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Top Hat: Staff Guides

Top Hat: Staff Guides

Top Hat is the University’s institutional mobile voting solution. The tool has two distinct uses: active learning and assessment delivery. It is accessed through a web browser or iOS/Android app and is compatible with screen readers.

If you are looking for specific guidance on how to use Top Hat, don't forget you can search this site. You may also find the A to Z of Top Hat guides on this site helpful.

Getting Started

Using Top Hat for Active Learning

Creating self-paced asynchronous interactive content

Present synchronous content to an in-room audience (on campus)

Creating and presenting a poll or quiz

This link will take you to Top Hat's support site.

Embedding videos into Questions or Discussions

This link will take you to Top Hat's support site.

Create Discussions

Ask students subjective and interpretive questions. This link will take you to Top Hat's support site.

Types of content that can be created in Top Hat

A brief description of each type of content you can build or upload into your Top Hat course.

Using the Top Hat Presentation Tool

Avoid showing your students your Top Hat browser window when screen sharing by using the presentation tool to present content.

Using Top Hat for Assessments

An overview of the assessment environments available in Top Hat

Set up an online time limited assessment (OTLA)

FAQ's for Staff using Top Hat for Online Time Limited Assessments

Set up a monitored (on-campus) test that prohibits certain behaviour

Getting help to set up your test through the concierge service

Top Hat staff offer a service to help populate your Top Hat Course with your content (e.g. MCQ questions).

What question types are available in Top Hat?

Arranging External Examiner Access

Quality Assurance have advised that external examiners must have a Leeds IT account before they can be given access to submissions and any other University systems (e.g. Minerva).

See, Leeds IT accounts for external examiners for guidance on how this can be arranged.

Academic Integrity Summary required for all summative assessments

An Academic Integrity summary needs to be added to the description field in Minerva on all links to summative assessments regardless of the tool being used to deliver the assessment.

See the Academic Integrity Summary guide for guidance on how to add this and the text you need to include.

Learning Insights, Grades and Marking

Overview of the Top Hat Gradebook

What the Top Hat Weekly Course Report shows

Sync marks from Top Hat to the Minerva Grade Centre

Marking Long Answer Questions in Top Hat

General Topics

I used Top Hat last year, do I have to create a new course this year?

How do I create a new Top Hat course?

How do I remove a student from a Top Hat course?

Other ways to use Top Hat - Guest Courses

Using Top Hat with users who don't have a University log-in

How to participate in a Top Hat session as a guest

Guidance that can be shared with guest participants to help them join your Top Hat Guest Course.

Need help finding a guide? The A to Z of Top Hat guides lists all the Top Hat guides currently available on this site. You can also search this site to find answers to your questions.