Polls/Question subsystem?

[Adam Mooz]

Hey Guys,

I've been lurking for a bit.  I have an idea, not sure if it's been discussed yet or not.  Actually this came from watching my girlfriend attend a free online seminar for the LSAT.  The prof would be explaining things and then stop and ask a question, and each student would respond.  After everyone's responded a box would pop up to show statistics of who chose what answer, and there was some feedback available to her as to whether she was right or not.  This kind of functionality, if it's not already implemented, would be fantastic for the profs.  Again...please excuse my ignorance if this has already been put in place.

If it has'nt then there are two functionalities I can see being good for the prof:

1)  A set of questions the prof can upload to the server when they join.  The format would be a simple CSV:

<Question Title>,<Right Answer #>,<Answer index 0>,<Answer Index 1>, ... , <Answer Index N>

2) The ability to quickly generate a question on the fly.

Again, if this isn't already implemented or there are still GSoC positions open, I can see huge potential for a question or poll based subsystem:

- Timed Questions

- With a more complex data storage type (XML) reasons for right/wrong answers could be good

- Ability for the presentor to pause a presented video until everyone's answered

- Post-mortem feedback for the prof

- Visual feedback connected client list

- Modal mode for the questions for immediate answers.

Some more ideas, but to keep this short I'll stop here.

When the prof schedules the conference they could pre-select the subsystem to load so it loads for everyone when they start, or dynamically ask the subsystem to load in the conference, causing it to load up on each client.  In any case they have the option to upload the CSV when they enable the subsystem which opens up another window for their screen only.  On this question screen is the questions, in order, a button to pose them.  After they've been posed the "pose" button will turn into a "view results" button and a "save as" button enables.  Pressing the "Save as" will save the question csv along with the results for each question in a new column.  

Using the CSV format makes it easy for profs to create questions by hand using notepad, excel, or a slew of other CSV-generating options.  

Again, if this has already been suggested or is being implemented as you read this, my apologies.  Also, don't take this as the 'it has to be done this way', there are an infinite number of ways to do this...these are just what my tired mind came up with.  

P.S. by subsystem I mean module.  

Time for sleep,

-----------------------------------------------------------------

Adam Mooz
Adam...@gmail.com
http://www.AdamMooz.com

[Jeremy Thomerson]

There have been a couple threads on the list where ones have talked about a voting / polling module.  It is definitely something we need in the BBB ecosystem.  

I think that making the professor (moderator) upload a file in a certain format (even as simple as CSV is) will be a maintenance / support problem.  It will need to be a very simple interface that allows them to add questions.  Optionally, perhaps we can allow them to save / export this as a file that could be used again later (or the savvy user could modify and reupload).  Probably an XML file would be best for this, but other things are possible.

Anyway, you should definitely put in a proposal for this.  Perhaps some simple mockups (this makes it easy: http://www.balsamiq.com/products/mockups) would be helpful.

Best regards,

Jeremy Thomerson

[Maciej Sawicki]

On Fri, Apr 2, 2010 at 06:43, Adam Mooz <adam...@gmail.com> wrote:
(...) This kind of functionality, if it's not already implemented,

> would be fantastic for the profs.

Hi,
Voting/polls/questions module was also my idea, but I would prefer
doing VNC or Twitter module. However I thought I'd share some random
thoughts abut this idea.

I think main option for crating polls in BBB client should be wizard.
For importing/exporting pools from client csv is probably better then
XML (easier to edit, easier to understood). There should be option for
create poll by copy/paste csv data instead of uploading file.

There should be API for creating pools and store answers. That would
be useful for creating test (for example integration with moodle), but
also for getting feedback about lecture.

It would be live charts that would be summarizing votes in real time
(for example like/don't like question and two animated bars).

regards,
Maciej Sawicki