Newcastle University

OMBEA Basic User Guide

2017

Carol Summerside, LTDS

Marc Bennett, NUIT

Contents

OMBEA User Guide

Some educational reasons for using a response system

OMBEA Arrangements at Newcastle University

Opening OMBEA

The OMBEA Toolbar

Create an interactive OMBEA slide with one response

Allowing multiple answers to a question

Create a Priory Ranking Question

Part 1a: Create your Priorityslides

Part 1b: Convert a normal multiple-choice slide to a Priorityslide

Part 2: Poll your priorityslides

Create a Free Text Question

Saving your presentation

Running your interactive presentation

Getting your audience connected

Setting a Custom Session ID

Producing aReport

Clearing your data so you can reuse yourslides

OMBEA User Guide

Contents is adapted from information available on the OMBEA web site and user guide

The OMBEA response system integrates with Microsoft® PowerPoint® and allows students to participate in lectures/seminars by submitting responses to interactive questions using their own device (smartphone, tablet, laptop). OMBEAthen translates the responses into results that are displayed within your presentation.

Some educational reasons for using a response system

•Assessment

•Pre-assessment

•Mid-topic assessment

•Post-assessment

•Formative feedback to the presenter - modify lectures on-the-fly in response

•Peer assessment - e.g. students vote to assess a student presentation

•Survey for opinions and feelings – class knows how their opinions relates to those of their colleagues

•Initiate a discussion with a carefully chosen question. Retest after discussion to see if opinion changes

OMBEA Arrangements at Newcastle University

  • The University has a full site licence but staff must request to be added to the licence by completing the form at
  • The software is installed in all centrally supported teaching spaces and can be installed in School owned spaces on request.
  • Staff who do not yet have the software on their own computer to enable the creation of interactive slides should ask for it to be installed by their Computing Officer or download it from the OMBEA website

Opening OMBEA

Before opening OMBEA ensure that PowerPoint is not already open. To open OMBEA you can either:

a)Go to the Start menu and search for OMBEA Response

b)Use the OMBEA Response shortcut icon on your desk top.

Both of these methods will open Microsoft PowerPoint and OMBEA simultaneously. The OMBEA software appears as an additional toolbar within PowerPoint.

The OMBEA Toolbar

When you open OMBEA, PowerPoint opens and the OMBEAribbon is added to the other tabbed ribbons. You will use this ribbon to create and run your interactive slides.

Create an interactive OMBEA slide with one response

  1. On the OMBEA Response ribbon, clickNew.
  1. OMBEA will insert a PowerPoint slide into yourpresentation.
  1. Type a question where it reads Click to addquestion.
  1. Type up to 10 answer options where it reads Click to addanswers.
  1. With your mouse pointer click outside the answers box somewhere on the slide. After a moment your chart will update to reflect the number of answer options you havegiven.
  1. If you wish to change, add to, or remove any of your answer options, simply edit the text. When you click away from the answers box again your chart will update to reflect yourchanges.
  1. To add another question simply repeat the above steps. OMBEA puts one question on each PowerPointslide.

Allowing multiple answers to a question

  1. The standard settings in OMBEA only allow each participant to submit one answer for each question. This setting may be appropriate if you require participants to select only one correct answer from the number available, however if you wish them to submit multiple responses to one question then the responses per participant setting must be changed.
  1. Create a normal multiple choicequestion slide (as above).
  1. On the OMBEA Response ribbon click onProperties.
  1. On the right hand side of the Properties panel scroll down to the section titledPoll.
  1. Change the Response Per Participant as appropriate. For example if you would like the participants to provide up to 10 responses choose 10.

  1. You will poll your multiple response slides in exactly the same way as you would with a normal slide but you will need to ask your participants to submit more than onevote.

Create a Priory Ranking Question

A priority ranking question in OMBEA is one that asks the participants to choose more than one multiple choice option and, furthermore, to choose their options in order of priority from most important to leastimportant.

Part 1a: Create your Priorityslides

  1. On the OMBEA Response ribbon click on the bottom half of the Newbutton.
  1. From the menu that appears, click PriorityRanking.
  1. In the Priority Ranking window that appears, select the number of Responses PerParticipant.
  1. OMBEA adds a new question slide to your presentation. Use this slide to build your priority ranking question as you would any normal multiple choicequestion

Part 1b: Convert a normal multiple-choice slide to a Priorityslide

  1. On the OMBEA Response ribbon, clickProperties.
  1. In the Properties panel, on the left hand side, select the question you would like toupdate.
  1. On the right hand side of the Properties panel scroll down to the section titledPoll.
  1. Change the Response Per Participant as appropriate.
  1. Change the setting for Priority toYes.

Part 2: Poll your priorityslides

  1. You poll your Priority slides in exactly the same way as you would with a normal slide but you will need to ask the participants to submit more than onevote.
  1. When polling is closed the chart will show the results for each option. OMBEA presents the results by assigning 10 points to a participant’s first choice, 9 to their second choice, 8 to their third choice etc. By aggregating all the points on the live voting chart, it is possible to see the subtle differences between options depending on their overall priority for theparticipant.

