• Overview
  ...a rough guide to e-learning, for students

• Using the Course Materials Repository
• Using Online Coursework Submission
• Using Moodle
• Using WebCT
• Using Perception
• Using myLife
• Using a Personal Response System

• Plagiarism
• Study Skills

Personal Response Systems

Most people’s experience of a personal response system (PRS) is in popular television programmes, such as “Who wants to be a millionaire?”, where the participant can ask the audience to assist in the response to difficult questions. This technology (also known as classroom response systems or audience response systems) is increasingly being used in universities, as it enables the lecturer to interactively engage with a large number of students at the same time. It is being used at Essex to enhance the student's learning experience, as well as monitor student attendance at lectures.

The process of using PRS, as illustrated in the image below, involves:

1. The lecturer poses a question, which can either be carried out verbally or displayed using presentation software or from within the PRS software itself.
2. Each student has a handset that allows them to choose the preferred option for the answer.
3. The handset is then used to transmit this information to a receiver which is attached to the lecturer’s computer.
4. The software can be used to aggregate the responses and produce a graphical representation of the results, which can be displayed to the students via a data projector. These results can be discussed and the lecturer can then choose how to proceed with the next part of the lecture.

Student Guides

These are PDF files. You will need the free Adobe Reader to view them.

• Student Guide to using the PRS Handset