The maintenance session is being undertaken to upgrade our internal servers and improve the grading of essay type questions. This will result in a quicker response and load time for your quizzes and courses. It will also offer you more options around open response questions such as feedback, grading etc.

ProProfs Training Maker & Quiz Maker will be temporarily unavailable, during the session and rest of the site will be working fine.

Maintenance Summary

Products Impacted: Quiz & Training
When:  May 10th, 2013 from 10pm to 11pm EST – for 1 hour (See in your time zone)
Why: To install faster servers and improve essay grading

We appreciate your patience and promise to return as soon as possible with an improved service.

If you need any assistance, please email us at support@proprofs.com

Tech Zulu most appreciates the fact that ProProfs provides powerfully simple tools and supports “an extensive options list for each tool to create a “delightful” atmosphere for customers.”

Our brand promise: simplicity, comprehensive & delight! 

                                                           - Sameer Bhatia (CEO, founder ProProfs)

 What Tech Zulu likes about ProProfs 

• Simple and intuitive interface coupled with powerful technology such as HTML5
• Can be used by anyone without having to learn codes or convert files
• Knowledge database consisting of more than a million quizzes and thousands of courses
• Instructors can create classes and tutorials based on individual performances
• Affordable, flexible and upfront pricing
• eCommerce set-up for buying and selling quizzes & courses
• Excellent customer support and feedback forums

“Endless options makes ProProfs such a great tool, especially for large companies and universities.”

                                                                              -  Tech Zulu on ProProfs

Read the full review: ProProfs An Online Tool for All 

]]> http://www.proprofs.com/blog/2013/05/techzulu-reviews-proprofs-as-a-great-online-tool-for-all/feed/ 0 http://www.proprofs.com/blog/2013/04/video-tutorial-how-to-create-online-polls-with-proprofs-poll-software/ http://www.proprofs.com/blog/2013/04/video-tutorial-how-to-create-online-polls-with-proprofs-poll-software/#comments Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:32:05 +0000 ProProfs Staff http://www.proprofs.com/blog/?p=4046 Read More]]> ProProfs Polls is an easy-to-use, effective poll software, which can be accessed from anywhere at anytime; and supports powerfully simple features for creating  online polls and gathering instant feedback. Educators, online marketers and HR managers can easily set up engaging and interactive online polls for gathering feedback from their learners, customers or employees using ProProfs Poll software.

Key Features of ProProfs Poll Software

Easy-to-use 

Creating a poll with ProProfs Poll software is super easy. Simply choose a question type (multiple choice, checkboxes or essay question), type the answer options and you’re done. There’s no software to download and learn so anyone can create a poll, without any prior HTML skill.

Add videos and images

You can also add images or videos to your polls to make them more engaging and meaningful. For example, let’s say you created a poll titled “What’s your favorite coffee drink?”, you could add attractive images of different kinds of coffee to the answer options and even add a video about how coffee is made.

Instant Feedback

With ProProfs Poll Software you get instant feedback and results. As soon as a respondent takes your poll you get to see the results such as the total votes or votes by percentage for each answer option in your poll. You can even show the results to your respondents by adjusting the poll settings.

Easily brand and customize your polls

You can easily add custom colors and themes to your polls to perfectly match that of your website or blog.  You can see how pop star Shakira’s website used our Poll software, and made it look like a part of their website by adding custom colors and themes. Such custom polls ensure that your visitors take the poll without ever leaving your website. You can also customize the poll completion page to show Facebook and Twitter links or even add a custom message, such as a thank you note, for your respondents.

Comprehensive security features

ProProfs provides you advanced security options whereby you can create private & password protected polls which can be accessed only by those with whom you share the link to the poll. You can also block repeat voting by the same I.P. address or computer, so that the same person does not vote twice and your results are more accurate.

Advanced reports & tracking

You get detailed reports and statistics related to a poll such as the date and time the poll was taken, I.P. addresses, city, state, country and the total number of responses. You can also view the stats as a pie chart and even download the poll votes and results. This helps you to accurately interpret the results of your poll.

Anywhere anytime access

ProProfs Poll Software is a web-based software which can be accessed 24/7 from anywhere and any device. The polls you create are compatible with multiple browsers, operating software and mobile devices making it possible for respondents to take the polls from anywhere, at anytime.

Easy to share and embed

Once you create a poll with ProProfs Poll Software, there are multiple ways in which you can share it with your audience. You can share it directly by emailing them the link to your poll or you can also run the poll on your blog or website by using the embed code we provide. You can also share the poll via social networks.

Watch our video tutorial or create an online poll for free, now!

We at ProProfs take great pride in being able to help our large user base teach and learn better. We’re looking ahead to working hard each day to bring our tools and online education platform to more across the world.

Please read, share and comment: Online assessment and training platform ProProfs passes 1 million registered content-makers

The maintenance session is being undertaken to upgrade our internal servers and improve the grading of essay type questions. This will result in a quicker response and load time for your quizzes and courses. It will also offer you more options around open response questions such as feedback, grading etc.

ProProfs Training Maker & Quiz Maker will be temporarily unavailable, during the session and rest of the site will be working fine.

