Overview — how the three pieces work together
This system has three parts that work in concert:
- The polling page at frugalprof.org — students open this on any device, enter their Student ID once, and tap an answer button for each question.
- The Google Apps Script — a backend script bound to a Google Sheet in the EMich Google Drive that receives each answer and logs it as a row with a running tally.
- This analyzer — a standalone local page where you paste the sheet data after class to get scored summaries.
During class — student polling page (frugalprof.org)
- Students navigate to frugalprof.org on any device.
- Each student types their Student ID into the text field once — it persists between questions.
- When you ask a question, students tap A, B, C, D, or E. A green confirmation message appears briefly, then resets to "Ready for next question" after 4 seconds.
- Students may re-tap to change their answer before you close the question. All submissions are logged; the analyzer uses the first submission per student per question.
Between questions — resetting the counter (teacher action)
Click the title text "Professor Fedel's Live Clicker" on the polling page.
A prompt appears. Type X (uppercase or lowercase) and press OK.
This reset does two things simultaneously:
- Writes a bold TEACHER_RESET divider row to the Sheet with final totals for the question just ended.
- Zeroes all running counters so the next question starts fresh.
You must do this after every question. The divider rows are how this analyzer knows where one question ends and the next begins.
The Google Sheet — what gets recorded (EMich Google Drive)
Every submission appends one row with five columns:
- Timestamp — date and time of the submission.
- Student ID — what the student typed, or "TEACHER_RESET" for divider rows.
- Answer — A, B, C, D, E, or X (for resets).
- n= — running total of responses at that moment.
- Tally — snapshot of all counts (e.g., A: 2 | B: 5 | C: 0 …).
The Apps Script uses a script-level lock to prevent race conditions when students submit simultaneously.
After class — using this analyzer
- Open the Google Sheet in EMich Google Drive. Press Ctrl+A then Ctrl+C.
- Paste into the textarea below and click Parse session. Students, questions, and total responses are detected automatically. A warning appears if any student submitted more than once for the same question.
- Optionally type a short label for each question (e.g., "Ch.4 Q2") in the label fields — these appear in the table headers and bar chart titles.
- Select the correct answer (A–E) for each question from the dropdowns. Leave blank to display responses without scoring.
- Click Generate summaries for:
- A per-student grid — green = correct, red = wrong, score and % on the right.
- A per-question bar chart showing response distribution, correct answer in green.
- Use Copy as TSV to paste the student table directly into Google Sheets or Excel.
- Use Export CSV to download the student table as a
.csv file.
All processing happens locally in your browser. No data is uploaded or transmitted.
Version history
| v1.0 | Initial build — paste, parse, correct-answer dropdowns, per-student table, per-question bars. |
| v1.1 | Head comment block and instructions toggle panel added. No functional changes. |
| v1.2 | Version history in panel; Copy as TSV; question label fields; duplicate-submission warning; Export CSV. Body section comments added. |