On 8 June UNIwise had the pleasure of attending a workshop, at the JISC offices in central London, that speculated on future scenarios of assessment.

Rasmus talks about why he supports the promotion of the D-Seal, how it can support the EU’s objectives, and why UNIwise wants to encourage a discussion on European standards in light of the AI Act.

UNIwise is happy to announce that Kurt Gammelgaard Nielsen will shortly step into the role of our new Director of Development and Maintenance.

The digitisation of German society, industry and education has been an ongoing discussion, with the pandemic highlighting areas for development, such as digital public services. During the crisis, funding of 100 million euros was provided for the rapid development of infrastructure and the expansion of digital education. However, there is also a wariness of digital economies.

Imperial College Business School ran a pilot project in 2016 and expanded to 70+ exams with 1600 students in 2020. What follows is an account of the WISEflow project at ICBS by Emma Stoakes, Exams and Assessment Manager & Digital Assessment Project Lead (Business School).

UNIwise is happy to announce that we have achieved the D-seal certification for IT security and data ethics. The D-seal is an internationally renowned Danish labelling program which promotes the responsible use of data.

Our Campfire Session on 2 March, titled ‘Proctoring: Panacea or Problem?’, gave some interesting insights into the use of remote invigilation services, and the issues it can cause for students and institutions alike. 

“WISEflow has a lot of features. One of them is the fact that you can view the students' progress as they are doing their examination. This makes monitoring easier than that of VLE exams.”

In 2021, more exams were conducted on WISEflow than ever before, with an increase of 54% compared to 2020. From high levels of growth across Germany to the continued rise of proctored examinations, we reflect on a challenging year that was a testament to the ongoing importance of digital assessment in the European higher education sector.

“We need to be able to deliver a broader spread of assessment types and do so more flexibly. The days of a seven-year apprenticeship culminating in a single test with a hammer and piece of metal are long gone.”

The next WISEcon will now be taking place on 13 & 14 September 2022 in Manchester.

“One of the best features in WISEflow is the ability to automate the assessment process for certain question types, such as for multiple choice questions.  Not only that, but it also offers a multitude of statistics on how the students performed, enabling the examiner to determine, for instance, if there were any problematic questions in the exam.”

Following the postponement of WISEcon to March 2022, registration for the event is now open. It will take place at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester on the 23rd and 24th of March next year.

UNIwise has opened an office in Hamburg to better enable us to support our growing roster of German customers. Over the past 18 months, we’ve grown substantially in Germany, and our success in the country has prompted us to start building a local office and team, who will be based in Kallmorgen Tower in Hamburg. 

The next WISEcon will now be taking place on 23 & 24 March 2022 in Manchester. We had hoped to run the conference in October of this year, but restrictions on travel have proven to be prohibitive for the majority of would-be attendees. As such, we’ve taken the decision to postpone the conference until March of next year.

“This online platform has already opened for me extensive opportunities, such as the use of video and audio clips in MCQs. Also, the system enabled me to adapt the in-class tests and exams for a student with visual impairment. The reliability, flexibility and security of the system is second to none.”

The programme for WISEcon21, which takes place in Manchester, UK on 6 & 7 October 2021, is now live. Confirmed speakers include: Bendik Samuelsen, Provost - Academic Programmes Staff at the Norwegian Business School, Derfel Owen, Director of Education Services and Transformation at UCL, and Torsten Eymann, Vice President for Digitalization and Innovation at the University of Bayreuth.

“Because we’re an arts- and media-based institution, we have a lot of physical items – things like sculptures, paintings, prints of photographs, sketchbooks – so it’s the pairing of the digital and the physical that’s important for us.”

UCL has chosen to work with UNIwise to deliver its new university-wide digital assessment strategy in a new multi-year partnership.

“I was relatively new in the job when coronavirus hit us: March was one of my first months. March is also when we were hit by a lockdown. We had exams coming up in May. Not doing the exams was never an option.” Jonas Debrulle, Head of Programmes.