Top Hat

Top Hat is Penn State’s Student Response System and Learning Engagement Platform. During class, drive discussions, take live polls, and give students real-time feedback. Outside of class, instructors can create and personalize interactive content, assignments, and assessments.

Service Status

Features

Beyond a typical student response system, the Top Hat engagement platform offers tools to make class time interactive. Personalize content from the Top Hat Catalog, create assessments or homework assignments, and access actionable insights which can identify struggling students or difficult concepts. Use Top Hat as part of your Canvas course, or as a stand-alone tool.

Top Hat extends and enhances the classroom experience with its various features. Pick and choose the ones that you need. Students can take advantage of discounted textbooks which are offered through the platform. Support is available either directly from a Top Hat agent or an extensive list of knowledge articles. You can also take advantage of the self-guided or individualized training opportunities.

Student Response & Assessment

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Discussions

Foster collaboration, critical thinking and community by posing questions and discussion prompts students can answer on any device.

Polls & Quizzes

Keep your students engaged with 14 question types, including click-on-target, word answer and multiple choice, and immediately see how they’re responding.
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Assignments & Exams

Make homework a learning experience with interactive assignments and multimedia. Formative and summative assessments put students’ knowledge to the test.

Automatic Attendance

Automate attendance in any in-person or online course and get instant insights to help at-risk students.

Customizable Content

Pages Content Editor

Create interactive, personalized content that reflects your students and community.

Customizable Textbooks

Packed with interactive features and the ability to edit, Top Hat textbooks take dynamic learning to a new level.

Interactive Labs

Adopt and personalize virtual lab manuals with interactive diagrams, animations, and video demos.

Educator Tools & Insights

Real-Time Data

Top Hat creates actionable insights from attendance, quiz, poll, assignment and test data, so you can improve learning in the moment and over time.

Accessibility

Our dynamic courseware is designed to meet or exceed internationally recognized accessibility standards and offers flexible options for individual students.

LMS Integration

Top Hat seamlessly integrates with Canvas for a better course experience.

Resources

Faculty Use Cases

IT Learning & Development’s comprehensive resource for Penn State instructors and instructional designers to explore and understand how Top Hat can enhance your teaching methods and student engagement. Discover practical insights, tips, and examples from fellow Penn State faculty about incorporating Top Hat into your classroom.

Discounted Textbooks

Top Hat offers textbooks at discounted rates for students. Due to Penn State’s contractual agreement with Barnes & Noble, these Top Hat textbooks must still be ordered through the Penn State University Bookstore’s Barnes & Noble Adoption & Insights Portal (AIP). Complete instructions can be found in the IT knowledge ​base​.

Support & Knowledge

Support Contact Information

For questions about Top Hat (e.g. functionality, installation, etc.), please contact Top Hat. Support is provided by the Vendor, not the Penn State IT Service Desk:

For Penn State related support (e.g. WebAccess ID or passwords, email questions, etc.), log in and authenticate to contact the Penn State IT Service Desk.

Service Status

Check for Top Hat outages and planned maintenance

Knowledge Base

View additional information and guides at tophat.com

Training

Penn State ITLD

Penn State IT Learning & Development offers training to the Penn State community for Top Hat and a wide variety of technology tools. Both self-paced and instructor-led sessions are available at no cost. Additionally, Tech Tutors provides personalized consultations by appointment.

From Top Hat

Top Hat offers both live demonstrations for instructors considering the platform as well as 1-1 Teaching support to learn how to integrate Top Hat into courses.

Top Hat Platform Training is a series of webinars that can be attended live (on Zoom) or watched on-demand (recorded).