About Top Hat
Top Hat is an online teaching platform designed to help professors and educators engage their students and build comprehension before, during, and after classes. The software offers solutions for delivering interactive courses, customizing digital textbooks, assigning homework, and securely administering assessments.
Top Hat automates a variety of common, repetitive tasks to free up teachers' time, such as taking attendance and grading homework. Built-in assessment tools allow users to tracks students' progress throughout the term, with in-class questions and polls in addition to assigned homework, and provide feedback in real time to course-correct when necessary. Top Hat also aims to enhance student engagement with courses through integrated graphics and videos, customized interactive textbooks, class discussions, and lesson gamification.
Top Hat's assessment solution allows students to take tests through their own device, whether a laptop, tablet, or smartphone, without downloading any software. Instructor-generated codes control access to the exam, and a proprietary behavioral algorithm automatically detects cheating. Homework tasks can be assigned to individuals or groups through the assignment solution, and users can create custom questions, import their existing materials, or choose free question packs in the Top Hat marketplace.
Pricing starting from:
US$48.00/year
- Free Version
- Free Trial
- Subscription
Top 5 alternatives to Top Hat
Key benefits of Top Hat
• Top Hat Classroom provides users with tools for delivering interactive courses to engage students, including attendance tracking through students' devices, embedded questions in presentations, real-time polls, and response data visualization.
• With Top Hat Textbook, users can create custom digital textbooks for their students, utilizing videos, animations, and questions interspersed within content to engage learners.
• Top Hat Assignment enables the assignment of homework tasks to individual students or groups, with options for importing existing materials, auto-grading of answers, and real-time feedback.
• Assessments can be managed and securely administered through students' own devices with Top Hat Test, which uses proprietary behavioral algorithms to detect cheating and automatically lock out students.
• Top Hat automates a range of common repetitive tasks, such as attendance taking and test grading, allowing users to focus their attention on important activities.
Typical Customers
- Freelancers
- Small Businesses (2-50)
- Mid-size Companies (51-500)
- Large enterprises (500 and more)
Deployment
- Cloud-based
- On-premise
Markets
Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, United States
Supported Languages
English
Pricing starting from:
US$48.00/year
- Free Version
- Free Trial
- Subscription
Top 5 alternatives to Top Hat
Images
Features
Total features of Top Hat: 67
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Reviews
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- Industry: Education Management
- Company size: 501–1,000 Employees
- Used Monthly for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Overall rating
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 7.0 /10
Excellent for its purpose in education
Reviewed on 5/26/2022
Overall, I have had positive experience with the platform and I would encourage educators to at...
Overall, I have had positive experience with the platform and I would encourage educators to at least take a look and decide if it suits for you. There is no 'one size fits all' approach in higher education.
Pros
I have used the platform for years. Started using it to take attendance, but then transitioned to a more inclusive approach. What I like the most is that you can setup your lecture flow with PowerPoints, include quizzes/assessment points throughout, include videos (or other multimedia), and export grades/attendance at the end. There are a lot of small features that can be catered to individual faculty needs, such as types of questions, integration, etc. Their tech support is excellent! They helped me transition my course to tophat in no time.
Cons
I liked everything about the platform as it suited my needs. My only issue is the pricing model where the students have to pay for access individually. Not all of my students have the means to pay for access (which can really impact their grade if they don' use the platform). However, there is a discount if the platform is used in multiple classes. I also think they have site licenses, too.
- Industry: Higher Education Software
- Company size: 1,001–5,000 Employees
- Used Daily for 6-12 months
-
Review Source
Overall rating
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 8.0 /10
Easy to use and helpful features
Reviewed on 10/25/2018
Overall I am pretty happy with Top Hat. It would definitely fall in the upper end of programs I...
Overall I am pretty happy with Top Hat. It would definitely fall in the upper end of programs I have used. The students also seem to enjoy it as well.
Pros
I was able to log into Top Hat and immediately start using it without any training. It’s a pretty intuitive site. Seeing the grades and attendance is straightforward and has been easier to edit than other programs that I have used.
