We have made a video "An example of using the PRS voting equipment" showing EVS use in one class, and have some free copies available. Filmed on 19 Feb 2004, it shows the 8 votes and 5 distinct questions used in one session of an introductory statistics course with 61 students, complete with short interviews with students and the lecturer. The point is to convey what it might feel like to use electronic voting within a university class, and so to supplement the other material on this web site.
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There are full programme notes about, and to accompany, this video.
There is a 30 second trailer illustrating what is on the video which you can see on streaming video for PCs or Macs (click, and if your machine is set up for this, a test should start to play now on your screen); or alternatively download.
| 30 sec trailer | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Download | Streaming | |||
| Picture size: | Small | Medium | ||
| Quicktime MPEG1 .mov (Macs) | 650 kbytes | 2.7 Mbytes | QT | |
| Windows media AVI .wmv (PCs) | 554 kbytes | 6 Mbytes | wmv | |
The main video is 36 minutes long. They are both available in these formats:
If your machine is set up right for the format you click on, it will just start to play after a short delay. Unfortunately if it is not set up right, you may not get any sensible error message, and it may even hang for several minutes as well as ending by doing nothing. If it doesn't work, sensible people will waste no more time on it, at least on that machine. However if you are determined to spend time reconfiguring your machine, I have a few hints and technical notes.
| Streaming video | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time length | 36.5 minutes | 30 seconds | ||
| Picture size | Medium | Small | Medium | Small |
| Quicktime MPEG1 .mov (Macs) | QT | QT | QT | QT |
| Windows media AVI .wmv (PCs) | wmv | wmv | wmv | wmv |
| Download video files | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Time length | 36.5 minutes | 30 seconds | ||
| Picture size | Medium | Small | Medium | Small |
| Quicktime MPEG1 .mov (Macs) | |
35 Mbytes | 2.7 Mbytes | 650 kbytes |
| Windows media AVI .wmv (PCs) | |
|
6 Mbytes | 0.5 Mbytes |
Picture sizes: "Medium" is 640 X 480. "Small" is a quarter the area: 320 X 240.
A Mac is likely to be set up for playing Quicktime files, and a (fairly new) PC for playing Windows Media format. (But you can get both players free for both types of machine, and Real player will play both formats. See my hints and technical notes.)
For comparison, the DVD version takes about 2Gbytes.
We will post you a copy provided:
This page contains notes about the video "An example of using the PRS voting equipment". You may want to print out this page to accompany watching the video.
Filmed on 19 Feb 2004, it shows the 8 votes and 5 distinct questions used in one tutorial session of an introductory statistics course with 61 students present, complete with short interviews with students and the lecturer. The 50 minute session was filmed, and the video edited down omitting parts not using the voting equipment, but retaining approximately real time for the questions themselves. Immediately afterwards a few students and the lecturer were taken to an adjacent office for the interviews which were not rehearsed, nor were the interviewees given notice in advance of the session.
The course was the University of Glasgow Statistics 1C course, taught by the Statistics department for psychology students. There are about 210 students enrolled, of which 61 were there on this day. This was the fifth occasion the students had used the equipment, at least on this course.
There is generally 5 minutes available for setup, which includes greeting students, plugging in and starting up the laptop, getting the data projector and screens ready, and handing out the handsets as students come in. This lecturer usually brings two assistants to help with this (visible on the video).
This lecturer used OHP transparencies on a second screen (visible on the video), (whereas others use powerpoint and a single screen for both questions and the PRS software displays). During voting, the audience directs their infrared handsets towards one of the receivers which in this lecture theatre are permanently mounted high on the walls. (The camera caught one closeup of a receiver, but not their positions in the room.) They need to check on the screen to see if their handset's ID number comes up, and if not to re-send their vote.
This class is particularly reluctant to volunteer answers aloud to the lecturer (which is why the voting equipment was introduced by this course team). They are somewhat better at discussing with the person next to them. However, as the interviews illustrate, most approve of the handsets as allowing them to interact with the subject matter without having to make a public show of it. This contrast (between little visible interactivity and what the students themselves say about it on this and other occasions) is one aspect of the "story" in this video.
