Welcome to Arkansas State University!

TopHat_Lockup_FullColor_RGBWhat Is TopHat?

Top Hat is an active learning platform that makes teaching fun and effective. As a cloud-based teaching tool TopHat can leverage your student’s devices to increase in-class engagement and real-time feedback. Instructors can engage students in and outside of the classroom with interactive slides, graded questions, customized content, videos, discussions, and polls. 

More information is available at https://tophat.com.


  • TopHat Pilot

    A-State will be discontinuing its contract with Top Hat on July 31, 2022.

    Our three year pilot gave A-State faculty the opportunity to explore 20,000+ OER in the TopHat Marketplace, including content from sources like OpenStax, Saylor, and more. Unfortunately, there have not been enough faculty members using this tool to justify a further renewal of our contract.

    We in the CETL very much appreciate your willingness to try using new tools to engage our students and support their learning. It is our goal to interest more faculty members in pedagogical innovations, and we will look to you as leaders in this effort as we explore additional ways to achieve that goal.

  • Features

    • Virtual Classroom Streaming

      Recreate the experience of your face-to-face class or lab by engaging students in live lectures. Present slides, connect with students through video streaming and live chat, and ask questions to gauge attention and learning.

    • Lecture Recording

      Give your students an in-class experience even after the lecture ends. Recordings capture your presentation, pinpointing class discussions and participation as they occur.

    • Polls & Quizzes

      Use 14 different question types—like multiple choice, click-on-target and numeric answers—to introduce new concepts, reinforce students’ understanding of topics and assess learning. Easily export grades and participation data to your LMS.

    • Attendance

      Leverage students’ devices to take attendance–whether in-class or online. Track and assign weighted grades to attendance and get regular data-driven insights that help you identify at-risk students.

    • Secure Online Tests & Exams

      Securely administer quizzes, tests and exams on students’ computers.

      Set specific start and end times and verify identities online to ensure that the right students are taking your test. Monitor student activity and generate an easy-to-understand proctor report that flags irregular student behavior.

    • Learning Insights

      Get up-to-the-minute insights on how students are doing in your course. Easily identify and reach out to struggling students with actionable progress reports. Track student performance and sync grades directly from the Top Hat gradebook to your LMS.

    • Assignments

      Create auto-graded assignments tailored to your course to reinforce and assess learning asynchronously. Seamlessly upload questions you’ve already created for use right away in your course. Personalize learning by customizing homework, assignment settings and due dates for particular students.

    • Labs

      Create a robust learning environment in your lab. Turn your digital lab manual into an impressive interactive learning experience. Embed videos within your content to easily access additional learning tools, share supplemental web resources for student use, and add materials where you need them and when you can.

    • Accessibility Features

      Help students tackle the challenges of online learning with best-in-class tools that make your course flexible and accessible. Allow students to dial-in to lecture via phone, offer video replays of your class meetings and provide transcripts of lecture recordings.

      Digital materials are optimized for use on mobile devices, so students can complete their work from anywhere.

    • Integration with Blackboard

      Top Hat does offer an LTI integration with Blackboard. Instructors can seamlessly synchronize rosters and grades. 

  • Creating a TopHat Account

    To create your account, use this link - https://app.tophat.com/register/ - and follow the prompts to sign up. 

    For more information, see the quick start guide on the TopHat support website.

    https://support.tophat.com/s/article/Professor-Quick-Start-Guide

    It walks you through basic startup info right through to setting up lectures and more.

  • Blackboard Integration

    Top Hat's advanced Blackboard integration allows professors to sync grading and class roster information between the two systems. The integration is designed to ease student registration and on-boarding, and to allow professors to easily send grades from Top Hat into Blackboard. This integration option is implemented at schools who have institutional relationships with Top Hat.

    To Integrate your TopHat and Blackboard courses, follow these instructions:

    https://support.tophat.com/s/article/Professor-Advanced-Blackboard-Integration 

    Once you have integrated the two systems, you can add a link in your Blackboard course to your TopHat course by following these instructions:

    https://support.tophat.com/s/article/Professor-LTI-Setup-Blackboard 

  • Technical Support

    If you have a technical issue with TopHat, you can contact their support team. 

    Phone: +1 (888) 663-5491
    Email: support@tophat.com
    Hours: Monday - Friday | 9AM - 9PM EST

    Or, you may be able to find a quick answer to your problem by searching their knowledgebase for a solution at https://support.tophat.com/s/