Anonymous questions in Top Hat provide a secure environment for students to share sensitive, personal, or polarizing feedback with complete privacy. By removing the fear of identification, educators can collect more honest and accurate data.
Table of Contents
- Creating Anonymous Questions
- Privacy and Grading Constraints
Creating Anonymous Questions
Most Top Hat question styles support anonymity. Follow these steps to enable the feature:
- Click the purple Add to Course button in the left-hand content pane.
- Select your desired question style.
- Locate the anonymity setting in the creation window:
- Version A: Check "Anonymous - Allow students to answer anonymously"
- Version B: Check "Anonymous answers"
Figure 1:Version A Interface
Figure 2:Version B Interface
Privacy and Grading Constraints
When anonymity is enabled, Top Hat prioritizes data privacy through the following rules:
- Identity Protection: Instructors cannot see which individual provided which response. Only aggregated class data is visible.
- Grading: Because identities are hidden, anonymous questions cannot be graded for participation or correctness.
- Setting Lock: Anonymity must be configured during creation or before the question is first presented. You cannot toggle this setting once a question has been live.
Pro-Tip: If you accidentally present a question without anonymity enabled, you must delete the question and recreate it with the correct setting to ensure student privacy.