In long form assignments, the answer must be written directly in Inspera's text tool. In addition to text, you can insert bullet points, tables, equations and drawings in the answer.
Example of a long form assignment
The toolbar
The long form assignment has a toolbar that includes the following functionality.
(1) Temporary backup (snapshot)
Temporary backup (snapshot) lets you go back to a previous version of what you have written. The backups are created as long as you are in the assignment and typing in the same question. A new temporary backup is created every 15 minutes and stored in the browser's memory. This means that:
- It works both online and offline.
- You can navigate between the questions without resetting the temporary backups.
- The backups, which are temporarily stored, are only available while you are in the same session. If you log out of Inspera, the temporary backups will be deleted.
Note that Inspera saves whatever you type every 15 seconds. This is not the same as this feature.
(2) Insert special characters
Click Insert Special Characters to open a dialogue box where you can choose which character you want to insert.
(3) Tables
Insert a table
Clicking the Table button brings up the Table Properties window where you can insert tables.
- Here you can select the number of rows and columns.
- Here you can insert headers in the table. Headers can be inserted in the first row, first column, or both.
- Here you can determine the thickness of the table frame. If you set the value to 0, the table frame does not appear.
- Here you can choose whether to have a caption for the table. It will appear above the table.
- Here you can specify the width of the table. When you enter a number in the text box, you specify the width in pixels. You can also use devices such as %, in, cm, mm, em, ex, pt or pc.
Change a table
The table can be changed after it is created by right-clicking on the table. You will then get a menu where you can edit the entire table, insert multiple rows and columns, and edit at the cell level. You may want to add cell size under Cell Properties so that you have full control over your table.
(4) Insert a drawing
Draw freehand drawings in a long form assignment using the mouse, or your finger / stylus if you have a touch screen.
- In the drawing tool you can draw freely, create different shapes, use eraser and insert text.
- Choose thickness. Here you can choose the thickness of the pencil or / and the frames on a figure.
- Set colours:
- Stroke: colour of the frame around shapes.
- Fill: colour the shapes.
- Bg: background colour of the canvas.
To insert the drawing into the text box, click Save and close. You can continue to draw or edit your drawing by clicking on the drawing and then the drawing icon.
(5) Edit equations
By pressing the Edit Equation button, you can insert equations into long form assignments. Note that there are three tabs in the equation editor.
Basic
Chemistry
Advanced
(6) Full screen view
Press the expand button to enlarge the text editor to full screen, giving you a bigger picture to work with. The text editor will then fill most of your screen and the question text will no longer be visible. To see the question text again, press the expand button again to return to normal view.
(7) Spell checker
The spell checker is only available if the faculty has activated it on the test you are taking.
You can tap a word with a red underline to get suggested spellings for the word.
Pressing the spell check button gives you three choices.
1 Disable: Disables the spell checker. Press again to activate the spell checker again.
2 Settings: See dialogue box for settings below.
3 Proofread in dialog: See dialogue box for spell checker below.
Dialogue box for settings
Default language selection is auto detect. You can manually change to another language / dictionary by pressing the arrow.
You have four choices of words the spell checker should ignore. The selections can be checked on and off. Orange button = the selection is activated
Spell checker dialogue box
This is a separate dialogue box that goes through your entire text and provides one or more suggestions for changing the spelling of the words it thinks you have misspelled.
Change spelling: Click on the word you want to use to change it.
Ignore all: The spell checker ignores all instances of this word in your text
Add word: Tap the icon to the right of Ignore all to register the word as spelled correctly. If you type the same word again, the spell checker will not mark it.
Navigation: You can navigate to the previous or next word the spell checker has marked by pressing the arrows at the bottom right.
Word count
You can find the word count at the bottom right of the long form assignment window.
Maximum number of words
In some cases, you may be asked not to write more than a certain number of words. The restriction is then displayed as <number of words written> / <maximum allowed words>. Example - Words: 66/200.
In the example, the limit is set to 200 words and you have typed 66.
When the maximum limit is reached, the indicator turns red and you are not allowed to type more words. Example - Words: 200/200.