Best practices in using ARS technology properly
Many newcomers to the ARS world don’t quite understand the correct way to run an ARS meeting and why ARS should be used at all. This is understandable because many aren’t comfortable with new technology. Don’t let this discourage you from learning about and using a piece of technology that could greatly benefit you, your presentations, your department, and more.

Education (Presentation & Testing)
Research (Opinion polls & Surveys & Focus Groups)
Employment (Training & Testing)
Entertainment (Quiz Games)
Politics (Voting & Elections)

ARS when used the right way, can improve the educational environment by:
- accomplishing administrative tasks like taking attendance much more efficiently
- providing more opportunity for student participation and feedback
- keeping students awake, involved and focused
- allowing for easier quizzing and testing of material under study
- outputting quick results and in a variety of forms (charts/tables/graphs)
- allowing for easier manipulation of class results
- saving resources (paper & time & manpower)
- easier management of large classes (big 500-student lecture class)

Scenario
Linda is a biology professor for medium-sized college. Linda loves her job but she spends a lot of time dealing with the administrative tasks in her job. While Linda would love to simply go to class and teach and then go back to the lab and work on her research, she knows this isn’t possible. Instead, she has to take a significant portion of time dealing with the administrative duties, like figuring grades and taking attendance, which comes with teaching undergraduate students. Since she doesn’t have graduate assistants to help her out, Linda has to do all of this by herself while simultaneously finding time to do the more exciting parts of her job… (pg 10)

Pitfalls & Traps
Some people assume that just by having ARS, you will automatically produce great results. The fact is that having the technology doesn’t guarantee results. Users of ARS still have to work on their technique in order to produce good results. The opportunity for good outcomes is there and this has been shown in many studies of these systems. The difference is using the technology with good teaching technique. This underscores the importance of learning good presentation techniques, whether or not the presenter is using ARS or not.
Believe it or not, there are plenty of instances where ARS wouldn’t benefit a group meeting or organization. Remember there are limits to nearly every technology. ARS can be a great tool for some instances, but not for others. (pg 117)

- Practice and some minimal training is recommended before jumping into ARS
- Putting a frequent and mandating nature in quizzing (pg 115)
- Not allowing for peer interaction and talking for quizzes when using ARS
- Not allowing for enough time for hard questions & putting too much pressure on right answer
- Short-answer / essay responses are not well supported w/ current ARS technology

Remember ARS can be a valuable tool when used effectively; however, good teaching and presentation skills are still a requirement for efficient presentation.
Discuss ARS applications in Education Forum
Back to Top

Research (Opinion polls & Surveys & Focus Groups)
• Scientific
• Corporate & Market

Advantages:
- Saves resources (material, monetary, labor, time)
- Allows for more and efficient information gathering
- Preserves anonymity in opinion polls
- M2M (Moment to Moment) instant feedback reveals the good and bad of material down to the second
- Outputs fast results in a variety of forms (charts/tables/graphs)
- Allows for easier manipulation of gathered data
- Supports global interaction (multi-site events)

Scenario
Let’s take the example of market research. Let’s say a marketing company wants the opinion of a theater on a new movie they’re screening. Generally these screenings are conducted with a pencil and paper survey. Someone has to take all of those surveys, enter them into a computer by hand, decipher handwriting, and then finally the data can be used. With ARS, the audience’s answers are instantly collected. The data is quickly available, saving precious time and busy work… (pg 19)

Pitfalls & Traps
- Practice and minimal training is recommended before first-time ARS use
- Short-answer / essay responses are not well supported w/ current ARS technology
Discuss ARS applications in Research Forum
Back to Top

Employment (Training & Testing)
• Public Sector
• Private Sector (Small & Big Business)

Advantages
- Saves resources (material, monetary, labor, time)
- Outputs fast results in a variety of forms (charts/tables/graphs)
- Allows for easier manipulation of gathered data
- Supports global interaction (multi-site events)
- More efficient administrative tasks like timesheets
- providing more opportunity for feedback
- allowing for easier quizzing and testing of material
- easier management of large population (big 500-employee department)

Pitfalls & Traps
- Practice and some minimal training is recommended before jumping into ARS
- Short-answer / essay responses are not well supported w/ current ARS technology
Discuss ARS applications in Employment Forum
Back to Top

Entertainment (Quiz Games)
• Polling Games
• Audience Voting / Selection

Advantages
- providing more opportunity for audience participation and feedback
- engages & keeps participants active & involved
- allowing for easier questioning
- outputs quick results and in a variety of forms (charts/tables/graphs)
- allowing for easier manipulation of data
- saving resources (paper & time & manpower)
- easier management of large groups
- Preserves anonymity in polls
- M2M (Moment to Moment) instant feedback reveals the good and bad of material down to the second
- Supports global interaction (multi-site events)

Examples
Reality television; voting off contest participants- American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance

Pitfalls & Traps
- Practice and some minimal training is recommended before jumping into ARS
- Not allowing for enough response time
Discuss ARS applications in Entertainment Forum
Back to Top

Politics (Voting & Elections)
• Private (Small & Large Organizations)
• Public (Small & Big Organizations)

Advantages
- accomplishing administrative tasks like taking attendance much more efficiently
- providing more opportunity for voter participation and feedback
- allowing for easier quizzing and testing of material under study
- outputting quick results and in a variety of forms (charts/tables/graphs)
- allowing for easier manipulation of voter results
- saving resources (paper & time & manpower)
- easier management of large populations
- allows for more and efficient information gathering
- preserves anonymity in polls

Pitfalls & Traps
- Practice and some minimal training is recommended before jumping into ARS
Discuss ARS applications in Politics Forum
Back to Top