It is possible to determine if a student is physically located within the classroom for attendance purposes with Top Hat, but it is not possible to completely prevent students from responding to questions asked in class with Top Hat.  However, Top Hat does have two features that will help to minimize students' ability to respond remotely.

Method 1: Secure Attendance

Top Hat offers a feature called Secure Attendance which enables a faculty member to determine who is physically located in the classroom when using the Attendance feature of Top Hat. Faculty have the option of using geolocation only or geolocation and proximity to determine student attendance. Secure Attendance does NOT prevent students from responding remotely to questions asked in class.

Method 2: Minimize Remote Responses to Questions

To minimize the ability of students to respond remotely to questions asked in the classroom, faculty can enable the option to prevent students from seeing question details on their mobile devices. To enable this feature:

  • From within Top Hat, click your name in the top right corner.
  • Select Course Settings 
  • Select Advanced Options
  • Check the box next to the option "Students cannot view the details of a presented question, they can only see the response options (students will need to see the question projected on a screen)"
  • Click Save Changes