Poll Everywhere Tutorials:

Poll Everywhere Canvas Integration

Step-by-step Guide

LMS LTI 1.3/LTI Advantage integration – Version 2.0.0

This is a guide for WashU instructors on how to set a Canvas integration with Poll Everywhere. Features are currently limited to syncing rosters and exporting participation/grades to Canvas gradebook.

For a longer guide with images provided for each step, see the educator tutorial produced by Poll Everywhere.

For a student resource on how to use Poll Everywhere, see the guide for students.

Before you begin

In order to use the Poll Everywhere LTI Advantage Canvas integration, you must first Publish the course and add a start and end date for the course term.

  1. Ensure the course is Published using the button at the top right of the Course home screen.
  2. Next, go to the course Settings. On the Course Details tab make sure the course has a start date in the past, and an end date that is in the future from when you intend to use the integration.

Create a one-time connection to Poll Everywhere

  1. Go to the course that you wish to connect with Poll Everywhere and click the ‘+ Module’ button. Name the module whatever you like, then click the ‘Add Module’ button to save.
  2. Within your new module, click the ‘+’ button. From the dropdown menu at the top of the popup window, select ‘External Tool’, then select Poll Everywhere. URL and Page Name fields will auto-populate below. Lastly, check the ‘Load in a new tab’ checkbox to and click ‘Add Item’ to save.
    1. Contact your School Admin if you do not see Poll Everywhere under ‘External Tool.’
    2. NOTE: for A&S users, you may be able to add Poll Everywhere to your left navigation instead. In Canvas, click Settings, go to Navigation tab, then enable Poll Everywhere.
  3. Now, click on the new Poll Everywhere link that you added. Click the ‘Load Poll Everywhere in a new window’ button to launch the Poll Everywhere connection.
  4. In the new tab, you will acknowledge you are launching Poll Everywhere through Canvas.

Sync your roster

  1. On the next page, you will see your course title and a button to ‘Sync roster’ to import the students from your course into Poll Everywhere. Click the button. A page will inform you that the participant import is proceeding, and you will see a ‘Go to Participants page’ button.
  2. In a few minutes, go to the participants page, you will be able to verify that the import took place because there will be a new group named after your course with students in that course.
  3. Now that you have connected your course to Poll Everywhere, you can delete the module you used to make the connection.

Re-syncing your roster

You can re-sync the participant roster for your course at any time. Re-syncing will create Poll Everywhere participant profiles for new students and add them to your Poll Everywhere participant group, while removing dropped students from your participants group.

  1. Navigate to the Participants page and click on the LMS Courses link in the top row of buttons.
  2. From the LMS courses screen, you will see all of the courses you have connected with the Poll Everywhere LTI Advantage integration. From here, you can re-sync your student participants by clicking the “Sync Roster” button.

Setting up your polls

IMPORTANT: Make sure your polls are now “restricted to registered participants only” so that only students enrolled in the account can take your polls and all responses are attached to their accounts. There are two options for changing this setting:

  1. To change the setting for a specific poll, go to your Activities and click on your poll. On the right under 1. Configure, click “Audience restriction & identity”
  2. To change your default setting (i.e., setting will apply to all polls you create in the future), go to your Profile in the bottom left, then click Activity Settings on the left menu. Scroll down to Default activities settings and change the setting under “Who can participate?”  Remember to scroll down to the bottom and click Save before leaving this page.

Exporting a Gradebook report

Once you have collected some activity results from students, you can export those results to Canvas. Each report you export will create a single gradebook column in Canvas, regardless of the number of activities in the report. Poll Everywhere Gradebook reports can either be exported as a graded assessment or for participation.

  1. Navigate to your Activities. Select the activities you want to grade and click Create a report. Choose Gradebook.
  2. Click the Rename link at the top of the report. Write in the name you want for your Canvas gradebook column.
  3. Click the Export button at the bottom right when you are ready to export the grades to Canvas.
  4. A popup will ask you to select the course to export the report to from a dropdown menu and whether to export the Grades or Participation column from the report. Make your selections, then click Next.
    1. Note: The grades column will only be shown if polls in the report are multiple choice and instructors have marked each poll with a correct response during poll creation.
  5. The following pop-up will now filter the report by the participants in your LMS Course and start the export. You should then see a message indicating that the export has completed and is processing in the background.
  6. Once the export is complete, head back over to Canvas and click into your Gradebook to verify that the new Gradebook column was created.

Recommended steps

  • Identify how often and when will you resync the roster during the add/drop period.
    • Some instructors choose to only sync the roster after the add/drop period. If this is the case, do not restrict your polls to registered participants until then.
  • Communicate expectations and provide instructions for students.
    • Highly recommended: set aside time during a class to run a test poll that is restricted so students are familiar with the process of logging in to take restricted polls.
      • Sync or resync the roster if needed.
      • Run the test poll and make sure students log in by following the steps outlined in the student instructions.
      • Make sure that the other polls that you use during this class period are not restricted in case students have issues logging in. If any of them run into issues, it can be resolved before  your next class or before you start counting participation / grades.
  • Determine how you will give students credit for participation or grades.
    • Identify how you will use the grades or participation. It will be reported as a %. Most instructors often decide on an acceptable threshold (e.g., 75% ) that serves as full participation/grade, which will require adjustment in the Canvas gradebook.
    • Identify how often you will export participation or grades from Poll Everywhere as Canvas gradebook columns. Each gradebook column you want in Canvas will require a separate Poll Everywhere Gradebook report (see Exporting a gradebook report above). Some instructors only export participation / grades at the end of the semester.

For more support, please email edtechtools@wustl.edu or call 314-935-6810.