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What is an Essay special characters palette?
When candidates answer an Essay question in Inspera Assessment, they have a special characters palette available the toolbar:
With this function, the student gets the opportunity to answer with any special characters.
The purpose of the configurable palette is to enable institutions to customize the palette to the specific requirements in the question. The custom palette is then applied to a particular essay question.
Permissions
Creating and editing palette is only available for Authors with extended access. The option will be available in the Author drop down menu.
All authors can use the published palettes.
Make a special characters palette
Setup
Get started by creating a new palette, or by copying an existing one from the list.
Give the palette preset a name at the top left. The name is required to publish the palette preset. Make sure to save with the floppy symbol.
Configuration - preview and design
The left panel will show the preview of the palette, while the configuration will happen in 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.
We encourage you to play around and test, because you can always reset to default (up to the right). Be careful of commas and brackets, too many or too few will not work.
Note: Make sure to test your palette before using it in a real test.
What can be added to the toolbar
You can add any special character you like. E.g phonetic script (ʣ, ɔ̜, ɛ...), runes (ᚠ, ᛀ, ᛝ...),language character (讠,钅,饣...)
Publishing the palette
Once you are ready to publish the palette, all you have to do is to click on Publish now at the top right of the page.
You will be presented with a review of the palette, where name, and configuration are validated. You will not be able to publish the palette if the configuration is not valid.
When everything is green, you can publish the palette. It will then become available for all authors.
Making 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.
Note: 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.
Adding the palette to an essay question
This part is available for all authors.
Create a new question or edit an existing one to add the custom palette. At the right panel, go to Advanced and click Select under Essay Special Characters.
Preview the question to see what the palette will look like for the candidates.