the first release of the new year!

We’re excited to kick off the new year with our latest release. This month’s release is particularly special as we introduce a new product: Inspera Originality, now integrated with Inspera Assessment. Inspera Originality gives you the power to check text-based submissions in multiple languages against existing source materials.

Inspera Originality/Assessment Integration

An Originality Report can be generated that contains information about the similarity and AI-generated writing prediction found within submitted documents and essay questions.

The Originality Report includes an Originality Index which is derived from the similarity checking process that categorizes the document’s originality level. The Originality Index includes:

  • Similarity Analyses – Explore traditional similarity checking, which assesses submitted documents against sources in both original and translated languages. Utilizing a percentage system, this method quantifies flagged similarity issues, providing a comprehensive evaluation of the document’s alignment with existing sources.
  • Optional AI Authorship Prediction – AI authorship prediction is optionally implemented within the originality checking process to determine whether there are possible instances of AI-generated text within the document. This analysis contains insights on a sentence level such as how many sentences are possibly AI generated. Our ethos when it comes to AI authorship prediction is to assume writing is human unless there are strong markers of AI generation. Our solution gives you an indication rather than a determination because the latter is down to individual academic judgment.

Here’s how the Originality Report and Originality Index appear within Inspera Assessment:

Inspera Originality integrated with Inspera Assessment

Learn more about Inspera Originality.

Inspera Assessment January Release Updates

We sometimes release capabilities to Open Beta before making them generally available. This Open Beta stage allows us to work closely with early adopters to make improvements based on their usage and insights. Each monthly release is an opportunity to promote an Open Beta capability to General Availability. In January, two capabilities go to General Availability:

  • Multiple Attempts
  • New Candidate Dashboard.

 Multiple Attempts

Multiple Attempts is a powerful new capability for formative testing that enables test-driven learning and empowering candidates to improve their understanding of key topics.

Multiple Attempts works with all automatically marked questions. Instant feedback and an updated final score are available to candidates on each submission, with an opportunity to take further attempts up to the set limit.

This new capability supports Numerical simulations which allows for unique randomized Numerical Questions on every attempt. Multiple Attempts also supports randomized question order, preventing reliance on memorization and promoting independent engagement with the content and also timed attempts.

Learn more in the Help Center article, Multiple Attempts.

 The New Candidate Dashboard

The new dashboard is a unified interface for both summative exams and also formative assessments. It supports the following:

  • Accelerated Learning by driving the focus back to learning with bespoke user experience for our formative capabilities Multiple Attempts and Assessment Path.
  • Inclusivity through adherence to established accessibility standards.
  • The redesign prioritizes an intuitive candidate experience, informed by customer feedback and usability studies. It introduces a refreshed global menu, an onboarding tour, and a default test ordering system emphasizing tests needing immediate attention at the top.

As we continue to develop the new candidate dashboard we will move towards switching off the old dashboard. For now, you can choose which one to use. A summary of the capabilities of each is listed in the table below.

Learn more in the Help Center article, Candidate Dashboard.

 Numerical Simulations Question Type Updates (Open Beta)

We have enhanced the user experience by ensuring that authors are now informed of issues, such as program model complexity exceeding the capabilities of the candidate test player, at the time of compiling the program model.

As the candidates can only input their answers using numbers, all authored correct answers must be in number format (as opposed to eg. fraction format). To facilitate authoring, correct answers are now automatically converted to numbers where possible. For instance, if a variable yields the value ⅛, it is converted to 0.125.

Note: if the correct answer variable can take a different number of decimals each time a number is generated, we recommend allowing for Absolute or Relative Tolerance to ensure the candidates are not penalized for rounding.

Learn more about Numerical Simulations.

 Inspera Integrity Browser Version 1.16.0

As previously communicated, Inspera has made two product name changes:

  1. Inspera Exam Portal (IEP) is now named Inspera Integrity Browser (IIB)
  2. Inspera Smarter Proctoring (ISP) is now named Inspera Proctoring (IP)

As part of this release, these products have also been rebranded and these updates are reflected in both our product and support information.

Version 1.16.0 is the first IIB version to include the new name. There will be no name changes for the versions of IEP that we also currently support (1.14 and 1.15 series). For further information see our explainer guide on the Help Centre.

 Universal Design for Learning

This month we continue improving our platform accessibility and usability. In this way, users with and without assistive technology and other accessibility tools are now able to interact with Inspera Assessment using improved labels, descriptions, context, ARIA roles, contrast, and tab controls. Updates were made to the main navigation menu, enhanced page titles, pagination controls, and the contributors menu.

Whether you’re a long-time client or new to Inspera, we’re delighted to share this journey with you. As always, if you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to reach out to me directly at brent.mundy@inspera.com

For full details of the January release, refer to the release notes.

Brent Mundy is the Chief Product Officer at Inspera. Brent is passionate about education and has spent his professional career in education technology, most recently as VP of Product Management at Blackboard.

Written by Brent Mundy

January 19, 2024
Inspera updates