Below you will find all general product updates made available in Inspera in 2022. Please note that details on planned releases are added approximately 10 days ahead of the release and there might be changes running up until the release date.
For more insight into what the Inspera team is working on, please visit our public roadmap.
You can also subscribe to our monthly Release Notes by email by Registering Here.
Quick navigation:
- August release - planned August 5th, 2022
- July release - planned July 1st, 2022
- June release - released June 3rd, 2022
- May release - released May 6th, 2022
- April release - released April 1st, 2022
- March release - released March 4th, 2022
- February release - released February 4th, 2022
- January release - released January 7th, 2022
Coming: August release
Planned release date: August 5th, 2022.
Please note that what will be available after the release may change running up to the release date
Heads up 💡
Q3 2022 Release webinar
Our upcoming Q3 2022 release webinar will take place on Friday October 14th at 9am CET. We will walk you through the new features from the second quarter of 2022.
Register for the webinar here.
Planned in release
Improvement to Graphic Text Entry question type ✍🏼
The Graphic Text Entry question type is being improved to allow Authors to set the exact positioning of the interactions (answer boxes) on top of the background image, similar to what is supported in the Graphic Gap Match question type today. We are planning to further improve the Graphic Text Entry question type to also enable adding text on top of the background image; either in relation to the interaction so that the candidate answer box can form part of a sentence, or as stand alone `labels´. More information will come in upcoming release notes.
Note: Improvements to Graphic Text Entry were planned for the July release, but will be postponed to the August release.
Assessment path - first iteration (closed beta) 🎛️
After summer, we will present the first iteration of our solution to group multiple assessments together for one overall grade. Using assessment paths, you can for instance group together all the assessments planned for a course in a term or semester, weight the different assessments, and provide an overall grade to the candidate in the course.
Continued Rubrics development & housekeeping 💯
Team Marking will continue to expand and improve on the rubrics functionality. In August, we are aiming to introduce the option to provide feedback in the rubrics, more ranges for levels of performance (percentage and point ranges), and a qualitative rubric. During the summer we will also be working on general improvements for Marking 2.0.
Word count view in Marking for text based responses 💯
We are planning to add support for markers to view the word count on relevant question types in our Marking (2.0) tool.
Option to deactivate composite question type
We plan to add support for deactivating composite question type for those that do not want to use the question type in their account.
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July release
Planned release date: July 1st, 2022.
Please note that what will be available after the release may change running up to the release date.
Heads up 💡
Please note: Improvements to Graphic Text Entry were planned for the July release, but will be postponed to the August release to ensure no errors are introduced.
Feedback wanted on Marking improvements
We are currently assessing many improvement areas in Marking, and would love input on what you and relevant Marking users think about the existing solution and what you would like to see improve.
Please take some minutes and reply to this survey. Feel free to share the link with relevant users in your institution.
New in this release 🚀
Test setup (Deliver) 🎛️
Late submissions
This feature requires activation. Please contact the Service Desk to activate.
Late submissions can be used to allow candidates in a test to submit their responses after the primary submission deadline. The work submitted during this late submission period is flagged as being late and the submitted time and date are captured in Monitor. This information may be used by administrators to decide if a penalty should be applied against any marks awarded.
In some scenarios, candidates may require a different late submission window than the other candidates. This feature provides complete flexibility to plan the late submission window differently for one or more candidates in the test in such scenarios.
Note: The Late submissions feature will be officially released on 8th July with documentation to follow on the Help Center.
Marking 💯
Improvements to the Rubrics functionality
This release will primarily include improvements on the Rubrics functionality. After launching in closed beta in June we have steadily been ironing out some kinks and adding to the functionality. In this release, we have added ascending/descending ordering of performance levels, validation improvements, and using the rubrics to mark a question.
Rubrics is released in closed beta to ensure we gather enough feedback to ensure the solution works well for everyone and enabling us to release improvements also between releases for faster validation of the solution. If you are interested in trying out this feature, please reach out to us at morten.bergsten@inspera.com.
Marking with Rubrics from the main grading panel
Minor improvements in Marking
- Fixed: Graders able to edit explanations after they were submitted in Marking 2.0 and send a new explanation.
