This is available for Authors with extended access.

The Essay special characters palette in Inspera Assessment is a configurable toolbar that provides candidates with access to specialized characters when answering an Essay question. 

This article explains what the palette is, details how to make, publish, and edit a custom palette, and provides instructions on how to add it to an Essay question.

What is an Essay special characters palette?

When candidates answer an Essay question, they have a special characters palette available on the toolbar. This function allows candidates to answer with a wide range of special characters, such as phonetic script, runes, or unique language characters. The purpose of this configurable palette is to enable institutions to customize the available symbols to the specific requirements of a question.

Creating and editing a palette is only available for Authors with extended access., however, all Authors can use the published palettes.

Instructions

• Create the custom palette

  1. First click the Author module, and select Essay Special Characters from the dropdown menu. 

     

  2. You can get started by creating a new palette by clicking the Create new button on the top right, or by copying an existing palette from the list.

  3. Give the palette a name on the top left. The name is required to publish the palette preset.

     

  4. Make sure to save. 

• Configure the custom palette

  • The configuration interface shows the preview of the palette on the left panel, while the configuration happens on the right panel. 

  • The code for the different symbols that are standard in the palette can be edited to remove or add symbols. The beginning of the code for default looks like this:

    

  • You can remove or add symbols and sequences.

  • We encourage you to play around and test, as you can always reset to default. 

    

  • Be careful with commas and brackets; too many or too few will not work.
  • You can add any special character you like. For example, phoetic script (ʣ, ɔ̜, ɛ...), runes (ᚠ, ᛀ, ᛝ...), and language characters (讠,钅,饣...).
  • We recommend that you test your palette before using it in a real test to make sure it works as intended.

• Publish the custom palette

  1. Once you are ready to publish the palette, click on Publish now at the top right of the page. 

     

  2. You will be presented with a review of the palette, where the name and configuration are validated. You will not be able to publish the palette if the configuration is not valid.
  3. When everything is green, you can publish the palette. It will then become available for all Authors.

Make changes to the palette

The palette cannot be edited while it is published. To unpublish, click on the button at the top right. Make the necessary changes and publish the palette when you are ready.

When the changes are published, the new version of the palette will be applied to all questions the palette is added to. Be careful with changes as they might impact tests that are already planned.

Add the palette to an essay question

This part is available for all Authors.

1. Create a new Essay question or edit an existing one to add the custom palette.

2. At the right panel, go to Advanced and click Select under Essay Special Characters. 

   

3. Preview the question to see what the palette will look like for the candidates.