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Presenters in BigBlueButton are able to initiate polls throughout the live session; users can reply when prompted and contribute to the poll.
As a presenter you can use polling to engage students, perform test/exam reviews or pop quizzes, or use polling informally to collect information about your users.
- To start a poll
- Polling verbally
- Using a custom poll
- Using smart slides
By default, the first Moderator to enter the BigBlueButton session is allocated the presenter role capabilities; if you are a viewer you will need to request presenter status from the moderator.
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When a user has the presenter role, the presenter icon will appear over their avatar in the users list.
Starting a Poll
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Select the Actions menu [1] in the lower left hand corner of the presentation window, then Start a poll [2].
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The polling menu will open with several options. Use the Quick or Custom Poll [5] options to initiate a poll.
As users respond to the poll, the results are visible to the presenter in the polling menu.
BigBlueButton displays the polling results in two ways: Anonymized results [1] and Individual user responses [3].
The anonymized results can be Published [2] to the presentation area.
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Once published, response options will no longer be available to users. Results will publish to the bottom right hand corner of the screen; published results appear as annotations and will be viewable in the recording playback.
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Select " to minimize the polling menu or "X" [2] to close.
To continue with another poll select Back to polling options [3] .
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When minimized, the polling menu will appear under messages and above the users list. Select to reopen/continue polling.
Quick Polling
The most basic form of polling is a Quick Poll where the presenter asks the intended polling question verbally.
Quick polls are a great way to obtain "Yes/no" information or pose questions on the fly during the live session.
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Once the question has been asked you can then select the appropriate response from the list of quick polling options.
Custom Polling
A presenter has the option of creating a custom poll while in a live session to input specific polling options that are not listed in the quick polling list.
The presenter would still ask the intended polling question verbally.
Custom polling is a great way to ask more specific questions or provide more tailored response options.
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Select the Custom Poll [1] option from the polling menu.
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Enter up to five custom response options into the Input Fields [2], then select Start Custom Poll [3] to initiate.
Smart Slides
Smart slides enable a presenter to prepare a polling slide deck in advance or include polling questions in their regular content.
With smart slides, BigBlueButton detects when a question is being posed and provides a quick polling option to the presenter.
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To create smart slides, ensure you are using the the format: "question" followed by "reply options".
We recommend using the following reply options for best results:
- True/False
- Yes/No
- Multiple Choice
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When questions and reply options are displayed, the BigBlueButton detects the intended poll and provides the presenter with a Quick Polling button [1].
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Select the quick polling button to initiate the poll without navigating through the action menu or using the polling menu.