- Fixed: When using the Firefox browser, changes to the Explanation of grades were not saved if a user navigated to another candidate.
- Fixed: When selecting Download grading protocol as PDF, it presents error 500.
- Fixed: Bands and Criteria allowed the user to set a score greater than the max score achieved on the question.
- Fixed: Adding a quick mark would automatically trigger the creation of a duplicate quick mark
Account & User management
Fixed issue where a new (duplicate) user entity was getting created even when that user already existed in the system.
Integrations 🔌
New endpoint for File-download-request
We have created a new endpoint for all File-download-requests, and as we release this, we also deprecate the old ones in Swagger. This does not mean that the old endpoint stops working, it will still work - we just don't want our customers to not create new integrations against the older endpoints. The old endpoints have diverging responses back when you ask for status, and diverging (separate) callback-urls. The new endpoint makes sure this is uniformed across the different filedownload-api's we have.
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June release 🏳️🌈
Released: June 3rd, 2022
Heads up 💡
Q2 2022 Release webinar
Our upcoming Q2 2022 release webinar will take place on Friday June 17th at 9am CEST. We will walk you through the new features from the second quarter of 2022.
Register for the webinar here.
New in this release 🚀
Content production (Author) ✍🏼
Additional file extensions supported for attachments and uploaded files
Authors can now attach .twbx files to questions, and candidates can download them without the file extensions being erased. Candidates can also upload files with this extension, and Graders can download them without the file extensions being erased.
Minor improvements in Author 🐛
Fixed issue with Multiple Choice Questions that has images as alternatives not being saved when added to question sets and not being visible in preview or when re-opening the question set
Test setup (Deliver) 🎛️
Usage lists - first iteration (closed beta)
With Usage lists, Authors can see where and how different types of content have been used in various contexts. With the June release, Authors will be able to see the usage of any given Question in Question Sets
Later, we will add the option to see the usage of content also in assessments. For instance in what assessment a question set has been used.
This improvement requires activation and will be available in closed beta after the June release. If you are interested in trying out this feature when available, please reach out to us at nikhil.gupta@inspera.com.
Marking 💯
Assessment rubrics and rubrics template - first iteration (closed beta) 💯
In June, the first version of assessment rubrics will introduce the following functionality to support more control and efficiency in Marking:
- An assessment rubrics editor for creating and editing rubrics
- Assigning an assessment rubrics to a question
- Creating new assessment rubrics, and the option to save them as a template for reuse
- Creating assessment rubrics from a template
- Marking using assessment rubrics
- Displaying the assessment rubric to the candidate in the Candidate report
Rubrics will be released in closed beta and is subject to change.
In later iterations after summer, assessment level and other types of rubrics will be supported.
If you are interested in trying out this feature when available, please reach out to us at morten.bergsten@inspera.com
Minor improvements in Marking 🐛
- Fixed issue where candidates were unable to view their Candidate report if ‘Confirm each candidate individually’ was enabled, and the candidate grade was then confirmed before the test was finished grading.
- Fixed issue where a user with the Planner role was able to change the workflow setting from the Delivery module for unconfirmed committee when multiple committees were enabled ensuring that users are not allowed to change the workflow once a committee has confirmed grades.
- Fixed issue where the Candidate report was not available for the Grader after a candidate was moved to appeals.
- Fixed issue where the height of the PDF was cut when trying to ‘Print all questions for candidates’ in Marking 2.0.
- Added support for showing Turnitin similarity report for Microsoft Excel file type (Upload Assignment question type)
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May release 🌸
Released: May 6th, 2022.
Heads up 💡
Power state checks within Inspera Exam Portal (IEP)
On IEP versions 1.13.64 and higher, a new System check called Power state will be enabled by default. We recommend leaving this enabled to prevent CPU issues and IEP from lagging. To disable this configuration, please contact the Service Desk. Learn more.
Support for Inspera Exam Portal versions 1.13.49+
To ensure stability and less change work for those in the exam season, we will allow usage of IEP versions 1.13.49 and higher. We will continue to provide support for these older versions of IEP until July. Your Inspera contact will reach out with new version after exams are concluded. Learn more.
