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.

Join us at WISEcon21 on 6 & 7 October 2021 in Manchester! WISEcon21, a two-day event hosted and curated by UNIwise, brings together people who are passionate about learning technology across all levels of higher education, from the Exams Office to the Pro Vice Chancellor’s office, to share their knowledge and experience.

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.

With the 2020/2021 academic year now firmly upon us, and as a second wave of coronavirus infections sends many countries back into some form of lockdown, we take a look at how the pandemic affected digital assessment over the past six months.

The inaugural WISEflow Insights event – our new take on user groups that responds to the need for digital opportunities to share knowledge and experience in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic – took place last week, featuring talks from new and long-standing customers and national break-out sessions.

In its latest ‘Step Up’ report, Jisc has given UK institutions the go ahead to work with UNIwise, praising the WISEflow assessment platform as having “the capabilities for implementation at multiple institutions”.

The use of facial recognition technology combined with the COVID-19 pandemic has led to a widespread debate within the education community as to what extent surveillance and privacy invasion is reasonable in order for universities to carry out their obligation to ensure fair and credible assessment of students.