This is now the second year in which the equipment has been used in this class, and it was originally sought out to deal with these sessions, which had been particularly difficult because of the reluctance of the students to interact face to face. This case is probably typical in that the staff began with wanting to produce more student engagement with the material but now value the equipment even more for the feedback it gives to them, despite students' reticence, on the classes' degree of understanding of particular points.
These particular sessions are "tutorials", designed, not to introduce new material, but to allow students to review what has already been covered.
| - | 0:00 | ch.1 | Start: titles and introduction to the video. |
| Q1 | 0:50 | ch.2 | Checking each handset is "heard". |
| Q2 | 2:30 | ch.5 | Which is the null hypothesis? 62% get it right. |
| Q3 | 5:40 | ch.8 | Which is the conclusion? 85% right. |
| Q4 | 9:40 | ch.11 | At this point the lecturer changes the selection of questions from his plan. Trick question on Cramer's V statistic. Most get it wrong. |
| Q5 | 14:30 | ch.14 | Re-vote following peer discussion. Still 67% wrong. |
| Q6 | 16:40 | ch.17 | Why question this test's validity? Fairly even 4-way split. |
| Q7 | 22:30 | ch.20 | Re-vote following 50:50 elimination. Still 67% wrong. |
| Q8 | 25:20 | ch.23 | Which test? discussion and vote. Uneven spread, with majority still wrong. |
| - | 26:54 | (ch.25) | Good example of two (male) students discussing; then a pause; then a different two discussing. |
| - | 29:30 | ch.26 | Ending the tutorial session and packing up. |
| I1 | 30:15 | ch.27 | Two students: it's worth having, interactivity, privacy. |
| I2 | 31:40 | ch.28 | One student: Answering fast, fast corrective feedback to students |
| I3 | 32:40 | ch.29 | Two students: Lecturer focusses on difficulties. Privacy. |
| I4 | 33:50 | ch.30 | Lecturer: Engage students, feedback to staff is now the top benefit. |
On most players (for DVD, CD, streaming video) you can move a slider on the controls to go directly to one of the times listed. In the DVD version, these points also appear on the menu you see on screen when starting it up. They are also "chapter" points. There are additional chapter points: each question has three chapter points, one when the question is introduced, one when voting begins, and one when the voting results appear.
N.B. A thirty second trailer for the whole video is also on the DVD at the end.
The DVD name is "PRS 1" (this may appear on a desktop icon or in a file browser).
On starting to play or enter it, you will first get to a menu screen listing the main points you might want to jump to. The DVD is organised as a single "title" that will play through continuously from the point you begin. You can also jump to any "chapter" point: as listed above. One way to do this is to right-click on the jump forward button to see a pop-up menu of all chapter points. (You may have to start to play some/any part of it, then pause, to get this to work.) You can also drag a slider to move to any point in terms of minutes:seconds of play time from the start.
If it switches to full screen mode the controls disappear, which can be disconcerting at first. Probing with the mouse, either click at the same place your last saw the player's control panel, or at the very top of the screen, and you may recover them.
This page is to document the design rationale for a video about EVS (Electronic Voting System) use.
The main issue, as brought out in Quintin's comments below, is that being realistic, which is good for clients who are already serious about seeing what is involved in practice, is in tension with making a video that is both interesting to watch, a general introduction to PRS, and perhaps also communicates as many points as possible about the subject as a whole. This edit of this video went for the realism, but really would need to be re-edited to be a good (standalone) introduction.
Useful/Best
Worst
I wouldn't say worst, rather, the bits that struck me or puzzled me. The
main one of these undoubtedly is how little interaction is portrayed in
the film. It doesn't appear that PRS has promoted discussion, instead there
seem to be many long silences, and many shots of quiet students. I guess
they do all look attentive though. This is why I liked the two shots above
so much - they really showed engagement through discussion. There probably
are other instances, yet these ones just stood out to me.
I wasn't convinced the third question was necessary, since it was very similar in nature to the second, apart from that it demonstrated that the students were doing well, keying in John's harder question. But as a viewer I was a little bored by it.
Programme notes and discussion
The notes were a useful intro on what to expect, but I didn't find them too
easy to use alongside the DVD as it was running, and also not very
necessary.