New in this release 🚀
These are the improvements made available in the May release:
Content production (Author) ✍🏼
Additional file extensions supported for attachments
Authors can now attach .sldprt, .sldasm, .m, .step, .mlx, .stl and .rds files to questions, and candidates can download them without the file extensions being erased.
Minor improvements
- We have resolved issue with a Document question type being created when adding test information to a test with template
- We have resolved an issue with new Math working stimulus getting a max score of 10 unless it is edited
Marking 💯
Nynorsk(Norwegian) language pack in Marking
Nynorsk is now offered as a language within Marking 2.0. Changes to the language can be found before login or within the User settings.
Rich text and image links in Candidate reports
We have added support for Rich text formatting and image links to be displayed correctly in Candidate report from annotations and page notes.
Minor improvements
- We fixed an issue with co-grader weighted result not being available during marking
- We fixed an issue with stimulus text area not being visible in Marking 2.0
- We fixed an issue with candidate report not being available for the grader when the candidate is moved to appeals
- We fixed an issue when candidates was moved to appeals and then the weighted results disappeared from the marking workspace
- We fixed an issue where co-graders could not see shared mark without first refreshing the page
- We fixed an issue where banded marks displayed incorrectly in the Candidate Report if the grading workflow changed from shared to private marking
- We fixed an issue with multiple choice question alternatives with latex not being visible in ‘Edit Answer Keys’
- We fixed an issue where blank alternatives displayed within Edit answer key correction in Marking 2.0
- We fixed an issue when marking is completed and the grade is automatically calculated, the alert to confirm the calculation of the grade was not triggered
Integrations 🔌
Improvements to LTI Integrations
- We have cleaned up the integration so that non-assessment related roles can no longer be created during the assessment launch as previously possible. Contributors to the assessment can still be added as normal.
- We have added support for LTI 1.3 with the same feature set as in LTI 1.1 and this is now being tested in closed beta test. We will give more the option to test and use LTI 1.3 as we are sure it is of the quality expected after testing.
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April release 🌱
Released: April 1st, 2022.
You can see the Q&A from the session here.
Heads up 💡
Q1 2022 Release webinar
Our upcoming Q1 2022 release webinar will take place on Thursday, April 7th at 1 p.m. We will walk you through the new features from the first quarter of 2022.
Register for the webinar here.
Future support for Safe Exam Browser (SEB) 3.1
A blocker issue was identified in SEB 3.0 for Mac. This means we will not be adding support for this version, and are waiting for SEB 3.1 for Mac to be released. We do not have a release date for this but will add support as soon as possible. As we are approaching the exam period, we will not enable SEB 3.1 default, but inform in the release notes when it is ready so that each institution can decide whether to enable it.
New minimum requirement for Inspera Exam Portal (IEP)
There has been a delay in the latest version. If you are on a version older than 1.13.60, you will receive the new version in April 2022. Please contact the Service Desk if you have not received version 1.13.60 or above by 6th May.
For more information on the different versions of IEP, visit our Help Center. Learn more
New in this release 🚀
These are the improvements made available in the April release. Please note if a new feature requires activation by the Service Desk on your account:
Content production (Author) ✍🏼
Improvements to candidate-selected question ✍🏼
This improvement requires activation. Please contact the Service Desk to enable on your account.
This feature allows candidates to select which questions on a test they wish to answer and we have made some key improvements to the functionality so that:
- Candidate decisions (Yes/No) are retained when returning to a test. (In the case of refreshing the page / logout/ crashed device/ new device/ new browser)
- When opening for resubmission, all questions are available so candidate can change their decision and the Invigilator can choose which version to submit on their behalf.
Please note that we want to avoid making any changes to the test experience directly so this improvement has to be enabled by the service desk.
We will keep this feature in beta as we will add some improvements to the texts and how the candidate select a question to ensure a great candidate experience before releasing fully. Learn more here.
Minor improvements 🐛
- We have fixed an issue with question prompts not being displayed for Upload Assignment question type.
Marking 💯
Minor improvements 🐛
- Updated threshold editor
- Improved: annotations user experience for PDF uploads solving issue with highlights not always behaving as expected.
- Improved: user experience when clicking option on reusable comment.
- Fixed: grades were calculated before marks were complete.
