About
Frequently asked Questions regarding TopHat for instructors.
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How do Professors create an Account and Course?
- Go to www.tophat.com, and click Signup.
- Click Educator.
- Type your K-State email address, click Next Step and it should select Kansas State University automatically.
When creating a professor account for the first time you will also have to create your first course. You can create as many courses as you like, so naming the first one “practice course” or “sandbox” is a great idea, as you start to learn how to use Top Hat.
If you already have an account, but would like to create a new course, go to the main page for your account and click Create a course.
For more information, see Top Hat's Knowledge Base.
Is there information Professors can put on their syllabus?
Yes. See the Professor: Syllabus Information knowledge base article. You will see some standard language that you can use for your syllabus. Make sure to include the specific URL or Join Code for your Top Hat course. You can also include a link to the Student: Quick Start Guide.
How do Professors add a TA or Co-instructor?
You can add multiple TAs or co-instructors to your course. Your TA or co-instructor will need to visit tophat.com and create a professor account, and then you can invite them to your course via your course setting (the gear icon, in the top right hand corner of the screen).
Notes:
- You’ll need to invite them using the same email they used when creating their professor account.
- Co-instructors and TAs have the same access that you do to your course, including making, editing questions, accessing and adjusting student grades.
For more information, see Top Hat’s Knowledge Base.
How do Professors make Questions / what kinds of Questions are available?
Each question starts with a default value of 1 point that you can adjust per question (0.5 correctness + 0.5 participation) or by setting a new default for your course as a whole. There are six basic questions types that you can create and it’s best to visit success.tophat.com and use the app’s live chat for specific questions. Follow these best practices:
- Use folders to group questions and lectures together. This will make reading your Gradebook and grading itself much easier.
- Every question type can be used as a “polling” question, free of correctness points and even without a correct answer set.
- All questions can be adjusted after they’ve been created and used in class, if necessary, in case grades need to be adjusted, a student missed an item, or you’d like to add alternative answers.
How do Professors take attendance?
Attendance can be taken as often as you like. You can start a lecture presentation with Attendance when presenting slides to the class, or choose “Quick Attendance” by clicking the Create button.
Note: Top Hat has a new “secure attendance” feature, which uses a combination of geo-location and proximity detection to determine which students are actually in class.
How do Professors Present with Top Hat?
Top Hat has two presentation methods: uploaded PowerPoint or PDF files directly to your course, or using a desktop application call the Presentation Tool, which you can download from your course lobby under “Tools & Apps”.
- If you use Apple Keynote, export your file as a PDF and retain “Slide builds” for the best experience.
- If you use simple animations like bullet points appearing one at a time, then uploading files to Top Hat is best.
- If you use more complicated animations, or present with many different kinds of media in your class, then the Presentation Tool is best.
Notes:
- You cannot build any questions in the Presentation Tool. Building questions should still be done in your account on tophat.com.
- The Presentation Tool will float on your screen and work seamlessly with any presentation style; however, there are some features (e.g. presenting as a “quiz”) that are only available in the web, and not via the desktop application.
How do Professors synch with Canvas?
Grades and Rosters can be synched with Canvas as often as you like or exported to an Excel sheet for further analysis.
- Here is more information about connecting your course to Canvas, synching your roster, and sending grades.
- For exporting to excel, we recommend using the Advanced Export options, as they allow you to pull out multiple items at once, including Attendance results and all students answers (and not simply cumulative grades).
How do Professors use the Top Hat Gradebook
Top Hat’s Gradebook collects all information about student responses, as they submit them. It updates live, so students will know exactly what grade they are getting for the Top Hat portions of your course.
- The Gradebook will reflect the folder structure of your course content. A structure like: Week 1 / Lecture 1, Week 2 / Lecture 1, and so on, is the best way to organize your content for reading the Gradebook.
- All grades can be adjusted by professors and co-instructors.
- All information is visible to you for the class as a whole and for individual students.
- Professors can leave a note about excused absences in the Attendance tab.
How do Professors assign content?
Content can be assigned three ways. You can select a single or multiple items at once, and then assign them in one of the following ways:
- Live in class by clicking “Present” (also known as Presentation mode).
- For graded homework via the Assign dropdown menu.
- You can set a schedule for when homework can be accessed, and even assign to individual students.
- For review, after assignments are complete, via the Assign dropdown menu.
- The Review status lets students see the right answer, practice answers, and will not be graded. You can even add “hints & explanations” to your questions for this purpose.
What are Pages and Pages content?
Pages is a Top Hat module that professors use to build interactive homework content. You can combine text, videos, questions, discussions, images, and the like, to build a truly unique assignment for your course. Professors interested in flipping the classroom, or creating more innovative and interactive classroom materials should use Pages in their Top Hat course.
- You can copy/paste from other words processors to Pages but some formatting will be lost.
- Use the “special elements” menu (Blue button with a Plus sign) to import or create material into Pages.
- Pages cannot be assigned live in class, only for homework outside of class (this is to ensure the Wifi in the lecture hall isn’t overloaded).
Note: Professors can use Pages to embed a video within a Slideshow, if they like. Pages is flexible and you can do quite a bit with it.
Students are having connectivity issues, what can I do?
Students should address all connectivity issues to support@tophat.com, and not their professor. To avoid connectivity issues, students should only connect one device at a time to the network in the classroom, and refrain from downloading or updating the app in class. Finally, if a students can submit answers via SMS text messages if they are having difficulty connecting to the WiFi in the room.
- Please review Top Hat’s documentation on connectivity options and solutions (Top Hat - Connectivity Options – FACULTY).
- There are several variables that can affect the WiFi data usage in a classroom. The key factors are:
- Number of students.
- How they connect their devices to Top Hat (WiFi or Cell).
- Which device they have (iOS, Android, Laptop, Tablet, etc).
- How long the faculty presentation is – how many slides, how many images, how many questions.
- Top Hat tested the platform’s data usage with a small number of uses and the below measurements reflect the download (to the device) of that test:
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Small Presentation (6 slides)
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Large Presentation (64 slides)
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Question with image
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Again, all connectivity issues should be reported to support@tophat.com.
General Recommendations:
- Web: Access Top Hat on an updated version of Google Chrome or Firefox.
- Mobile: Make sure you have the latest version of the Top Hat iOS or Android app downloaded.
Top Hat support is available Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. - 8 p.m. (CST) at support@tophat.com or 1-888-663-5491