Using TurningPoint during the 2020-21 Academic Year
In previous years, many colleagues have used TurningPoint Desktop through its Powerpoint add-in as a polling tool in lecture theatres. With the move to blended learning, existing users of TurningPoint may prefer to continue to use the TurningPoint Desktop version, while colleagues who are new to using TurningPoint may find the added simplicity of Web Polling makes it the best approach for them.
Your TurningPoint account/General FAQs
Yes. Log into TurningPoint, click ‘Get started’ and follow the instructions to either create an account or log in with your University of Bath username and password (you may be asked to do this twice). Click on the download icon on the top right of your screen. Choose the download appropriate for your machine. We suggest the TurningPoint Desktop application for full functionality, but TurningPoint Web polling may be simpler for new users. Please note for Mac users planning to use Powerpoint polling, the TurningPoint Desktop app has stopped working in Mac and users should instead install the TurningPoint Web version. Powerpoint polls created using the TurningPoint web app are compatible with running polls on Turning Point desktop in GTA rooms (except Wordcloud). Due to the way TurningPoint licences work, some staff users may have the ability to create polls but not run them. If you are a new user: Contact the AV department to request a TurningPoint licence. If you are an existing user: If you have used TurningPoint since September 2020 to run polls then you are likely to already have an account. If you have used TurningPoint before but not for over a year: Your subscription may have expired. If you are unsure whether you have a full instructor account, contact AV and they will be able to tell you. Alternatively, check by logging onto https://instructor.turningtechnologies.com with your University of Bath email address and password. Click on the ‘person’ icon in the top right hand corner of the screen. Then click ‘Profile.’ Check the expiry date of your subscription. If it has expired then contact AV for this to be renewed. A final way to check if your subscription is up to date is to create an anonymous poll. Test it by opening http://go.bath.ac.uk/tpv in a private browser window and answer the questions as if you are a participant. If you cannot answer the questions then you do not have a full instructor account and need to contact AV for an upgrade.
TurningPoint Web polling
To log in to TurningPoint web click here. Next, click on the ‘Get Started’ button. Then login with your University of Bath email address. To create a TurningPoint Web poll, you will first need to click on the green ‘Create Course’ button to create course for your poll to reside in. Then enter a name for your course and click ‘Create’. (You may want to choose a name that reflects one of your Moodle courses). To begin editing your Web poll, locate your new course and click ‘Select’ Now click on the green ‘Create Content’ button, as shown below, then enter a name for your Web poll and click ‘Create’. Inside the Web poll, you can now choose from a range of content creation options via the ‘Create’ dropdown menu. Choose your question type, then enter the question text and answer options. remembering to indicate the correct answer(s). You can also configure options for points, allow multiple answers, anonymous responses, and to allow participant comments in scheduled sessions. Once you have finished creating questions you can ‘Start’ or ‘Schedule’ a poll via the buttons in the top right-hand corner of the Web Polling interface. To run your Web Poll, click on the blue ‘Start’ button in top right hand corner. You will now be asked to configure your Live Web Polling options (shown below). These options allow you to specify a Session ID (this needs to be communicated to student participants so that they can respond), to choose whether to show results toon-screen live for
To download results, login to TurningPoint online, then click on the relevant Course. Now click on the Results tab: The results of the poll will be displayed on-screen, and can be downloaded in Excel format via the Export option:
Open the TurningPoint Web App and login with your University username and password. Open the Powerpoint file you would like to add Web Poll to, and click on the New button on the TurningPoint Web toolbar and choose from the questions options. Now enter your question, answer options, and choose your desired question options. Don’t forget to choose the correct answer(s). When you have finished adding your questions, save your Powerpoint as normal. To run your TP Web Powerpoint poll, open the TurningPoint Web app and login, then open your Powerpoint file. Select Connect from the TurningPoint toolbar as shown below, then select a Session ID and choose your linked course: You can now click Start, then begin your Powerpoint slideshow. When you reach a polling question, the polling information will appear in the top right-hand corner of your screen: Once you are happy with the number of responses received, click on the red Stop button to close polling Once you have polled all your questions, end your slideshow as usual, then close TurningPoint Web. When you click Finish, TurningPoint Web will automatically save polling data for the session. You can download results by clicking on the Results button on the TurningPoint toolbar, then choosing the course that you wish to download session results from. TurningPoint will open your web browser allowing you to download results online as described above. 