- Fixed: more than 2 decimals on Bands and Criteria displaying in some cases.
- Fixed: navigation bug where one would see the wrong candidate when opened in Marking.
- Fixed: a case where annotations were ordered incorrectly in the candidate report.
- Fixed: Dropdown for quick marks is now responsive (grader dropdown)
- Fixed: if not using a grade scale, candidates were presented as “Not graded”.
- Fixed: Edit answer key' action was not available on setMark feature from context menu
- Fixed: Download "Marks and grades as CSV" had a bug when appeal committee is used (grade incorrectly fetched from the original committee)
- Fixed: Bands and Criteria: Criteria were not shown while navigating between questions
- Fixed: When in Results and using dropdown to set grade the candidate response was not updated
- Fixed: Workflow actions not available for candidate level
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March release 🗻
Release date: March 4th, 2022
Heads up 💡
Q1 2022 Release webinar
Our upcoming Q1 2022 release webinar will take place on Thursday, April 7th at 1 p.m. We will walk you through the new features from the first quarter of 2022. Register for the webinar here.
New minimum requirements for Inspera Exam Portal (IEP)
There has been a delay in the latest version and the minimum version will not be changed in March as previously communicated.
If you are on a version older than 1.13.50, you will receive the new version in March 2022. Please contact your customer owner if you have not received version 1.13.50 or above by 1st April.
For more information on the different versions of IEP, visit our Help Center. Learn more.
Changed MacOS requirement for Inspera Exam Portal (IEP)
OS X 10.15 and higher is now required for Inspera Exam Portal and Smarter Proctoring
New in this release 🚀
These are the improvements made available in the March release. Please note if a new feature requires activation by the Service Desk on your account:
Content production (Author) ✍🏼
Bug fixed 🐛
Matching/Pairing question type: Fixed an issue where the question was displayed incorrectly when adding images and no text to columns/rows.
Test setup (Deliver) 🎛️
Group management with CSV
This feature requires activation. Please contact the Service Desk to enable on your account.
Within Deliver, we have added the option to create groups and assign candidates to groups by uploading a CSV file. This allows planners to quickly create and update multiple groups and group memberships on all the candidates on a test in one go. By allowing the import of CSV, the planners can reuse relevant group data from other systems. Learn more
Committee management with CSV
Note: Will be available March 11th. This feature requires activation. Please contact the Service Desk to enable on your account.
Within Deliver, we will add the option to create committees and assign candidates to committees. This allows planners to quickly create and update committees on a test in one go. By allowing the import of CSV, the planners can reuse relevant committee data from other systems.
Marking 💯
Add decimals to thresholds
To provide more flexibility in setting up thresholds on tests, we are adding the option to use decimals in the threshold editor. The number of decimals will be limited to two places.
Export Criteria and Marks
This feature requires activation. Please contact the Service Desk to enable on your account.
The traditional Marks export provides the score that candidates receive on each question. With the new Export Criteria and Marks, the score on each criteria will also be included in the exported excel file. This is available for questions with predefined rubrics (bands and criteria) or predefined criteria.
Integrations 🔌
LTI integration
- New custom-parameter “(custom_)use_template_on_create” will control when the template-parameter is applied. If this is set to true, the template will only be applied when creating the test.
- Implemented change on how system roles on admin users are handled in lti-launch, when LMS is master of user administration
- Upon launch the given/mapped roles will only apply to the privileges on the test, except if the user doesn’t have the given role, then this will also be added to the user - the same way as the API for adding contributors' work.
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February release ☃️
Released: February 4th, 2022
Heads up 💡
Delayed support for Safe Exam Browser (SEB) 3.0
We have identified an issue with SEB 3.0 for Mac and will not be adding support for it in this release. When SEB resolves this issue, we will add support. Until then, we will not be removing support for 2.1.4 and 2.3.2 for Mac in March, as was previously communicated.
Please also note that SEB 3.3.1 Windows is still under testing, and further updates on the new version will be provided in the coming release notes.
New minimum requirement for Inspera Exam Portal (IEP)
By this time, all customers should have received IEP version 1.13.00 or higher. However, because of security enhancements in version 1.13.50, we recommend that all customers use 1.13.50 as a minimum.
