Customer Story
"Inspera’s comprehensive features and robust infrastructure allow us to provide consistent, high-quality digital assessments for our students."
Lisette Montgomerie, Manager, Assessment Services.
Lisette authored this customer story for Inspera.
The University of Auckland (UoA) is New Zealand’s highest-ranked, largest, and pre-eminent research-led university, committed to delivering world-class education and assessment experiences for its students. As part of its digital transformation strategy, UoA sought a robust and scalable digital assessment platform to enhance exam delivery, improve operational efficiency, and ensure equitable access to assessments for all students. Inspera was chosen to support this transformation.
UoA is committed to a long-term strategic plan that emphasises digitisation, sustainability, and a digital-first approach to enhance academic processes. As part of this vision, the university has been progressively increasing the use of digital assessments, improving efficiency, consistency, reducing paper consumption and providing accessible and equitable assessment experiences for all students.
With Inspera, UoA aimed to:
– Provide secure, invigilated digital tests and exams including using Inspera’s locked-down environment on both University computers and student-owned devices.
– Offer multiple modes of assessment to align with discipline needs, assessment design, and course objectives, including in-person on-campus and remote options.
– Support remotely invigilated exams through Inspera Integrity Browser, providing academic integrity monitoring and recording beyond campus.
– Ensure efficiency was gained through auto-marking of some question types, similarity reports, and grade pass-back through our learning management system, Canvas.
– Ensure an accessible and inclusive exam experience, accommodating diverse student needs.
– Expand digital assessment options to include scanned handwritten responses, diagrams, and complex calculations.
– Increase the University’s capacity to conduct digital exams while ensuring a great student experience remains a priority.
After evaluating various platforms, UoA selected Inspera as its preferred digital assessment solution due to its flexibility, scalability, security, and ability to integrate seamlessly with the university’s existing systems. The implementation was carried out in a phased approach, ensuring staff and students were well-supported throughout the transition.
Why Inspera?
– Comprehensive digital exam environment – supports a variety of assessment formats
– Seamless system integration – works with existing learning and student management systems
– Built-in accessibility tools – provides equitable assess for all students
– Robust integrity tools – includes secure monitoring, lockdown and invigilated options
– Operational efficiency – reduces the burden of paper handling and manual exam administration.
The transition to Inspera was guided by close collaboration between UoA’s assessment team, IT services, professional and academic staff in faculties and project team. The university engaged in extensive training, communication and change management initiatives to ensure smooth adoption across students and staff. Notable milestones included:
– Pilot programs to test new functionality, consult and gather feedback
– Regular drop-in online training sessions for staff in combination with personalised one-on-one sessions as needed
– Nominated academic staff in each faculty nominated as ‘Inspera Champions’ to provide localised support to staff
– In-person drop-in sessions for students in collaboration with IT Student Hubs
– Dedicated support for students to familiarise themselves with the new system through outbound call and email campaigns, in collaboration with the Student Experience Centre.
Since adopting Inspera, UoA has significantly expanded its digital assessment offering. With 693,011 submissions from 80,689 unique users, the university has demonstrated the scalability and effectiveness of digital exams. As UoA continues its digital-first approach, it aims to further increase digital assessment capacity while maintaining flexibility to suit diverse academic needs.
UoA continues to evolve its digital assessment capabilities, with a focus on:
– Leveraging analytics to drive assessment insights and improvements
– Expanding the use of digital exams across additional disciplines and question types
– Strengthening academic integrity measures through secure assessment environments, lockdown and monitoring solutions
– Further enhancing accessibility and support features for students
With Inspera as a key partner, UoA remains committed to delivering high-quality, equitable, and efficient digital assessments at scale.
