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What can the new Poll widget be used for?

In line with OpenLearning’s learner-centric philosophy, the new Poll widget can be leveraged by administrators to crowdsource opinions, preferences and proposals. The end goal is to promote knowledge sharing, self-expression, and potential content curation as desired by the course audience. 

Some example usages of the tool within a community of learners:

• At the end of a semester-based course, learners have the freedom of proposing topics that they want to study in the next semester. Each participant can suggest a number of topics, but since the course can’t cover everything, priority would be given to the top 5 in the order of votes.
• In a course on Feminism or Women’s rights, participants in a session need to figure out what unites them as women and use the ideas gathered as the basis for a later essay.
• In a course on Graphic design, participants in a session need to come up with a logo for a company. Several ideas are being discussed, but they proceed to use the one that gathers the most votes from the group.
• In a course on workplace harassment (or other such sensitive topics), participants in a session have to discuss some of the more relevant types of abuse. Participants might be prompted to share any personal experiences and they may prefer to do so anonymously with the Poll widget.
• Inspired by High Resolves: Learners use a group chat to discuss life choices they would make as a family (housing, food, etc.), based on given specific constraints (e.g. number of points available, which could translate into some sort of currency). They then deploy a poll for the family members to express their preferences for specific resources.

Summary of the mechanism of working:

1. Administrator(s) sets up a poll with the topic of discussion. 
2. They can provide options to poll on and let learners provide inputs and/or their own options.
3. Alternatively, they can leave it up to the learners to come up with ideas (as options) which other learners can vote upon.
4. Multiple configuration options are available to the poll author to customise aspects such as:
   • Anonymising poll results;
   • The ability for voters to vote on multiple options;
   • The ability of voters to enter their own options.

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How do I add a Poll widget to a course page?

Step 1

Go to the page in your course where you'd like to add this widget.

Step 2

Select Edit mode.

Step 3

In the lefthand widget menu, select Core and scroll down to the Interactive prompts section.

Step 4

Click on the Poll widget icon to add it to the page. (or you can hold and drag it wherever you'd like on the page).

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How do I set up the Poll widget?

After adding the widget to your page, you can set it up by following the instructions below:     

1. Click on the Poll Setup tab at the top of the widget.
2. Edit the widget settings.

 

Add new poll: Click here to begin configuring a new poll. Clicking this will prompt new options to appear. There are basic and advanced options available.

Basic

1. Poll question (mandatory): What is the topic of the poll?
2. Description (optional): A brief description/explanation of the subject matter. Alternatively, in the case of more advanced configurations, this field can be used to inform poll-takers on the number of options they can vote on, the number of options they can add to the poll, and so on.

   

      
3. Poll options (minimum of 2): for the learners to vote on. This is optional if the poll author provides learners with the ability to add their own options. The author may reorder the options as desired.

Advanced options:

The administrator(s) also have the ability to enable and configure if they want to allow learners/participants to:

• Add new options to the poll: If enabled, the administrator can also configure:
  • Limit the number of options each learner/participant can add;
  • Limit the Total number of options all learners may cumulatively add.
• Select multiple options: If enabled, the administrators can limit the number of options an individual learner/participant can vote on.
• View poll results before voting: Allow participants view the results of the poll without or before casting a vote.
• Change their vote: Allow participants to change their vote after they have cast it.
• Vote anonymously: Allow participants to cast their vote without revealing their identity.

Metadata:

The administrator is able to provide this poll configuration with a name with which to save for later re-purposing. 

The Poll name field will be pre-filled with the poll question text; however, the course administrator is free to edit/change it. This information is required in order to Save and Insert a poll and will show up in the "Manage existing polls" table (accessed via the Poll Setup tab, as described below). 

 

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How to reuse polls once configured

The administrator has the ability to reuse/re-purpose polls they have created before. This is enabled via the Manage existing polls section in the Poll Setup section. 

The table lists all the polls that the administrator(s) have previously configured and deployed.*  

*Note: The option to Reuse Polls is still a Work In Progress, eventually the existing polls table listing will evolve to show all configurations that were made in the current course, and not just the configurations made by the current course administrator.  

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The poll author has the ability to:

Deploy an existing poll on a different page (as is)

Changes made to the poll configuration will be applicable to all deployments (The pages where the same Poll widget has been Inserted, will have the same exact configuration). 

All user-generated content associated with an existing poll will be carried on - e.g. user-added options, voting results, and voter information.

Step 1

Go to your preferred course page. 

Step 2

Follow the step(s) outlined in 'How do I add a Poll widget to a course page?'

Step 3

Click on the Poll Setup tab, and find the existing Poll you wish to add from the Manage existing polls table. 

Step 4

Click the Insert button under Actions beside your selected Poll name. 

 

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Reconfigure an existing poll for redeployment

Step 1

Go to the Poll Setup tab.

Step 2

Click on View Existing Polls.

Step 3

Click Insert next to the existing poll you would like to use again.

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Apply changes to an existing poll

This will allow the administrators to make changes to the configuration to all previously deployed polls that use this configuration. 

Step 1

Go to any Poll widget on any course page.

Step 2

Click on the Poll Setup tab.

Step 3

Under the "Manage existing polls" table, Click on a Poll name or
Click on the 3 dot icon and then click on Edit under Actions.

Step 4

Make your desired changes to the poll configuration.

Step 5

Tick Apply changes to existing poll and then click on Save and Replace.

 

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Create a new poll

This will create a new copy of the poll configuration and changes made to this configuration will not affect the original deployment.

Step 1

Go to any Poll widget on any course page.

Step 2

Click on the Poll Setup tab.

Step 3

Under the "Manage existing polls" table, Click on a Poll name or
Click on the 3 dot icon and then click on Edit under Actions.

Step 4

Make your desired changes to the poll configuration.

Step 5

Tick Create new poll in the bottom section of the poll settings. Make sure to also give this new poll a new name, so that you can differentiate it from the other existing polls. 

 

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What is the learner view of my configured Poll widget?

The course learners will have access to:

• Poll question
• Any poll options that are configured by the poll author
• Vote on at least one option
  Note: A round button appears beside each option if the learner can only vote on one.

 

• If a learner encounters a poll without any preset options; that means the administrator encourages them to add their own option(s).

 

Learners will have more options if configured by the poll author to allow:

Vote on more than one option

• Determined by round vs a square.

Round button: 

  

Square button:

View the results of the poll without voting on it first

•  Enabled by a View Results button. 

Learners/Participants can add their own option(s) to the Poll

• Up to a set maximum limit preset by the poll author. 
•  Learners can choose to later delete provided no other learner has voted for that option.
• Enabled by an Add option button. This button is not available to the learner if the individual or cumulative option limit is reached. 

 

Vote on the poll anonymously

• Enabled by a Check this box to vote anonymously checkbox. 

 

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Completion settings

Completing activities on a page is how learners make progress and receive their certificates or complete the course. 

As the administrator, you can modify how each widget tracks this progress. 

To do this, click on the Completion Settings tab on the widget and choose one of the following options: 

No completion tracking: This activity will not count towards overall course progress.

Completed when viewed: This widget will count as completed as soon as the Learner views it.

Completed when the learner has voted on the poll: This activity will be marked complete once the learner has put in their vote in the widget.