I think the question here is one of familiarity. I of course didn't really need the notes, as I knew about the context already. But they'll certainly be necessary for others.
However, I didn't know the stats material being covered because I've never taken a stats course of any kind. This made the film harder to watch, interestingly, or cut me out a bit, because I couldn't play along with the questions - make my own guess, see how I did etc. Bringing me into the experience in that way might improve the viewer's experience (why do folk enjoy Who Wants To Be a Millionaire?). There's a problem here of course since all films of real use are going to be subject specific (one assumes), and so non-subject folk will find the questions hard/meaningless. My unfamiliarity with the material made it hard to hold the question in my mind while the response options were revealed. It frustrated me a bit, and oddly made me think John wasn't doing a very good job (although I'm sure in context he is doing just fine!).
I wondered whether you could make more of the quiet parts of the film - there are a number - by including comments in the form of text. For me, this would be embedding the programme notes into the film itself. An easy example is to make a comment about the waiting time - one to two minutes - while students answer, by saying that lecturers have found it useful thinking time, or time to talk to one or two students or, or, ... Another would be a comment about student feedback that the breaks are good for concentration. What I'm saying is that much of what is we now know about handset use could be incorporated into the presentation itself, since I perceive a few slow bits.
The use of peer discussion/instruction in Q4/5 is against most of the literature I've read on this kind of use - Mazur, Novak, Boyle and others. Most of them indicate that it's only worth using peer discussion when the split between right/wrong is no greater than 30/70 - ie at least 30% of students need to have got it right. In this use, only about 5-10% of the class got the question right. In fact, this was an even more subtle interaction, because John actually asked them to consider a different question in their discussion from that on the board, and to use the result to influence the result to their first - he asked them to talk about "What value does Cramer's V statistic take?" rather than directly about the question. I'm not sure if the students would have picked that up, and might rather have just attempted to justify their answer. Don't know what this means exactly - but it's an interesting observation! John's comment/question was leading and helpful, but I'm concerned that they may not have really picked it up. This all came over to me in the relatively quiet class discussion. Well it seemed a little quiet to me. You only had this one opportunity I know, but in a future version, it might be nice to get a more intense discussion.
That's another example of a use of captions in the film - one could emphasise the point that Stats 1C is a quiet class who don't interact much, and that the feedback (you could give stats) shows that the class do gain from having the system there. And that in other class, students are more forthcoming with student-lecturer discussion after a vote.
I see the captions as a cheap way of increasing the information content in the film for viewers. It doesn't require any further filming, just some text box overlays on the existing edited work, in the quieter parts of the presentation.
The examples of use in the film really amplify what the students sometimes say - that the lecturer gets the most out of it - whilst minimising what the students get. The students don't look enthralled in the film, and John says in the interview that whilst "I hope the students get something too...", he finds that the information for lecturers is the most useful. This is mitigated only to some extent for me with the student interviews - in that they do state that the handsets are useful, but not very articulately, apart from one girl. She's good.
So, in summary:
So ideally the set would range over:
More realistically, probably plan to film Jim Boyle's class, and one of Quintin's; and search for a non-science class.
We have made a video "An example of using the PRS voting equipment". Please send me feedback about it, after watching it through once, by email to Steve Draper: s.draper@psy.gla.ac.uk
You may find it more convenient to copy-and-paste the text from this page into an email; or to find and reply-to an email I may have sent you in advance with these questions.
What I'd like to know from you is:
This pages lists those who were sent a copy of our video about using the PRS "An example of using the PRS voting equipment".