If you are on an older version, you will receive the latest version by 25th February 2022. Please contact your customer owner if you have not received version 1.13.50 or above by then. The minimum version will be set to 1.13.50 from March 4th.
For more information on the different versions of IEP, visit our Help Center. Learn more
New in this release 🚀
These are the improvements made available in the February release. Please note if a new feature requires activation by the Service Desk on your account:
Content production (Author) ✍🏼
- Support of additional file extensions - Authors can now attach .r, .rmd, .sib, .pbix, .ipynb, and.mpx files to questions, and candidates can download them without the file extensions being erased.
- Rich text enabled for all - Support for using Rich text in question prompts enabled for all
Image text: Here you can see the rich text features bold and underline used in the prompt field.
Test taking 💻
Bug fixes on Candidate selected question (in closed beta testing)
Fixed issue where questions were automatically selected when clicking through a test with Candidate Selected Questions setting.
Inspera Exam portal: Enable candidate to log out and back in without password
This feature requires activation. Please contact the Service Desk to enable on your account. Also requires version 1.13.47 or later.
If the invigilator password is left empty in Test settings (Deliver), the candidate can log out and back in without a having to enter a password.
Test setup (Deliver) 🎛️
Customise candidate post-submission review availability
If there is a need to control the time in which the submission can be reviewed by the candidate, a date can be set when the submission will be available for the candidate. Learn more
Image text: Here the candidate will be able to access their submission from (the beginning of) February 5th, 2022 until (the end of) February 6th, 2022.
Lock test settings (in beta)
This feature requires activation. Please contact the Service Desk to enable on your account.
In test settings, a user with Extended Access can now lock all settings on a test by clicking the lock icon in the upper right corner. This allows for full control if there for instance is a quality assurance process and a central test governance body wants to ensure no changes are made after a test has been reviewed before the test event takes place. Learn more.
Image text: Here, a user with extended access has just locked the test settings and an alert message appears.
Marking 💯
Total marks as final results
This feature requires activation. Please contact the Service Desk to enable on your account.
If there is a need to use a test's total marks as the final result instead of converting the marks into a grade, we have implemented support for Marks Only tests. This option can be enabled in test settings in Deliver. Learn more.
Image text: The option Do not use grade scale has been selected and the candidate will only receive the marks achieved without a conversion to grade on the test.
Other marking improvements
- If graders are only allowed to view and mark particular questions on tests with Question assignment enabled, they will no longer be able to see the plagiarism scores from unassigned questions.
- Improved readability of tables: The table feature's responsiveness has been improved, with improved text wrapping when the table width is resized.
Integrations 🔌
LTI integration
- Added support to pass class information from LMS to Inspera Assessment to “session ID” field by using the following customer parameters:
- “(custom_)session_id” = static session_id or substitution-variable
- “(custom_)session_id_field“ = pointer to any other field to fetch session_idfrom
New authentication token format in APIs
As announced in the January release notes, we have now implemented new JWT access tokens for APIs. Existing tokens will be valid until they expire.
Other improvements and bugfixes
- A bug in swagger documentation for /v1/test/{testId}/options has been corrected for the following: "generalOption" changed to "generalOptions". Change is not made to any code in the API and no changes are required for the customers using this option.
Added support for using “/” in test externalID when calling our APIs by setting parameter b64encodedExternalTestId = true when calling APIs
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January release 🐅
Released January 7th, 2022
Heads up💡
Downtime with release
Expect some downtime between Jan 7, 2022, 22:00 CET - Jan 8, 2022, 00:00 CET.
Within the maintenance window in January, we are making some changes to the infrastructure of Inspera Assessment that requires service wide downtime. To keep up with our system updates, visit the status page here.
Safe Exam Browser (SEB) version support
- February: add support for 3.0 Mac (found issues in testing that need fixing)
- February: add support 3.3.1 Windows
- March: remove support for Win 3.0.1, Mac 2.1.4 and 2.3.2. Please note that SEB will no longer be supported on Windows 7.
If there are any questions regarding the versions of SEB that will be supported, please contact the Service Desk for assistance.