Maintenance Summary

Products Impacted: Quiz & Training
When:  May 3rd, 2013 from 9pm to 10pm EST – for 1 hour (See in your time zone)
Why: To install faster servers and improve essay grading

We appreciate your patience and promise to return as soon as possible with an improved service.

If you need any assistance, please email us at support@proprofs.com

To help you create the best online courses, we have come up with an awesome infographic on the “Best Practices For Creating An Online Course“, which provides you answers to these  3 critical questions:

• How do I begin my course?
• How do I present the course content and manage learners?
• How do I conclude my course?

We created this educational resource, not just to introduce educators and trainers to Learning Management Systems, but also to provide them with reliable, practical and useful information on how to optimally utilize LMS systems for deploying online courses and assessments.

- Sameer Bhatia (founder ProProfs)

ProProfs LMS Resources consists a variety knowledge resources such as video tutorials explaining introductory topics such as what is an LMS; detailed articles on uses and benefits of LMS, downloadable checklists and guides, which help instructors quickly learn the salient features and technology behind online learning management systems.

What ProProfs LMS Resources has to offer

• Detailed explanations of the different aspects of LMS Systems
• Helpful tips on how to streamline and maximize the use of LMS software
• Video tutorials and a number of articles explaining the features and benefits of LMS systems
• Downloadable checklists comparing different LMS systems, vendors and services
• In-depth articles on new trends and movements in the elearning industry

Check out our LMS Resources and share the knowledge.

Press Release: ProProfs Debuts Learning Management Systems Resources for Educators and Enterprises

“By implementing ProProfs Training Maker technology, eLearningArt’s quality control “pass” rates increased to 90 percent.”

- Bryan Jones ( President, eLearning Art)  

 

The Problem

eLearningArt- the leading provider of eLearning images and templates for the eLearning industry, needed to train its newly hired team of graphic designers on managing quality control of their work. They were facing a set-back as organizing internal training meant loss of time, money as well as interruption in the process of product development. To avoid time spent in organizing live training sessions, they wanted to create online internal training programs and were looking for an online training software which was effective, user-friendly as well as cost-effective.

The Solution

eLearningArt found ProProfs Training Software to be the ideal solution to their needs. Creating online courses and assessments was easy and time-saving as they could create a course, in a matter of hours, by adding different kinds of learning materials such as videos, PPTs, PDFs and even online content such as wikis and blogs.

Secondly, with ProProfs Training software, they did not have to worry about additional costs such as installation charges, hosting costs, new hardware purchases, data-backup and maintenance fee. For a small monthly fee, eLearningArt could create comprehensive courses, that included online assessments, feedback surveys, polls and more. Finally, the trainees also did not face any problems using the software, as they did not have to download anything or read an instructional manual to start using the software. They could simply take the training courses from their laptops, tablets and even smartphones, at anytime they wanted.

Read the full case study: Case Study – eLearning Art Leverages ProProfs.com

This is the very reason why we avoid Flash with our quiz creator and through our superior video encoding technology convert Flash-based videos to HTML5, ensuring that all the multimedia included in your quizzes run across multiple platforms and mobile devices.

Here are 5 reasons why you should avoid a Flash-based quiz creator:

1. Your quizzes take longer time to load

Before you go ahead and create a flash quiz, remember that these quizzes take a long time to load. This can be a very serious impediment to online assessments. Learners taking an online test will lose valuable time if the pages do not load quickly. Even more so in the case of timed quizzes, where learners have to finish a test within a specified time duration.

2. Flash player download required 

A great inconvenience for learners taking a Flash-based quiz is that they might require to download Flash player if it is not already installed in their systems. However, not all learners have the time or inclination to download and then resume the tests. In fact this demotivates and distracts learners. You should avoid creating flash quizzes to ensure that none of your learners are inconvenienced.

3. Does not work on mobile & tablets

In recent years, one of the major developments in elearning has been the growth of mobile learning. Nowadays, learners prefer to use their smartphones than their PCs to access the Internet. In such a scenario, to create a flash quiz is like opting for a regressive technology, as it  greatly hinders the learning process as most mobile devices such as iPhones and iPad do not support Flash.

4. Incompatibility issues with browsers and emails 

Since Flash technology is widely used in creating advertisements, some web-browsers and email sites may block the images and videos in a Flash quiz regarding it as spam. Some web-browsers which require the latest version of Flash technology to be downloaded will also not be compatible with Flash quizzes.

5. Difficult to optimize for search engines

If you are an online marketer who is looking to create a quiz and then promote it in your blog or website, then you should definitely avoid a Flash-based quiz creator. Once you create a flash quiz, your troubles begin as it is difficult for you to keyword optimize such quizzes Flash quizzes are not ranked high by search engines and it may even result in your quiz not showing up is search engines at all.

We support a number of features to overcome the disadvantages of using Flash, and ensure that you have the freedom to upload different kinds of media and content to your quizzes, as well.