| Name | Institution | Department | Format | Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nelson Cue | Hong Kong University of Science and Technology | Physics, Associate Vice President | DVD | 23 March 2004 |
| Phil Marston | University of Aberdeen | Learning technology unit | DVD | 25 April 2004 |
| Gareth Reast | University of Brighton | VLE promoter | DVD | 11 March 2005 |
| Anne Dickinson | University of Coventry | Educational Technology | DVD | 29 April 2004 |
| Chris Mitchell | University of Glasgow | Computing Science | DVD | 5 March 2004 |
| Quintin Cutts | University of Glasgow | Computing Science | DVD | 23 March 2004 |
| Steve Draper | University of Glasgow | Psychology | DVD, VHS | 17 March 2004 |
| John McColl | University of Glasgow | Statistics | DVD | 22 March 2004 |
| Bob Matthews | University of Glasgow | Teaching and Learning service | DVD | 22 March 2004 |
| Tony Lowe | University of Leeds | Learning Development Unit | DVD | 6 May 2004 |
| Elizabeth Laws | University of Salford | School of computing | DVD | 28 April 2004 |
| Jim Boyle | University of Strathclyde | Mechanical Engineering | DVD | 22 March 2004 |
| Paul Wood | University of Wales, Bangor | Learning Support Service | DVD | 16 Nov 2004 |
I have recently, Feb-March 2004, had a video produced, and by accident found myself as a very early adopter of distributing this in (for academics) new formats: DVD, streaming video, CD, downloaded video files. I would recommend these formats, and here are a few notes on why for those at Glasgow University. I expect I will not update these notes and that they will quickly go out of date.
Firstly, this particular video was based on filming a lecture, and was done at rather short notice by Media Services, who were also very quick at editing the finished version. They also, having shot and edited in a mixture of analogue and digital, offered the result on any or all of a variety of formats, including VHS tape and DVD. I worked with Colin Brierly (cb3v@udcf.gla.ac.uk).
From the viewpoint of an academic and talk presenter, DVD as a format has the disadvantage that you can't integrate clips directly into a powerpoint presentation. On the other hand:
The video can also be converted for streaming video: where the video is accessed from a web page and played over the internet with little download delay before playing begins. This means you can offer it round the world and/or to students without sending disks. New staff machines are typically set up already for this. New student cluster machines have the power for this, but their configuration may need to be adjusted after negotiation with support staff. The file conversion to Windows Media streaming format was done by Steven Jack (s.jack@compserv.gla.ac.uk), and then mounted on his server all within a day or two. The file conversion to Quicktime streaming was done by Colin Brierly (cb3v@udcf.gla.ac.uk) and John Morrison (j.morrison@psy.gla.ac.uk), and the streaming hosted by John McClure (j.mcclure@psy.gla.ac.uk) in psychology. In theory it is unnecessary to offer both formats, as any fairly new machine can be configured to receive both formats. In practice, machines are more likely to be already set up only for their "native" format: Quicktime on Macs, AVI on PCs.
It is also possible to convert the same video to either QuickTime (Mac; .mov) or Windows Media (PC; AVI; .wmv) format; and offer these on CD or for downloading on the web.
You can access some of these different versions of my video from here.
This page is only a few points I had to pick up for myself and may as well store here as anywhere. No guarantee of accuracy. For more and better information, you need to go elsewhere.
First, here is a set of test cases to work with (return to my main video page for more cases).
| Test cases | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| File download | Streaming 1 | Streaming 2 | ||
| Quicktime .mov (Macs) | 650 kbytes | our trailer | John's demo | |
| Windows media .wmv (PCs) | 554 kbytes | our trailer | Jack's demo | |
URLs look like:
Quicktime: rtsp://www.psy.gla.ac.uk/steve/streaming/sample_300kbit.mov
Windows AVI/.wmv: http://130.209.38.90/commemorationday.asx
which calls "mms://commsvs1.cent.gla.ac.uk/Psychology/PRS/PRS-Clip-LAN.wmv"
At least for some player software, the sound hardware must be enabled even if you don't want to play the sound, or else the player refuses to work.
Thus it would be possible to build a piece of CAL (Computer Assisted
Learning): play a segment of movie; ask a question (in text or sound or both),
and which button the user chooses to press determines which cell they get next
e.g. "Rubbish", "Good", explanations of what was wrong, try again, etc.
Presumably then a DVD (which definitely is either NTSC or PAL) would play on a
laptop regardless, but not on a domestic/specialised DVD player.
DVDs hold files with 3 extenstion types:
OS "edge" movie:
< img src="http://www.g-intelligence.co.uk/emails/select/150104/email/i/2.jpg" alt="" border="0" width="393" height="144" />xx
The code:
< img src="http://www.g-intelligence.co.uk/emails/select/150104/email/i/vid.jpg"
alt="" border="0" width="192" height="144"
dynsrc="http://www.g-intelligence.co.uk/emails/select/150104/email/bike.mal"
codectype="raolb" xrate="15" cntval="true" />
Quicktime players:
Download page
(General website)
At least for my video, you seem to need at least version 6.x
Otherwise you get it playing sound but no picture. 
