Published on: 15/06/2023 · Last updated on: 22/11/2024

The Planner role

The Planner role on Inspera links the Question Set (exam paper) to occurrences on Inspera, applies dates and settings, before activating the test making it visible to students.

Setting up an exam

The setting up of exams is done from the Deliver screen.

Please note, Inspera Tests (i.e. examinations) are created automatically from assessment items held in SAMIS. Multiple tests may be created for different occurrences on a unit which all need to be set up individually. Planners should not create tests manually.

For a test to be visible to Planners, they must have been added with that role. This is currently a manual process which is undertaken on a date specified in the Academic Administration Calendar. If occurrences are not visible after this date, please email inspera-support@bath.ac.uk

For each occurrence of an exam, the following steps will need to be undertaken after selecting the exam on the Deliver screen:

Setup

Instructions	Notes
Select the appropriate Question Set for the exam	Authors (academic staff) have been asked to label their Question Sets appropriately. If you cannot find the Question Set you should speak to the relevant Unit Convenor. A common mistake is unit convenors sharing a Question rather than a Question Set. Planners should NOT create a Question Set from a Question.
Set the Test start date and time Set the Test end date and time Ensure late submissions is enabled Set the Primary submission deadline	Start time is the time the exam opens Primary submission deadline reflects the full length of the exam (without late submission time) Test end time is 30 minutes after the Primary submission deadline; As an example, if the exam has 120 minutes of exam work time and 45 minutes of file preparation and upload time, the exam window is 165 minutes long. If the Start Time at 9:30 The Primary Submission Deadline would be 12:15 The End Time would be 12:45
FLEXIBLE START remote exams ONLY: Set the duration for the exam	For Flexible-start exams set the duration for the exam. For Fixed-time and Open-24 exams DO NOT set a duration.
Paste the ‘exam instruction sheet’ information into the Test information box	The exam instruction sheet templates can be found on the Academic Registry wiki page (Exams and assessment 2023-24). This should be completed by the unit convenor and provided to the Planner. This Exam Instruction Sheet (previously known as the Rubric/Cover Sheet) information will be visible to students before they start the exam. If the information contained is also needed during the exam, it should be included within the Question Set as well.
Check the number of candidates displayed matches the number expected.	Note: Candidates may be split across multiple occurrences.
Add extra time to candidates as necessary.	Extra time for students with a DAP is applied centrally, provided the test start, end and primary submission times (and duration if applicable) above are set by the date specified in the Academic Administration Calendar. Extra time which is not applied automatically (typically students with a late DAP), will need to be applied manually by the Planner. This video demonstrates how to add extra time to an exam.

Setup – Options

These settings should mostly be pre-set by the template. However should be double checked, and may need changing if the exam you are setting up needs restricted exam papers.

Option	Instructions	Notes
General settings	Enable Marking 2.0
Security	Enable Request Similarity Report.	This will only enable plagiarism reports for essay and assignment upload question types.
Exam Day	Ensure the following are selected:  Enable Text to Speech reading aid  Enable Spell Checker  Show Lost Connection Alert – Custom message (see right)	The Alert text is: Local network issues. This might be permanent. Please contact 01225 387500 if you are experiencing problems for more than 15 minutes.
After test	Enable Allow student post-submission review. Enable Instant post delivery access (this can only be enabled once ‘Allow student post-submission review’ is enabled). Enable Allow graders to post comments to each other. Do NOT enable any other settings in this section.	For exams with restricted exam papers only: If the Question Set has a file upload point: Enable Allow student post-submission review. Disable Instant post delivery access. Specify the Availability from: to be the exam date Specify the Availability to: to be 4 working days after the end of the assessment period. You need to set both the from and to dates. If the exam you are setting up needs restricted exam papers and the Question Set does not require a file upload: Disable Allow student post-submission review.
Grading workflow	Ensure the following are selected:  Shared marking  One grader can confirm  Enable question assignment – in second dropdown box, select ‘Graders can assign questions’	Any grader on the exam can confirm the grades. This will pass grades to SAMIS. This should be done by the Unit Convenor.

Design

First try to “Fetch from Question Set”. Unit convenors should have updated the Design settings on the Question Set, so that when they preview the Question Set it will be accurate for how students view the Question Set. The choice of Numbering scheme is at the Unit convenor’s discretion, and is typically the default “Test sequential”.

Please ensure the following settings are selected:

Instructions	Notes
Ensure the following are selected:  Table of contents  Hide question titles  Show sections in table of contents  Enable flagging  Question maximum marks  Show interaction accessibility guide Highlight “next” button when responses are completed	Do not enable: Hide navigation bar. Disable navigate back button. Show progress indicator Show warning when navigating away from pages with incomplete response

Assessment settings

Instructions

Notes

Select Pass/Fail grade scale Select Use thresholds (Adjust marks, if required, to obtain the passing grade)

The results will be calculated as a percentage (marks/total marks) to be sent back to SAMIS.  Students will not see the grading scale. For moderation purposes the Pass/Fail thresholds should be set so that Graders can easily see which students have met the pass grade (e.g. 40% for UG, some PGT set at 50%). For example, if the total marks for the paper is 100, set the passing threshold to 40 for a 40% pass rate.

Confirm

Instructions	Notes
Do a visual check on the Test overview
Add Graders from the contributors drop-down menu.	Graders can be added at a later point.  Optional: Planners may wish to add another planner to visually check the exam has been set up correctly.

If you cannot find the contributor you wish to add, please email inspera-support@bath.ac.uk.

Activate Test

Instructions

Notes

Activate according to department timings and prior to the date specified in the Academic Administration Calendar.

From the point it activated, the test will be visible to candidates. The test can be de-activated and re-activated if needed (when de-activated it is hidden from the students until reactivation). Once a question set has been attached to a Test then any subsequent edits of the question set will not appear in the test. If a question set is edited, the editor must inform Planners so they can update the Test. When the Planner views the Test, they will see a message asking to confirm if this new version should be applied. If you see this message without receiving an email please check with the Unit Convenor before accepting any changes, in case they were made in error.

Video guides

November 2024 Training Session

Watch the Administering Exams on Inspera (Planner Training Session) from Nov 2024 [36:04 duration].

Adding Graders to an exam

How to activate an exam

Refreshing a Question Set

Adding additional Planners to a Test

Allocating extra time for students

Note: Students on Open-24 exams do not get extra time.