Create a Free Text Question

  1. On the OMBEA Response ribbon click on the bottom half of the Newbutton.
  1. From the menu that appears, click FreeText.
  1. In the Free Text window that appears you will be asked Would you like to show the results? You have 3 options:
  1. Yes, show the most common responses. This will display up to 9 of the most common responses in a frequencychart.
  1. Yes, show a word cloud of the results. This will show a cloud of words submitted by participants, with the font size of each word representingfrequency.
  1. No, do not show the results. No results will be shown after polling is closed. You can still see the results in the Results Monitor and in theReports.
  1. OMBEA adds a new question slide to your presentation. Type your question in the area that reads Enter questiontext.
  1. If you elected to display some of the results, you will see a chart. You do not need to editthis.
  1. You can now poll the slide asnormal.

Saving your presentation

When using OMBEA Response simply save your presentation in the normal way. Your presentation will be saved an ‘ORS’ file. If you wish to share your presentation with students we recommend that you also save a PowerPoint (.ppt) version of your presentation.

Running your interactive presentation

  1. Click on the OMBEA Response icon or search for the programme via your start menu. Microsoft PowerPoint will load up and you will see the OMBEA Response ribbon along the top of yourscreen.
  1. You then need to connect to the OMBEA ResponseApp which will enable your participants to respond to your questions. ResponseApp communicate with your presentations via an Internet connection. ResponseApp knows which voting session is yours by way of a unique 6 digit code, known as a Session ID, that is randomly generated each time you set up a new voting session. You may also pick a custom Session ID. To learn how to do this refer to the section later in this guide on setting a custom session ID.
  1. On the OMBEA Response ribbon, click the ResponseAppbutton.
  1. A panel opens and you should see a space for you to enter your ResponseApp username and password.
  1. Choose the Response, Session and Participant options.
  2. Response Options – choose
  3. Session ID Options – choose either Random or Custom Session ID depending on what you prefer to use
  4. Participant Reporting Options – to allow students to respond anonymously (recommended) choose ‘A participant account is not required’ and uncheck the box asking for first and last name.
  5. ClickLogin.
  1. You will see a new 6 digit SessionID or your Custom Session ID.
  1. You are now logged in and can ask your participants to connect to your session.

Getting your audience connected

  1. Participants can respond using any web-enabled device, such as an iPhone.
  1. Ask them to launch a new internet browserwindow.
  1. In the web address bar they should typera.ombea.com.
  1. The ResponseApp page loads up and asks for the Session ID.
  1. Participants enter the Session ID and click Join.

Once all participants are connected you can run your interactive presentation.

  1. There is a button on the OMBEA Response ribbon called Start Polling. This button simply starts your presentation at the first slide. You do not have to use this button since PowerPoint offers many ways to start a presentation, and all of them willwork.
  2. Advance through your slides using your normal PowerPointkeys.
  3. When you reach a question slide, the OMBEA polling box will appear in the top right hand corner to indicate the number of votes collected. The box will be green to indicate that polling isopen.
  4. Invite your audience to vote using their devices. As they do so, the response counter will rise to indicate the votes comingin.
  5. When you are satisfied that you have enough votes, close polling by pressing your normal PowerPoint advance slide button. This will work with either the space bar, right arrow key, down arrow key, or any presentation remote you areusing.
  6. Your chart will appear to show everybody the results of thepolling.
  7. Keep advancing through your presentation, collecting votes as yougo.
  8. When you have finished presenting, remember to save your data. Your presentation will be saved an ‘ORS’ file containing both the slides and the voting data.

Setting a Custom Session ID

  1. Log in to OMBEA Connectconnect.ombea.com
  1. ClickMy Accounton the left handside
  1. Next to Custom Session ID clickChange
  1. Enter a new Custom SessionID
  1. ClickOK

Producing aReport

When you save your session after having collected votes from an audience, OMBEA saves the voting data alongside your presentation or question lists. Behind the scenes the voting data is broken down by individual and by question. If you used any enhanced features such as participant lists, demographic grouping, or competition settings, then these will also be available for reportingpurposes.

  1. Open the session within which you saved the votingdata.
  1. On the OMBEA Response Ribbon click GenerateReports.
  1. In the Reports Window, select a report style you wish to produce. If you click on the arrow next to each report name you will see a description of thereport.
  1. By default OMBEA will produce your report in Microsoft Excel. If you wish to produce an Adobe PDF file instead, change this within the dropdown box beneath the list ofreports.
  1. ClickGenerate.
  1. Give your report a name so that OMBEA can save it foryou.
  1. OMBEA will save the report and offer to open it for you. Click Yes if you wish to open the reportimmediately.
  1. The reports you generate can be saved and distributed to colleagues ‘as is’. They are no longer linked to your OMBEA system and so you can apply calculations and formatting changes to them without affecting your original votingdata.

Clearing your data so you can reuse yourslides

  1. On the OMBEA Response ribbon, click ClearResults.
  1. You have three choices in the dropdown menu, as explained below.
  1. Session History: This will clear all voting data from the current OMBEA Response presentation. This option is the most commonlyused.
  1. All Interactive Slides: This will reset all the charts in your OMBEA Response presentation. The voting data already collected is still there so, for example, if you run a report you will see the questions reported on more than once. This option is useful if you wish to ask your audience the same questions again, and see the two instances of the questions reported onseparately.
  1. Selected Interactive Slide: This will reset the current chart only in your OMBEA Response presentation. The voting data already collected is still there so, for example, if you run a report you will see the questions reported on more than once. This option is useful if you wish to ask your audience the same question again, and see the two instances of the question reported onseparately.

2017 Learning and Teaching Development Service, Newcastle University 1