Wooclap
Wooclap is the University's new, centrally supported electronic voting system for in-class polling and asynchronous activities
A new centrally supported, in-class electronic voting system is being made available at the University to replace Top Hat. Wooclap was the clear winner among four evaluated systems in a recent procurement exercise and will be the only centrally supported voting system from academic year 2023-24 onwards.
Why Change?
We have a legal duty to check the market to ensure that any tool we use is fit for purpose and value for money. In addition, while Top Hat has been popular in some areas, it was seen by many as overly complicated and cumbersome. Top Hat as a platform has been evolving over time and moving away from a simple voting tool to a more complete learning platform and was no longer the best fit for a significant number of users at Edinburgh.
- The introduction of Wooclap will bring a more user friendly interface and presenters will have more control over their events:
- You can choose from three levels of participant access: anonymous; self-identified; logged in.
- There is no need for students to create accounts to join and participate in an event.
- Participants access a Wooclap event via a QR code or a customisable short URL.
- There are 15 question types to choose from.
- You can share events with colleagues or collaborate on a single event.
Availability and Access
The service implementation team are working to integrate Wooclap with Learn and Moodle. Both are in the final stages of testing with release to users expected within the next month. However, Wooclap is available to use as a standalone tool now and is available to everyone with a University account. Details on how to sign into the system are detailed on our help site.
Training
Three training sessions are on offer and begin from the start of June 2023.
Wooclap Orientation (1 hour – offered weekly until October):
This session is aimed at experienced users of Top Hat/Mentimeter and is intended to quickly get you up to speed on creating and presenting events in Wooclap. NOTE: This session is no longer being offered. Slides highlighting the topics covered, with notes, are available from the Digital Skills Documents Catalogue: Wooclap Orientation. Bespoke sessions can be run locally on request to IS Helpline. A set of videos covering the same content are available on our SharePoint site: Wooclap Orientation Videos
Introduction to Wooclap (1.5 hour – offered monthly and then bi-weekly in August and September):
This session is aimed at novice users of voting systems and will give some background on using voting systems in general as well as Wooclap in particular.
In-Class Polling for Student Interaction and Engagement (1 hour – offered monthly):
This session is aimed at any user of voting systems looking to develop their use beyond the use of multiple choice questions and knowledge checking. It will include some techniques that can be used to encourage peer and class discussion.
In addition, we are happy to arrange local in-person sessions for Schools, programmes, or courses. Let us know via IS Helpline if you would like to arrange a session locally.
Migration of Content
Migration of content has now closed. Access to Top Hat will be removed for staff at Edinburgh.
Support
We have created an initial set of support materials to get you started with Wooclap. These can be found on our SharePoint pages. These articles will be added to as use of Wooclap develops at the University.