Guru Updates

As third-level institution systems move increasingly towards favouring SaaS solutions, we are seeing increased requirements for effective and comprehensive APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for data interfacing. Traditionally, a lot of this type of

One of the challenges we encountered in Guru was around access control and determining who has access to certain provided functionality. Typically, access would be determined primarily by the assignment of certain roles

Guru Version 1.x is deployed across a number of third level institutions and is processing thousands of examinations annually. It is stable, fast, secure, relatively bug free and well… it works! However, it’s

COVID-19 has caused considerable challenges for third-level institutions. Traditional assessments, where students sit physical examinations, are temporarily not possible. This means that institutions need to gather and quality review alternative mechanisms for assessment.

This post is simply to provide an update on a number of the features, updates and bug fixes we have recently added into Guru. As always, thanks for all the suggestions and reports

Institution staff can change regularly and this introduces some new challenges around access management and role allocation. Staff may change in their roles and it is common that staff will actively seek authorisation

We have just added a new facility to Guru Exam that will allow any user to easily combine PDF documents together. While the majority of academics use Word as their document format, there

Guru modules are continuously improved to ensure that interfaces remain user friendly, issues are resolved and numerous new enhancements are constantly introduced. The following is a short list of a number of the

When academics download examination paper templates in Guru, they choose a password to protect their documents on their local devices - but what makes a good password? We recently introduced a new password

We have just introduced exciting new collaboration functionality for academics who wish to collaborate together on examination documents. Previously, these collaborations took place outside of Guru using traditional communication and document sharing approaches.

This post is the first in our series of reasons why institutions are moving to Guru services. During our discussions with institutions, it has become very apparent that existing processes result in a

This post is simply to provide an update on a number of the features and fixes we have recently added into Guru. As always, thanks for all the suggestions and reports that help

The General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) harmonise data protection law in the EU and imposes new rules on organisations that offer services in the EU. The primary objective of the GDPR is to

We are pleased to announce another new feature for all users of Guru. Users are now able to access all service-related emails where they were a sender or receiver. This includes all emails

External examiner nomination forms are typically paper-based and subsequently involve unnecessary, manual data entry - Not any more! We are very happy to announce the new external examiner nomination service. This service digitalises

We are very happy to announce our new user notification system! While most tasks in Guru are user-driven and immediate, there are a number of tasks that involve the idea of ‘Notification’. For

Here is a brief list of a number of the features and fixes we have recently added into Guru. As always, thanks for all the suggestions and reports that help us to improve

We have now made significant improvements to the way that examination paper archives are generated! Examination office staff typically have a requirement to publish examination paper archives at particular times during the academic

External examiners typically have a role spanning three or four years. During this period, each external examiner is provided with an account for logging into Guru. For various reasons, the external examiner may

Every couple of months we compile a list of the smaller features and bugs addressed in Guru. Please keep your feedback coming so that we can find and fix any bugs and work

Easily upload Excel documents now in our latest release! This release provides the facility to upload alternative document formats, such as Excel. Previously we only accommodated PDF and Word formats as allowable formats.

We decided that rather than bombarding people with email updates, we would instead put together a blog showing the most recent updates to functionality in Guru. While, as usual, we will have embedded

This is a compiled post of a number of both smaller new features and bug fixes that we’ve recently added in to the code. Please keep feedback coming so that we can find

Introducing the new Module Assignment Tool! While the existing facilities for assigning modules and programmes to external examiners is still in place, there are times where it can be useful to have a

We have now added a facility to allow the self-management of Paper Requirements. These requirements are typically provided by invigilators during examinations based on the instructions provided by the lecturer on their examination

Guru has always been a dynamic system, with regular updates being pushed out to our customers. This creates a better experience for customers but it means that we occasionally need to patch servers

The Guru Application and website have just had a makeover with the application of our new Guru Logo. The idea with the new logo is that the hexagons represents the various modules we

Sometimes problems happen around documents and files - laptops get stolen, USB keys get lost, files get mistakenly deleted and so on. There can be scenarios where a document had previously been uploaded

We have made a few changes to the help system and a few user interface improvements. Examination Interface Legend Previously the legend explaining all of the paper statuses took up a lot of

Although we’ve been primarily based in English speaking regions, the issue around internationalisation comes up immediately due to the teaching of language modules. External examiners are now able to provide comments in a

Our previous emails were a little bit plain! While this wasn’t a major problem in itself, the bigger issue related to recipients performing the requested actions contained in these emails. Due to the

Ideally all processes in institutions wrap up nicely at the end of the academic year - in reality things are not always that simple! Previously Guru worked on the basis that there would