Windows Media player.
At least for my video, you seem to need at least version 7.x
Otherwise the error message says it can't download the right codec.
Browser protocols
For Quicktime streaming video, your browser must handle the rtsp (as well as
http) protocols.
For WMV streaming video, your browser must handle the mms (as well as
http) protocols.
Problems / symptoms
Symptoms Actual problem, solutions Windows player on a PC refused to play the vision because no sound on machine.
Fix: change OS to make it at least look as if there were sound. Movie plays sound but no vision (quicktime)
Upgrade Quicktime from v.4 to v.6 Movie plays vision but no sound. (Small PC)
I seen this, but dunno the details or the solution Errors about unable to download a codec (Windows movie)
Later version of Windows player needed: at least v.7 IE browser wouldn't play streaming QT
Manually add a protocol helper for RTSP -> Quicktime player "Can't do this format" when quicktime Open command on file is
attempted ??
Actually: just Mac file type not set on file Play list invalid when trying to play AVI streaming video
yy Hangs silently when trying to play QT streaming video
Protocol failure in browser. Set its mappings so that rtsp protocol
handled by something e.g. Quicktime plugin Browser download fails: no apparent result
Need upgrade of quicktime to v.6 IE Browser error page "This page cannot be displayed" followed by "page
may be missing". But this is not in fact an error page from the server but
from the browser.
Although it looks like a missing page / bad URL error page, this is
actually a browser (not server) error page saying it cannot understand what was
sent. It means it can't do the rtsp protocol: you need to install the
quicktime plugin and/or change the settings to point to it. Netscape: Page missing page from server
Actually, browser unable to do quicktime streaming (rtsp protocol) Download (of wmv) fails: displays garble as text
IE fix: edit config to use mime type text/plain and suffix wmv mapped to
Windows player
But don't work in netscape because that "mime type taken""Playlist format not recognised" from Windows player for WMF streaming
video (in IE on mac)
But Steven Jack's video worked. And works in Netscape "Switching transports" message on QT player:
Mac OS-X, MAG, IE, streaming opens QT but never does it.
? newer QT?; McClure fix to browser page? "connecting..." browser message, but never does.
IE, Stuart's machine, attempt to download .wmv file.
Machine recognises file suffix type, but browser doesn't:
probably MIME type doesn't. xx
yy
Server stats on viewing the streaming video versions
Windows streaming
Hit the link "video content" e.g.
http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/computing/video/reports/Report26/Week21Mar2004/VideoContent.html
Quicktime streaming
DVD higher level structure
DVDs are divided into "titles", and then into "chapter points".
However their movie parts may be divided into separate "cells", with user
interaction (typically on graphics screens with active link points) deciding
which cell to play next. In fact I understand there is essentially a
programming language for these control flows, with branch and test, access to
some parameter values and to a clock for timing, and 16 registers (variables)
to use e.g. for keeping a score, counting the number of attempts at something,
etc.
Tech. Facts
MPEG 1 MPEG 2 CD
650Mbytes 74 minsDVD
4.38 Gbytes (15.9) 75 mins at max. quality
PAL or NTSC, but not both Quarter area TV screen size/resolution 352 X 288 720 X 576 frame size 1.5Mbps (bits) 10 Mbps (bits) Picture sizes
NTSC vs. PAL
Windows format has neither (and no interlacing). Both MPEGs, and so
quicktime, has either NTSC or PAL built in (and with it, resolution and frame
rates). However QT can play any QT file on any computer. The problem is
probably only with domestic equipment feeding to a TV monitor without much
conversion.Other things
CD disks: good for both macs and PCs at once
Quicktime seems much better at compression than WMF
.IFO (control flow data)
.BUP (backup duplicates of the .IFO files)
.VOB (the video chunks)
The VOBs are actually a subspecies of MPEG2 file.
More wider points
GIF movie (Netscape only??):
press.
original page 
still only
Real player