easyVoter

easyVoter was developed to allow tutors to quickly and easily create interactive voting systems without the requirement of any handheld devices or third party software. It has not been designed to replace or compete with any current commercial product, but can be used as an alternative where resources are in short supply or as an aid to evaluate more accurately how voting/polling systems may be used in a given institution.

The system is designed to be led by an instructor who controls the pace of the delivery, entirely as a voting system would be used in a training environment. This slightly goes against the ethos of a VLE where information is delivered more in a "whenever, wherever" basis, but delivering the system via Moodle offers certain benefits. These include, no student lists or registration of voters is required, Moodle skills are completely transferable to easyVoter, there is no financial outlay on handset voting technology, because as long as there is adequate computer access, the users keyboard becomes the input device.

The requirements are Moodle 1.9+, PHP5+ and an internet device for each participant (computer, wifi laptop, or any other device capable of connecting to the internet and displaying the delivered page correctly). No registration setup or student lists are required as the system uses the enrolled users list within moodle. Minimal additional training is needed to create the questions as it uses the standard Moodle HTML GUI for slide creation.

Please note that I do not have access to a vast number of server and platform configurations to run large scale technical evaluations but there should be no server/database specific coding present that should restrict usage.

easyVoter has been designed with all best intentions to be a Moodle standards compliant Module and will install as any other mod will in Moodle. Simply place the easyVoter folder into moodle mod folder then logging in as admin go to the notification page to install.

Please note that the system is AJAX based with a heartbeat checking for responses and slide advances by default every 5 seconds. Depending on the spec of your server you may need to tweak the server load. This can be done from the moodle module administration settings where refresh rates, session timeouts and the maximum number of participants can be set. But the system has been designed to run with a minimum amount of data transfers as possible and smart database usage so hopefully tweaking shouldn't be required.

For those who use custom roles, there is one role option in the Moodle roles system for easyVoter and that is the Allowed to present (mod/easyvoter:present) capability. By default teachers are allowed to present/run the presentation, all others are not.

As always, with any module, please test this on a development server before deciding to make it live, as Solihull College will not accept any responsiblity for any damage or loss of data caused by the usage of this system. The module is offered freely to the Moodle community. Questions or suggestions will be responded to where possible and time permitting.

learninglab@solihull.ac.uk
(Please put 'easyVoter' somewhere in the subject to avoid emails being deleted as spam)

Hopefully the system will be of some use to you even if that is just for evaluation purposes.

easyVoter was developed specifically for the requirements we have here at Solihull College. Initial acceptance and usage of the system has been very good, so for the foreseeable future, and while a development position exists, easyVoter will be updated and maintained to accommodate Moodle upgrades and technical snagging.

Download - How To Guide PDF

Latest Version - Last Updated 07/06/10
Download - easyVoter Zip File (Version: 2010060700)

Tested on Moodle 1.9.x (Apache 2+, MSSQL 5+ & PHP 5+)

Previous Version - Last Updated 30/06/09
Download - easyVoter Zip File (Version: 2009063000)

Tested on Moodle 1.9.x (Apache 2+, MSSQL 5+ & PHP 5+)

Q: Can I check who has signed in before starting?
A: On the first slide (Information Slide) on starting the presentation simply click on the "Response View" option. This will then display the total signed in users and a list of all students logged in, if anonymous results was selected it will display the students by number (the number is assigned randomly) or their full name if not.

Q: Can the student log out of the system during the presentation?
A: Yes, but if this accidentally happens, the student can simply log back into the currently displayed slide where they will be able to continue from that point. Also the instructor has the option to return to a slide they have missed to capture their responses.

Q: Where are the results stored?
A: Results are stored in a CSV file in the results area. The actual location is in the course moddata folder (files/moddata/easyvoter).

Q: Can the voting system be accidentally used by two teachers on a course?
A: No, once a specific instance of easyVoter is being run, only the instructor/teacher who has started the presentation will be able to present the slides. All other teachers on the same course will be locked out to prevent confusion. Access will be released when the easyVoter instance is completed, closed or it has been abandoned for the timeout period, default 20mins.

Q: I have a class of 30 students but only want 10 of them using the system, can I do this?
A: Yes, you can set the maximum number of participants on each easyVoter instance, any participants who have not already accessed that particular easyVoter before the limit is reached will be blocked from participating.

Q: If the max limit is reached and the student accidentally logs out, will it block them from returning?
A: No, the system will recognise that they are one of the users already participating and let them back in.

Q: Can the slides be accessed independently by the student?
A: No the system must be instructor led. easyVoter was designed this way specifically. Questions can be exported in CSV format or copied and pasted directly into Moodle pages if revision is required.

Q: The results CSV has strange charcters in it when opened in Excel, is there something wrong?
A: You will find this may happen when using special characters (£,€) or other language charcters. The character encoding of the CSV file is the same as the character encoding of the Moodle database, this should be UTF-8 for multi-language support. CSV files in spreadsheet programs generally don't open in this format.

In Office 2007
1. Simply open a new Excel file
2. click on the "Data" menu tab
3. choose "From Text" and select the saved CSV file
4. The character format should be detected as UTF-8
5. Click next and make sure only comma is ticked as the delimiter then click finish
6. Choose whether you want it in the existsing or new wooksheet.
7. The text should now be displayed correctly.

openOffice will give you similar options as steps 4 & 5 when the file is opened.

Import / Export (Download CSV) has no file extention (Fixed in version 2010060700)
Some browsers have problems recognising the spaces in the exported filename. The exported CSV filename is now formatted to be alphanumeric and to only contain the underscore and hyphen characters.

Currently none listed

You are here

easyVoter