SEB has ended support for Windows 7
This does not mean that SEB does not work with Windows 7, but that neither testing nor bug fixing is done for Windows 7. The background for removing this support is that Windows themselves ended support for this operation system in January 2020. Customers who want to use SEB with Windows 7 in the future should test the compatibility prior to their exam periods. This does not affect customers using IEP/ISP, where Windows 7 is still supported. System requirements can be found here.
New authentication token format in APIs in February release
New format for auth-tokens used in API’s. This is only relevant if you are currently persisting the access-token you receive when authenticating for API-use. We are changing from fixed-length tokens to JWT that will be longer and not have a predetermined length. Please adjust storage accordingly before the February release (Feb 4th). Please get in touch with us if you have any further questions or if your integrations won’t be able to support this change.
New entry point for Help Center in Swedish
To see Help Center articles in Swedish, you select Swedish at the bottom right corner of the help center main page.
New in this release 🚀
Update to Inspera Exam Portal (IEP)
We are updating all existing clients to Inspera Exam Portal version 1.13.x by January 7th. You will receive the new version through your customer contact.
Versions below 1.13 will not be supported past January 14th. If a candidate tries to login with an older version, they will receive a message asking them to update.
For more information on what changes have been made to each version of IEP, visit our Help Center.
Support for languages in audio and image alternatives in MCQ and MRQ enabled for all
Available for Authors: We have previously added support for alternating between different languages within the audio and image alternatives for Multiple Choice and Multiple Response questions. This has now been enabled for all.
Full release of Candidate report
Available for Planners/Graders: You may fully rely on the Candidate report to distribute results to candidates now that the feature is complete. The following components have been added this release:
- Result: Displays the candidate’s final grade
- Submission: View and download the candidate submission
- Explanation of grades: View received explanation of grades
Results/submissions/grade explanations will appear in both the Candidate dashboard and the Candidate report if the Candidate report is enabled; however, if Marking 2.0 is enabled, we recommend users to send candidates to the Candidate report for the entire scope of results. Learn more here.
Other minor improvements
Authoring:
- Authoring bands and criteria with decimals: improved and more intuitive way of using keyboard to set numbers for max marks per criteria and band.
Candidate experience:
- Fixed issue with Math Working answer box exceeding the page in PDF print view.
- Fixed issue with progress bar clearing when the test page is refreshed.
- With the exception of Windows Narrator, an issue with screen readers not reading the progress bar correctly has been resolved.
- Pause and resume: Extra time is rounded to the nearest second and not the minute.
- Fixed issue with submissions not being available for graders: In some edge cases, candidate submissions have not been available in the UI due to issues with candidates having multiple sessions open at the same time. Old sessions will now be invalidated and issues should not appear anymore.
Marking:
- The annotation panel has been updated to a newer version.
- We are now hiding irrelevant workspaces when certain features are not enabled on the account/tenant. If Appeals or Explanation is not enabled, for example, the "Appeals" or “Explanations” workspace will be hidden.
- During marking, a "Show all" mode has been added to allow markers to see all bands and criteria for a question:
Integrations:
Ladok integration:
- Added support for setting template from which tests will be created in Inspera Assessment.
LTI integration:
- Added functionality to turn grading function on after test has been created in Inspera Assessment and grades will still be passed back:
-
- For Moodle and Canvas: it is now possible to turn result passback feature on LTI tool after test has been created in Inspera
- For BlackBoard: it is now possible to turn “enable evaluation” on after test has been created in Inspera
- Important note: grade passback/evaluation function has to be turned on in LMS - and activated via a launch-link, before candidates start logging to Inspera to take the test.
-
Bug fixes:
- Fixed a bug where it was not possible to remove room/building from candidate users even when empty values were passed in API payload. New parameters added to remove those. “removeRoomName” and “removeBuildingName”
For developers
API:
- The field "SourceTemplateId" is changed to have effect until the test is activated, and can now be used to change to another template than used when creating the test. Or simply apply a template to an existing test created without one.
- Added support on all asynchronous API endpoints to set custom expiry-time on the pre-signed URLs
- Added parameter “expiryPeriod” on API, with default value of 3600 seconds (one hour) . Allowed values will be 300 - 86400 (5 minutes to 24 hours)
- Swagger documentation is updated on all endpoints where it is possible to send this parameter as part of API call