What is happening?

OSU will transition to Poll Everywhere as our centrally-supported student response system (SRS) effective July 1, 2025.

What’s happening with Top Hat?

Top Hat will remain OSU’s centrally-supported SRS through spring term 2025. There will be no changes to the Top Hat-Canvas integration, student license cost, or how we support faculty with the tool during this time.

When will the changes take place?

In Winter 2025, faculty who are interested in early Poll Everywhere adoption can create a Poll Everywhere account using single sign-on (SSO). The Canvas integration will be implemented in Spring 2025; early-adopter faculty can create Poll Everywhere activities that count toward course grades and attendance. The Top Hat integration will be removed from Canvas prior to Fall 2025.

What will the impact be for students?

UIT Academic Technologies advised faculty at the beginning of F2024 to recommend students purchase one-year (or one-term) Top Hat licenses for AY 2024-25. The intent is to minimize purchases of four-year Top Hat licenses. 

UIT is centrally supporting the Poll Everywhere license for all OSU courses, There will be no cost for OSU students, faculty or staff to use Poll Everywhere. As with Top Hat, students will need a device that connects to WiFi or the internet. A mobile app is available for iOS and Android, but is not required.

How accessible is Poll Everywhere?

At this time Poll Everywhere meets most of the (WCAG) Version 2.1 standards, however there are a few Level A and Level AA standards that it meets partially.

  • Presenters (i.e., faculty) have more features available to create and format polling activities, which raises the bar to meet (WCAG) Version 2.1, Level AA
  • Poll Everywhere meets most of the accessibility standards for Participants (i.e. students) – Faculty will need to be prepared to provide alternative text to image-based questions.

How can I prepare for Poll Everywhere, and what resources will be available to me?

You can visit the Canvas article quick list and scroll down to the Poll Everywhere sections to see the available articles to you. You can also visit the UIT-Academic Technologies webinar and workshops page to review Poll everywhere webinars from Winter term 2025. Spring term webinars will be posted on this page as well. If you'd like to schedule an in-class visit, please fill out the request form. 

UIT Academic Technologies will continue to work with faculty who need help preparing for fall term 2025. 

Why Poll Everywhere?

Poll Everywhere met all of the high-priority functional requirements identified in the needs assessment noted above. The vendor’s competitive license cost was also a key selection criterion. UIT has purchased an enterprise license, meaning Poll Everywhere will be available for all courses at no cost to students or faculty.

96.3% of the faculty we surveyed in spring 2023 rated cost to students as Very Important or Important when selecting a student response system. With Poll Everywhere, out-of-pocket costs will be eliminated, supporting equitable access for all of our students. In addition, based on data from other universities, faculty are significantly more likely to adopt polling as an engagement strategy when student cost is not a barrier.

Will I be able to use Poll Everywhere to conduct polls at meetings, conferences, etc., that are not associated with a class?

Yes, anyone at OSU will be able launch a poll. OSU login will not be needed for participants to respond to the poll. More details will be shared about extracurricular polling as the project moves forward.

I have questions about Top Hat and/or Poll Everywhere – whom should I contact?

Please contact the OSU UIT Learning Platform Services team.