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Audience Response Systems

What are Audience Response Systems?

Audience response systems (ARS) - or electronic voting systems - enable anonymous votes on a question with predefined answer options to be recorded by mobile devices or another voting device (clicker). The data is forwarded to a central recording system, evaluated and the result is displayed digitally and dynamically. AR systems can be used to enable more interactivity between teachers and students in courses (face-to-face or online).

Currently, three voting systems can be used at the University of Freiburg, which allow students to vote conveniently with their smartphone or, in some cases, with their tablet or laptop. All systems can also be used in hybrid scenarios.

Please note: Following the Evaluation Regulations (§7, section 2) - in german - of the University of Freiburg, an implementation and the associated evaluation of polls requires that at least 5 students/participants take part in the vote.

What can Audience Response Systems be used for?

Voting systems can be used in teaching to:

maintain students' attention during the lecture (questions to review or emphasize the learning objective).
activate knowledge at the beginning of a course (review questions or prior knowledge activation)
stimulate discussion among students
elicit students' opinions / attitudes
obtain feedback on the lecture
provide short knowledge tests for students (did they understand the key learning contents?)
conduct a vote among the participants

Which systems are available at the University of Freiburg?

There are currently three different tools available at the University of Freiburg for implementing live voting. Click on the respective accordion subject to read the short description of the respective system as well as to get information on how to access it:

ILIAS LiveVoting, integrated in the central learning platform

The ILIAS object "LiveVoting" is an ARS integrated in ILIAS. LiveVoting can be used within face-to-face courses to enable more interactivity between teachers and participants/students. In general, LiveVoting can be used to enable more interaction even in courses with a large number of participants (> 300 participants). The integration in ILIAS makes it possible to create LiveVoting directly when preparing the ILIAS course.

Access for teachers:

In each ILIAS course, a "LiveVoting" object can be created with any questions. The lecturer starts the vote directly in ILIAS. The students are shown a QR code or a short link via which they can participate anonymously without logging into the ILIAS course.

You can find more information on ILIAS-LiveVoting and a tutorial on how to use it here: ILIAS-LiveVoting.

The tool " SMILE: Smartphones in der Lehre (smartphones in teaching)", provided by the Department of Computer Science

SMILE offers the possibility to use the smartphone as a teaching tool. With the help of the quiz module, teachers get an overview of how well the lecture content was understood. Students, on the other hand, can provide feedback at any time, either via live feedback or via the "Question & Answer" module, without interrupting the flow of the lecture.

Access for teachers:
Teachers at the University of Friburg can log in via Shibboleth with their university account via the following page (in german):
https://www.smile.informatik.uni-freiburg.de/

Further information as well as tutorials on how to use the tool can also be found on the above mentioned website.

"eduVote", which you can use as part of a campus license with your official e-mail address (available: 2022-2024)

eduVote is an ARS that is integrated directly into PowerPoint via an add-in and is therefore easy to use. It is created directly when editing your own presentation. According to the provider, the number of participants in the survey is not limited and it has already been used successfully with more than 1000 participants - in this case, however, it is recommended to connect the teacher's computer to the Internet via a LAN connection.

Please note, that eduVote is an external provider. The University of Freiburg provides a campus license for teachers for the use of eduVote for 2022-2024 as part of the project 4D – 4 Dimensions of Digital and Didactic Development (in german).

Access for teachers:
Teachers register via the website www.eduvote.de by entering their official e-mail address. When registering, it is necessary to agree to the terms and conditions and the privacy policy.

All information on how to use the tool can be found here:
Step by step: From password to survey

Or in this PDF tutorial.

Note on data protection:

After reviewing the privacy policy and consulting with the provider of eduVote, there are no data protection concerns regarding the use of eduVote based on this information. It should be noted, however, that eduVote is an external provider and the university cannot influence the data processing. Teachers therefore decide for themselves whether they want to use the tool for their teaching. The use of the tool must always be voluntary, both for teachers and students. Please take this into account in your planning and inform students accordingly.
Information about the provider can be found at: https://www.eduvote.de/en
The privacy policy of eduVote can be found at: https://eduvote.de/en/impressum.html

Which voting system is suitable for my teaching project?

We have listed the different functionalities as well as advantages and disadvantages of the tools mentioned above in a table, so that you can decide which tool is best suited for your own didactic scenario based on the information provided. You can download the table here:

Audience Response Systems at a glance

Help and Support

If you have any questions about ILIAS, you can reach us ...

via our Forum, where you will find many already answered questions about ILIAS, and where you also have the possibility to ask questions yourself.
via the e-mail address ilias@rz.uni-freiburg.de.

In all other cases, please contact us via e-mail to elearning@rz.uni-freiburg.de.