The existing tools for digital on-campus exams were tested for online exams. Inspera, a digital tool that some of the teaching staff and administrators at LU had tested, proved to also work when the students took exams at home.
Project became an administration group
In order to effectively pursue issues concerning digital assessment and implement Inspera among more users, the DIXAM project was created in spring 2020 with a project group whose members offered a wide range of expertise. The project, now restructured as an administration group, is continuing to work on the same issues. The overall aim is to provide lecturers with access to the Inspera tool for teaching in 2021. Training and start-up for new users is in progress above all at the School of Economics and Management, which is now the pilot faculty.
Leopold Schmidt, who is the system manager of Inspera at LU, says:
"Inspera is a platform that LU wants to use in examinations or in measuring knowledge. With Inspera, it is possible to vary the questions with, for example, multiple-choice questions and essay questions. The tool is easy to use for both teachers and students. The assessment is flexible as you can use various self-correcting questions that save time. The platform also automatically provides grading suggestions based on the selected grading systems and levels you want."
The first departments with Inspera
At the Department of Service Management and Service Studies, Inspera has been used since spring 2018. Today all exams are given in Inspera. At the Department of Psychology, Inspera is established as an examination tool since autumn 2018. More than 240 examinations have so far been given at the Department of Service Management and Service Studies, and at the Department of Psychology, 210 examinations have been written in Inspera. At LUSEM (Lund University School of Economics and Management), the tool has been tested on a smaller scale by around 30 teachers for about 2 years. The School has so far been a pilot faculty and now the goal is that as many users as possible will learn how to use Inspera in spring 2021. Since Covid-19 struck Inspera has been an asset since the tool, initially developed for digital examination on campus, turned out to be suitable also for remote exams.
Carina Carlsson, who is responsible for the work with Inspera at the Department of Service Management and Service Studies and provides training in the system as well, believes that Inspera is a tool that most teachers and students are very comfortable with:
"Inspera is easy to use as a student and the majority of students think that it is clearly better to write digitally, since that is what you are used to. Teachers have found that students' answers, when it comes to essay questions, become more structured and often better than written on paper. In addition, it will of course never be a problem for teachers to interpret students' handwriting in digital examination," says Carina.
She continues: "You must be connected when you start writing an exam in Inspera, but if you then become disconnected, you can continue writing any way. The exam is automatically saved locally on your computer in the meantime and then it is saved in the system again as soon as possible. It is also possible to submit in file format if the connection does not return. In comparison with exams on paper, the correction is much smoother in Inspera, it is very easy to switch between different students and answers to the questions and several teachers can correct simultaneously which saves a lot of time. Creating essay questions and self-correcting questions, such as multiple-choice questions, in the system is simple. It is also possible to add pictures and pdf-files to the questions."
Stefan Persson, who administers all exams at the Department of Psychology, started working in Inspera as soon as he heard about the tool:
"Already during my own studies, handwritten exams felt outdated. Nobody writes by hand anymore… I was quick when I got the opportunity to establish Inspera at my department. Exam management has been optimized, I do not have to archive a lot of paper and the students do not have to look for exams in the archives. All exams are archived digitally and students can access their exam answers and grades at any time. At our department, we sometimes have several examiners for the same exam and even from other departments. With Inspera, everyone can correct the exams at the same time digitally and we don't have to distribute paper exams. A big plus", says Stefan.
The work of implementing Inspera at LUSEM is in full swing this spring. Tomas Sjö, who has worked with Inspera since autumn 2018 and supports all teachers, agrees that the work with exams has been made more efficient thanks to Inspera:
"It is great that students can log in to Inspera and look at their exams, when corrected. We are able to avoid all the paper work", says Tomas.
Some functions are particularly useful, says Tomas:
"In recent years, I have created a lot of exams in Inspera and think it has worked well. There are some settings that need to be made when creating an exam, but it is not that difficult. Inspera is particularly well suited for essay and multiple choice questions. The self-correcting function is smooth".
Students about Inspera
Emma Olsson, student at LUSEM, has written several exams in Inspera, both at campus and remotely. She has experienced many benefits and is very pleased if the teachers continue to use Inspera:
"I wrote exams in Inspera for almost a year and think that a big advantage of the tool is that it is very easy to navigate in and it is easy to scroll between the different questions in the exam. Other advantages of Inspera are that all answers are saved automatically so you don't have to worry about something disappearing if the internet connection goes down, and that teachers can send messages during the exam in case of ambiguity so that no student misses any information. In general I think Inspera has worked very well as a tool during the digital teaching and it works better the more accustomed the teachers become to use it. I also used Inspera on campus during my first semester of the bachelor's programme, it worked well and I think it can be a good tool when we move on to campus examination again."
Agnes Hjalt, also a student at LUSEM, agrees that Inspera works well for remote exams. As project manager of the education committee of LundaEkonomerna she is happy with the digital development:
"I didn't write an Inspera exam on campus before the pandemic but I have done several remotely, at home. It has worked well, much better than other tools for digital exams. You get a good overview and can easily navigate between the questions. The essay questions are easier to write answers to because there are more tools in the text box. The great thing about Inspera is also that the teacher can set an interval for the correct answer for the student to get points. Our union, LundaEkonomerna, has requested digitalized examinations at LUSEM for a long time. Therefore it is very good if Inspera can be implemented to a greater extent and also used when the teaching is back at campus, especially in subjects where the exam usually consists of long essay questions."