Responding to crisis: 2020 in review

With 2020 finally behind us, we reflect on the year that was and look ahead to 2021, a year that will bring with it many exciting opportunities and challenges for UNIwise, WISEflow and its users. We promise not to the use the word unprecedented.

News from 2020

It’s no surprise that more exams than ever were conducted on WISEflow last year, with a record 2.5 million flows taking place in 2020. This is an increase of 42% on 2019, with a big jump in the number of FLOWmulti assessments – from 233,876 to 732,802 – and a rise in the number of FLOWassign assessments.

In Denmark, The School of Media and Journalism pioneered the automated proctoring solution in April when their applicants completed the first-ever fully online admission test from the comfort of their own homes using WISEflow. Despite the radically changed circumstances for the test, it turned out to be a great success.

We gained our first customers in France, Germany, Belgium, Austria and Malta in 2020. In France, IÉSEG School of Management implemented WISEflow in just three weeks! At WU Vienna, which used WISEflow to run entrance exams for students around the globe, University of Erfurt, which rolled out WISEflow to all 6,000 students from the start, and University of Bayreuth, implementation required customers to navigate rigorous data privacy laws in order to use the automated proctoring functionality. Interestingly, the University of Bayreuth conducted an evaluation of student experience after their exams, finding that many students opted to do an online exam not only because of COVID-19, but also for the other practical and emotional/cognitive benefits – such as being less stressed – that digital assessment affords.

In Norway, we expanded further north, with the University of Svalbard joining as a customer. We’re also working on a development project with UNIT, the Norwegian Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education & Research, to expand FLOWseries to allow final grades to be given on a set of subflows.

In the UK, we welcomed a number of new customers and grew our Manchester office from 4 to 10. Study Group, which partners with universities around the globe to prepare international students for degree-level study, used WISEflow to run an automated proctored distance exam, with more than 7,000 students from all over the world taking part in English language assessments. Over at the Open University, they’re getting ready for a huge rollout to all students in 2023, so we’re working closely with the good people there to get all the requisite preparation done.

WISEflow developments in 2020

With universities having no choice but to run Spring exams remotely, we introduced automated proctoring to WISEflow exams, allowing participants to be monitored through snapshots taken by their webcams. More than 400,000 assessments were sat using our remote proctoring functionality, making up 17% of all assessments run on the platform last year. To reflect the need for widespread remote exams and participants spanning time zones, we also introduced independently timed participation, allowing flows to have a duration rather than common start and end date.

2020 was the year we began our partnership with GeoGebra to provide a larger variety of geometry, graphing and mathematical question types. It was also the year in which WISEflow was integrated with Turnitin as an alternate plagiarism control.

Looking ahead

This year, we’ll be working hard to further develop WISEflow, and a lot of exciting improvements are already well underway.

In 2021, our Training & Consultancy team will be running a webinar series. In February, the session will be on rubrics. April’s session is on authoring and June’s session is on marking. You can sign up for these sessions here.

Finally, if vaccines go to plan, we’ll be hosting WISEcon in Manchester on the 6th and 7th of October this year.

WISEcon, the international user conference for our customers and partners, brings together people who are passionate about learning technology across all levels of higher education. This year, it will be held in Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum, where you will also be able to see the world’s first stored-program computer, known as the Manchester Baby.

We’re working hard to create a compelling programme for our guests, and you can sign up for updates here.