Cons
When students are submitting their quizzes or comments there is major lag time and I am not sure if that is because of the software or internet connectivity. I am never entirely sure if I know how many people have turned in their questions. Until about 3 minutes after the questions is over. Also, I wish there was a way to edit slides when they are posted into Top Hat because when I upload sometimes the slides become distorted and I need to make the text smaller or rearrange it so that it fits on the screen and can be read. Also, sometimes the link to videos do not work.
- Industry: Education Management
- Company size: Self Employed
- Used Daily for 1+ year
-
Review Source
Overall rating
- Value for Money
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 1.0 /10
Could be great, but app has persistent bugs
Reviewed on 1/12/2021
My overall opinion is that the app may be useful for classes that do not involve mathematical...
My overall opinion is that the app may be useful for classes that do not involve mathematical symbols, but if you are teaching CS or math courses, I strongly recommend finding another tool. I tried using the app for two years, letting the developers know about the bug, but since they have no plans on fixing the bug and don't say anything about it in the documentation, only use if you don't mind wasting a lot of time messing around with unicode characters (or you don't plan on using commas in any questions!).
Pros
The gradebook is very well-designed and students have mostly enjoyed the tool.
Cons
There is a persistent bug in the app that I have been asking them to fix for almost 2 years. When creating questions using LaTeX code, you cannot use commas. There is a hack-y fix requiring you to use a unicode comma, but it often doesn't work and adds a lot of extra time when creating questions. But, the responses for the company suggest that they have no plans on fixing the bug.
- Industry: Higher Education Software
- Company size: 5,001–10,000 Employees
- Used Weekly for 2+ years
-
Review Source
Overall rating
- Ease of Use
- Customer Support Software
- Likelihood to recommend 10.0 /10
Testing my students
Reviewed on 1/31/2021
I could not run in class quizzes without this software. It has made this part of the course easy...
I could not run in class quizzes without this software. It has made this part of the course easy to administer.
Pros
This software has made giving in class quizzes very easy. I use it every semester and have had a great experience with administering the quizzes and grading them. It has made it easy to go over material and to provide immediate feedback.
Cons
I would like them to add a feature that allows for grading of word answers. I have to look at all the different spellings of a word. It would be nice to have a wild card or contains option for answers
- Industry: Higher Education Software
- Company size: 51–200 Employees
- Used Daily for 1+ year
-
Review Source
Overall rating
- Ease of Use
- Likelihood to recommend 7.0 /10
Great Quiz Tool
Reviewed on 11/11/2019
Very fast and fun audience response tool to use in a classroom setting.
Very fast and fun audience response tool to use in a classroom setting.
Pros
Top Hat is very interactive application that the audience can easy connect to with any device and is simple for them to use.
Cons
Top Hat does not get very customizable with what you may or may not want to do with it. Otherwise not many complaints.
Top Hat FAQs
Below are some frequently asked questions for Top Hat.Q. What type of pricing plans does Top Hat offer?
Top Hat offers the following pricing plans:
- Starting from: US$48.00/year
- Pricing model: Free Version, Subscription
- Free Trial: Not Available
Top Hat is free for professors.
Q. Who are the typical users of Top Hat?
Top Hat has the following typical customers:
Self Employed, 2–10, 11–50, 51–200, 201–500, 501–1,000, 1,001–5,000
Q. What languages does Top Hat support?
Top Hat supports the following languages:
English
Q. Does Top Hat support mobile devices?
Top Hat supports the following devices:
Android (Mobile), iPhone (Mobile), iPad (Mobile)
Q. What other apps does Top Hat integrate with?
Top Hat integrates with the following applications:
CANVAS
Q. What level of support does Top Hat offer?
Top Hat offers the following support options:
Email/Help Desk, FAQs/Forum, Knowledge Base Software, Phone Support, 24/7 (Live rep), Chat
Related categories
See all software categories found for Top Hat.
- Higher Education Software
- Assessment Software
- Polling Software
- Student Engagement Platform Software
- Virtual Classroom Software
- Mobile Learning Software
- Onboarding Software
- Learning Management System Software
- Training Software
- Learning Experience Platform Software
- Exam Software
- Attendance Tracking Software