Any recent polls that you have run will be displayed. Click on Reports:
TurningPoint desktop version (PowerPoint polling)
Open the TurningPoint desktop application from the start menu. The simplest way to do this is to click on the Start Icon and in the search bar type “Turning.” You may be asked to log in twice. Please ensure that you enter your university email address here as username@bath.ac.uk, and not as formalname@bath.ac.uk You will then be forwarded to the University of Bath Single Sign-On screen. Enter your University of Bath username and password. If this is the first time you’ve signed in, you may get an email with a link you’ll need to click on to activate the account. You may be asked to remember your credentials – if you have logged into the presenting PC using your username and password, select YES. You can do this within the session options. Untick the box that says ‘Enable participant accounts.’ It is good practise to reset your session each time you use TurningPoint so that you do not carry over any data from a previous session. To do this, click ‘reset’ in the TurningPoint tab within a PowerPoint and choose whether to reset a whole session or a selected slide. Once you have inputted your question and answers, in the right hand side select ‘Scoring options’ and indicate the correct answer. In this case it is option B. In the TurningPoint tab click ‘Objects’ then ‘Correct answer indicator.’ You have a choice of several – for this example I have used a checkmark. The checkmark will appear when you are running your live polling once polling closes for each question (i.e. when all of the answers are in and you click to move on to the next slide). A correct answer indicator is very useful if you have a lot of answers to memorise! You could test it on colleagues by asking them to download the TurningPoint app (from the App store or Google Play) or log into http://go.bath.ac.uk/tpv Similarly, you could use a private browsing window or another of your own devices to test the poll. Alternatively, use the simulated polling feature. In the TurningPoint tab within PowerPoint click ‘Live polling’ and change this to ‘Simulated polling.’ You can now start your slideshow. Each time it moves to a question slide there will be 30 responses automatically logged as if you have 30 participants taking part in your poll. This is a great option to fix bugs and issues in your design. If you are testing your polls then remember to reset your session before you carry it out with participants.
You can further customise sign-in settings in session options. For example, you could set it to optional for participants to enter a first name. Or by selecting ‘Don’t show’ for all options, you can enable a speedy sign-in procedure that skips any requests for participant details.
Anywhere Polling with TurningPoint Desktop version
Yes, you can use the Messaging function within TurningPoint to let students send their questions to you. You can choose to display these over the projector to stimulate discussion or you can store them to come back to later (e.g. in a Moodle forum round-up). This is one way to achieve this (there may be others). Open TurningPoint desktop software and log in. Click the Preferences cog (bottom right) and select Allow User Messaging. Click Enable Mobile Responses (top right) and select Session Options. Choose relevant options, making sure that Disable participant messaging is not selected. Click Save. Click Start Session. From the dashboard select Anywhere Polling. Share the Session ID with students so they can Join the session via the TurningPoint App or from the browser using URL go.bath.ac.uk/tpv Page Break Select a question type from the drop-down menu next to the large green play button. The poll will start (signified by the play button changing to a stop button). [You need to have at least one question in the poll for your session data to be saved.] Click the Messaging icon (a white speech bubble) to Display Messaging Window. Pose a question in the chat box and Send to Everyone. Students can respond via TurningPoint in an App or a browser. You can reply to students individually or to everyone or you can store the questions to respond later. Students can reply to you or to everyone, depending on the options you chose earlier. At the end of the session click the stop button and make sure you Save Session. If the Save Session option is greyed out this means you haven’t yet received any responses to your single poll question or you still need to stop the poll. Students need to attempt this before you can save the session. Click the Settings cog and select Session and Save Session. Click the Close icon from the floating Poll box and return to the dashboard. Click the Manage tab and select the session you have just completed. Choose Reports. From the drop-down menu on the right choose Session Log. You will now be able to see the questions added by students in the Messaging area. (You can deselect the two irrelevant options on the right) 