How Does ProProfs Handle Flash Negatives

a) Video Conversion & Encoding
We encode videos to multiple formats, so our video player does not require Flash. Your learners can easily access the videos in your quiz from their iPhones or tablets.

b) Documents Viewer
When you upload documents, our document viewer can show MS Word, PPT, PDF and a variety of other formats, across many devices without requiring any flash or software downloads. Everything works in the browser (native support).

c) Flash Embeds
Sometimes, games or quizzes created in Flash do not work on any other media besides those supported by Flash technology. With ProProfs, you can easily embed such content inside your quiz and it will still run on any media platform. We encapsulate Flash inside a regular webpage as opposed to using it for powering all pages like Flash based quiz makers do.

d) Flexible Embed
You can even take the embed code from any other site like Scribd, SlideShare etc, and add the content  to your quizzes, to make them more interactive and fun, without overhead of Flash.

1. Know your requirements

Don’t buy a Test Making Software, that doesn’t meet your requirements. Ask yourself these questions before you buy one:

What is your role and what are you looking for: Are you a teacher looking to create an online exam? Are you an online marketer who requires an online tool for creating quizzes and surveys to add to your blog or website? Are you a corporate trainer looking to create employee assessments? Or someone just looking to create fun quizzes and share it with your friends.

2. Will the software grow your business?

Once you’ve bought a test making software it will have long term effects on your business. One of the most important things to consider is whether, the testing software will add to your administrative responsibilities and maintenance expenses instead of reducing your workload and saving you money. You should check out the features to see whether there are additional charges for installation, product updates, third-party integration, technical support as well as any additional hardware requirements. This will give you a fair idea about whether after the software will add to your business revenue or just add to your company’s overheads.

3. Get a features checklist 

Don’t ever go for a software which does not provide you a features checklist. Without looking closely at the features, you will not be able to understand what exactly they do for you.

Make sure that the software provides all the features that you would require to create a fully functional online test, whether it be to tests learners, create a market research or assess the knowledge of employees.

Here are some important features that you would require:

For teachers/corporate trainers/educators

• Ability to create multiple questions such as true or false, multiple choice, fill-in-the-blanks, matching and more
• Automated grading and free quiz samples that you can use
• Tracking and analyzing results and reports online
• Compatibility with multiple browsers and smartphones
• Options to prevent cheating online such as randomize questions, shuffle answers etc
• Sharing tests and reports via email
• 24/7, anywhere & anytime access to the test software
• Full branding and security features

For online marketers/webmasters/bloggers

• Ability to create interactive tests and surveys by using videos and images
• Ability to promote the tests and surveys by embedding them your blog or website
• Social media sharing options in-built in the quiz or survey
• Compatibility with multiple browsers and smartphones
• Full branding and security features

7. Work within your budget

There are different test making software providers out there such as SaaS, proprietary and open source.

They have different pricing models for example a SaaS provider requires you to pay a monthly/annual fee, a proprietary vendor asks for an upfront license fee and as for open source, you get the source code for free.

The catch: Proprietary software providers ask you for an upfront fee but then there are additional charges for feature upgrades, software storage and maintenance. Open source though seemingly free requires you to hire an IT team for installation, administration and maintenance of the test software. On the other hand, a SaaS provider has a flexible pricing model and there are no additional costs for: installation, feature upgrades, administration, maintenance and data storage.

The bottom line is that you should not opt for a software the overshoots your budget.

8. Get a trial version: see if it works for you

One of the best ways to avoid making the wrong choice is to check out the trial version. Genuine test making software companies provide you a 30 Day Money Back Guarantee, which is a good amount of time to judge whether the software actually meets all of your requirements. In this period you can also gather feedback from your learners in terms of usability and if you aren’t satisfied, you can always cancel the plan and switch to a better one.

9. Look at the testimonials and client list

You don’t want to purchase a Test Making Software which has poor reviews in the media and doesn’t have a strong client list. One of the best ways to get acquainted with the software you’re looking to purchase is by going through the media reviews, case studies and testimonials. When looking at the testimonials, check to see if the clients are a healthy mix of teachers, trainers, corporations etc. Another, good area to check would be for existing customers reviews in Facebook and Twitter.

10. Check for system performance records

The one thing that you wouldn’t want after purchasing the Test Making Software is a slow response time. Along with a high response time you want the software to be available 24/7 and to have full data-backup in case of hardware disruptions or service failures. For this very reason you should always check the system availability stats, which consists of uptime and response time records, and check whether your learners will be able to take the tests from anywhere and at anytime, without any technical hang-ups.

11. Is there maintenance and post-sales support?

Software maintenance is a very important area, which can become a daunting and cumbersome task for your organization to shoulder.  It is advisable that you go for a Test Making Software vendor which provides maintenance support. That way you can focus on the creation part and not have to worry about bugs or fixes. Also look up if the vendor provide post-sales support such as email, chat and phone support so that you can quickly contact the IT team of the vendor if you face any technical issues with the software.

Important questions to ask the vendor regarding support:

• Is there phone support?
• What timing is phone support available?
• Is there email support?
• Is there support over the weekend?
• Is there chat to find quick answers?
• Are help videos available?
• Are self-help resources like knowledgebase available?