Since posting the last blog in June 2020, the DRS project team has been busy upgrading Inspire with enhancements, bug fixes and new functions that make Inspire more user friendly and inclusive of more functions in the HDR process. So, whilst we have not posted an update regarding Inspire for a while, it does not mean that the work has stopped.

August 2020 brought a significant change, where external examiners are finally exposed to Inspire. External examiners are now able to log in to Inspire, download HDR theses, grade them and upload the examiners reports. These new processes and functions complement the previously released Nomination of Examiners and Thesis Submission functionality.

Our business partners in the Office of Graduate Research, the HDR Exams team, will advise external examiners on how to log into Inspire and complete the necessary steps and to finally upload their examiners report in Inspire. And whilst HDR students and their supervisors will not notice anything different, the HDR Exams team will notify them when both examiner reports have been received and approved.

We will continue to support the HDR Exams Team during the transition period and to explore new enhancements and process improvements.

In addition, SkillsForge updated their core product in July 2020 with the version called “Arnica”. General users of Inspire will not see any big changes due to this upgrade, however administrators benefit from these changes by having greater control of users’ accounts.