PRS and OWL
OWL (Online Web-based Learning) is an online quizzing mechanism, first developed by UMass for use in the Chemistry department. It consists of content pages and question pages, and it also provides a grading system to alleviate some of the pressure of grading quizzes. Instructors in Resource Economics asked for links from PRS to OWL for a more powerful tool.
Many instructors at UMass choose to use OWL to grade their sessions rather than the built in PRS grade book. Grading in OWL has a few important advantages over grading using the normal PRS grade book.
- OWL is a more powerful grading tool
- Allows different point values for each question
- Allows multiple correct answers for each question (currently up to 3 correct answers are supported by default).
- Supports automatic scaling of sessions, so that each session has the same weight no matter how many questions you ask that day
- Supports pure participation grading in a number of forms
- OWL allows more flexibility for lost clickers and incorrectly entered IDs. Students who register late, lose their clicker and have to register again, or register incorrectly but fix their registration later still receive credit once their instructor goes through a simple regarding process. If a teacher is grading through the PRS gradebook and a student forgets to put their student ID into their clicker or puts their student ID in incorrectly it is difficult to grade that student correctly.
- OWL servers as a way to display grades to students and give them instant feedback. The normal PRS gradebook can be posted online through a system such as Spark, but it is another additional and fairly complex task. Teachers who use OWL tend to update their students PRS grades more often since once the grading is done the posting of the grades is trivial.
There are some disadvantages of OWL as well.
- Using PRS in OWL is complex, especially if you’re not familiar with using OWL. Learning all the nuances of the system and getting comfortable with it can take a little while. Using the gradebook built into the PRS system is more straightforward and simpler to work with.
- OWL requires a separate registration process which can be a bit confusing to students. Students don’t use their student IDs but instead use their clicker IDs which need to be looked up from their clicker’s setup menu. In most large classes there are students who register incorrectly and need to be told which number to use, even though the instructions are posted in several places including the actual page where registration is done.
If you plan to use OWL to grade your PRS sessions, there are a few things you should know. Below are instructions for the following:
Setting up your OWL class to work with PRS
Grading your PRS sessions in OWL
Student Clicker registration for use with OWL
