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.

More than 90 people attended the morning webinar, which was kicked off by UNIwise Executive Directors Steffen Skovfoged and Rasmus Blok. Steffen reflected on the past six months and the challenges the pandemic posed to higher education institutions across Europe, such as proctoring and whether to try to replicate pen-and-paper exams. Rasmus then gave attendees a sneak peek at future plans for WISEflow.

Our first panellist was Jonas Debrulle, Head of Programmes at IÉSEG School of Management, who covered how a school-wide implementation of WISEflow was executed at IÉSEG in just one month. Attendees were on the edge of their seats as he described the process, with one attendee writing: This journey really feels like a white knuckle ride - my heart is racing!

Next up was Emma Stoakes, Exams and Assessment Manager & Digital Assessment Project Lead (Business School) at Imperial College London. Emma covered Imperial College Business School’s WISEflow journey, through COVID and beyond.

Our third speaker was Matthias Kollenda, Study Program Coordinator – Economics at University of Bayreuth, whose talk touched on how German privacy regulations affected the running of digital assessment during the pandemic. Matthias also presented data on why students chose to sit their exams digitally or in person, revealing some interesting reasoning – such as feeling calmer at home – behind students’ decisions.

Finally, Alice La Rooy, Head of Digital Education at Brunel University, covered how they dealt with the pandemic. Students were already familiar with WISEflow, having used it for formative assessment. Alice also touched on the WISEflow integration with Brunel’s library chat functionality, which allowed students to ask questions of the exam team from within the platform.

After lunch, delegates reconvened to attend our break-out sessions, which reflected the national user groups UNIwise would usually facilitate in person, allowing them to share knowledge and experience with fellow users of WISEflow.

Reflecting on the day, Steffen Skovfoged said: ‘The Insights event brought together customers from across Europe with a wide range of experiences using WISEflow. We’re really happy with how the day went: the talks were super interesting and engagement with them was really high. Feedback from attendees has also been good. UNIwise is always looking for ways to support, enable and connect our customers, so we’ll continue to take feedback and requests into consideration when planning our forthcoming events.’