Unitpulse is a LEO unit evaluation tool that allows ongoing analysis of your unit.
ACU Unitpulse is an online formative evaluation instrument that allows lecturers to gauge student sentiment, understanding and progress in order to drive student success. The immediate (live) feedback received from students enables lecturers to make timely adjustments if needed and address student concerns and affirm good practice.
Lecturers in Charge (LIC's) have access to add ACU Unitpulse to their units in LEO. In order to do this, staff are requested to complete the Request for access to ACU Unitpulse form.
Lecturers can post a range of question types (Likert scale, rating, choice and text) to collect feedback from students during a study period. See the ACU Unitpulse webpage for more information on questions. Students can respond anonymously to questions, allowing one-on-one communication between a lecturer and a student, even though the tool does not reveal any details of students. Lecturers have the option of making students’ responses visible so that they too can see what other students are thinking.
ACU Unitpulse also lets students submit one piece of confidential feedback per unit in each 24-hour period, and lecturers can respond directly to the student.
Evidence of the student responses collected using the ACU Unitpulse tool are able to be exported as an Excel spreadsheet and/or PDF File.
The benefits of using ACU Unitpulse is the ease with which staff can create a range of questions and collect anonymous, formative feedback from students. The data collected provides lecturers with the information they need to make timely adjustments to the unit is needed.
For examples of the types of questions that can be asked when collecting formative student feedback using ACU Unitpulse, see the ACU Unitpulse webpage.
Staff and students can download the ACU Unitpulse (product name is Bluepulse) App to post and respond to questions on their mobile phones. For more information refer to Google Play.
The ACU Unitpulse webpage, contains a range of resources to support staff in using and promoting the tool to students, including:
For further information about ACU Unitpulse, contact Evaluations.LTC@acu.edu.au.
The University of Mary Washington recently implemented Bluepulse as part of a student retention and engagement strategy. Refer to case study for more information.
Diamond, M. R. (2004). The usefulness of structured mid-term feedback as a catalyst for change in higher education classes. Active Learning in Higher Education, 5(3), 217-231. doi:10.1177/1469787404046845
Overall, J. U., and H. W. Marsh (1979). Midterm Feedback from Students: Its Relationship to Instructional Improvement and Students' Cognitive and Affective Outcomes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 710(6), 856–865. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.71.6.856
Smith, R. A. (2001). Formative evaluation and the scholarship of teaching and learning. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2001(88), 51-62.
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