Create a Question (Instructor)

• Go to the Q&A website.
  Email Anne Rose for the url.
• Go to the Administration Interface.
  Click the "Login w/ Google Account" link to login, and then click the Admin button. The Administration Interface allows instructors to create new questions, edit existing questions, view question results, etc.
  
• Create a question.
  Enter a short title and the question text, choose a student authentication option, and then click the "Create new question" button. A list of all your questions appears at the bottom of the Adminstration Interface, with the most recent questions on top.
• Share the question url with the class.
  Select the question by clicking the question title, if not already selected. In the "Selected question" area, click the "Show start page" link to display a page that shows the question url. Click the Admin button on the top right of the page to return to the Administration Interface. Another option is to ask the class to go to the Q&A home page and enter the question code, which is the 5 digit numeric code shown to the right of the question title. If the question requires Google authentication, students will be prompted to login.
• Give basic instructions to the class.
  
  • Instruct students to enter a couple responses to the question, and click the "Submit Response" button after each. Remember that the more responses submitted the longer the categorization will take. In general, we recommend 1-2 responses per student. Responses should contain a single idea, be as specific as possible (general responses are harder to categorize), and be no more than 125 characters.
  • Instruct students to click the "Continue" button when they are done entering their responses. They will automatically be assigned categorization tasks to perform such as suggesting categories and matching categories to responses.
  • When the categorization is complete, the students will see a page showing all the responses grouped into categories.
• Monitor the progress.
  Select the question in the Administration Interface by clicking the question title. The percentage of the categorization that has been completed will be shown. When it reaches 100%, the results will be generated automatically and displayed to the class.
  
  If the categorization is taking too long or appears to be stuck, you can force the results to be generated by clicking the "Generate Categories" button. Click the "View results" link to view the results.
  

Submit and Categorize Responses (Student)

• Go to the question url provided by the instructor.
  You may be asked to login with a Google account. If you are successful, you should see a form to submit responses.
  
• Submit responses.
  Enter one response at a time and click the "Submit Response" button after each. A response should contain a single idea, be as specific as possible (general responses are hard to categorize), and contain no more than 125 characters. Click the "Continue" button when you are finished entering responses.
• Help categorize the class responses.
  You will automatically be assigned categorization tasks to complete. The tasks may include suggesting categories and matching categories to responses. Instructions will be provided for each task. When the categorization is complete, the question results will be displayed.
  
  Suggest categories

  
  Select best category

  
  Match categories to response

Review Results (Instructor and Students)

• View the results.
  The results page should automatically be displayed to students when the categorization is complete. Instructors can navigate to the results page by selecting the question on the Administration Interface and clicking the "View results" link. Categories can be expanded and collapsed by clicking on the category name. Clicking the "Collapse all" link gives an overview of the categories used. By default, responses are only shown in one category. If you wish to show responses in all their categories, uncheck the "Show response in one category" checkbox.
  
• Flag responses to discuss.
  Click the discuss icons for any responses you wish to discuss (the small speech bubble icon before each response). The number of people who flag a response to discuss is displayed below the icon. Click the "Show discuss only" checkbox to only display responses that have been flagged for discussion.
  

Notes

• Q&A supports a maximum of 100 students. It may perform slower with large numbers of students.
• Q&A works best on laptops. It works on smart phones and tablets but it not optimized for these devices so data entry will be slower.
• Q&A allows some students to be entering responses while others are working on the categorization. This means that some students may end up waiting at the end if other students are still entering responses.
• Assigning new categorization jobs may be slow sometimes. If you think the system is stuck, you can try refreshing the page.
• When discussing the results as a group, it helps to have the results projected in the room.
• Good categorization is not easy. Overly general categories may contain most of the responses which is not very helpful. Questions that encourage more specific responses may help in suggesting useful categories that are not too general.