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Date: March 21, 2016

To: Whom so ever it may concern

From: Shail Godambe

Subject: NIU Student Response measures in Classes and NIUResonse.com System

I teach UBUS 310 Operations Management section in the College of Business in the Fall semester and the Spring Semester.

The Fall semester class size is about 250 in the morning and 175 in the afternoon in the auditorium.

The Spring semester has class size of 200 at DeKalb and 10 -15 at the Rockford campus.

I have used the Turning point Technology Clicker in the past for the purpose of engaging students during the class. When Turning point Technology changed the business model to purchasing the Clicker, and in addition the purchasing the software, it added financial burden to the students. The change to the student account and student’s response data management on the CLOUD system was very cumbersome and error prone.

We have now switched to NIUResponse.com system for the UBUS 310 Operations Management classes. The students and faculty has embraced it with full support for many reasons.

First, the students are using their smart phones as their ‘Clicker’ device. That has saved them the hardware investment and saves them the trouble of discarding another hardware device. By the way 100% of my class students have smart phones.

Secondly, students do not have to register for the use in the class at all. It is already setup by the site sponsor Dr. Chuck Downing. As the enrollment changes during the first 10 days, there is no addition update required from the faculty or students. This is another factor change compared to Turning point Technology system.

Thirdly, the screen format to answer every question is very easy to use by the students. Some students asked about the documentation for the system …. our answer was can you click on A or B or C etc.

Fourth: You can check how many students have responded to the quiz question before you close the question.

Fifth: After the quiz question is closed, everyone sees the statistics of the students’ responses. This is where the faculty and students discussion take place.

Six: When all the quizzes are done, the students get their individual scores immediately on their smart phone. This has saved any future conversation of students questioning about their score integrity.

We are fortunate to have this easy to use, economical and effective students’ NIUResponse.com system at NIU.

Best Regards,

Shail Godambe

Shail Godambe, Instructor, OMIS Department

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Chuck Downing exemplifies the spirit of Huskie innovation with the concept, development, and implementation of NIUResponse.  Chuck’s system is so simple and easy to use, I completely understood how to operate NIUResponse after a 10 – 15 minute tutorial. 

We use Chuck’s system in the College of Business to help faculty utilize “BELIEF Moments” – an ethical dilemma to get students thinking about their actions and behaviors associated with ethical challenges.   It is great to use such a wonderful product developed by one of our wonderful faculty!

Pam

Pam Smith, Board of Trustees Professor, Accounting Department

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"Flexibility is what draws me to NIUResponse.com.  The browser implementation means I don't have to lock my students into proprietary hardware and I can present my questions in whatever medium I choose, Powerpoint, Acrobat, etc.  The ease of loading polling results into Excel means I can create whatever grading algorithm I wish."

Please let me know if that will work or if you have suggested edits.

Tom

Tom Jacobs, Visiting Professor, Finance Department

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Chuck,

I believe your effort in creating the NIUResponse.com system directly reflects our COB core values...

Core Values

Excellence in learning, teaching, research, and service.

Integrity in how we conduct ourselves in the classroom and beyond.

Caring in our relationships and how we serve the world.

It provides us with an Excellent teaching tool / learning aid.

It allows us to maintain Integrity for ourselves and our students in (and out) of the classroom.

It shows we Care about the little costs incurred by our students.

Brian

Brian Bender, Instructor, OMIS Department