6 Reasons You Need To Opt For Electronic Voting Equipment

Technology has made its entry into every sphere of our lives and elections are no exception. Gone are the days when paper votes and ballot boxes were the only means to record mandate of the participants in an election. Electronic Voting Equipment is rising up on the popularity charts.

Several nations are conducting their parliamentary and presidential polls using this equipment and these are also finding increased acceptance in the corporate world. Here are six reasons why you need to choose them for conducting elections.

1. Record Attendance – Recording attendance and participation is one of the most vital requirements when it comes to conducting polls. There are protocols that demand attendance records to match actual number of votes cast.
2. Get Instant Results – This equipment has helped reduce the time between elections and result declaration. It is technically possible to declare results within minutes of the close of poll. This does away with the days and weeks of painstaking wait that traditional elections process involved.
3. Cost Effectiveness – Traditional voting methods that involve paper and ballot boxes is very expensive. It requires involvement of large number of people and consumes time in terms of counting of votes and declaring results. All these add to the cost of the process. Electronic voting equipment can bring down cost of conducting elections especially for small businesses and local governments.
4. Reduce Invalid Votes – Invalid votes have been a major headache in all kinds of elections ranging from those for electing governments and amendments to shareholders’ meet in the corporate world. Electronic voting equipment does away with invalid votes while accommodating the rights of voters to abstain.
5. Anonymous Voting – This is perhaps the most beneficial feature of this equipment as it allows complete anonymity while voting. Since there is no ballot paper involved in the elections none of the votes can be associated with individual voters.
6. Record Keeping – Electronic voting systems are great for record keeping as they instantly create digital records of votes which can be referred in the future. There is no need for spending additional time and efforts in preparing records for the future.

Summary – Here we take a look at six reasons why electronic voting equipment is the need of the hour for conducting any election right from corporate elections to polls for local as well as national governments.

How Enterprise Document Management Can Benefit Your Business

Think of a typical office about three decades back and you can visualise the dozens of racks and thousands of files containing important documents nicely staked up. All that is gone and you see swanky office with important business data being stored in local workstations, servers and clouds. But with tons of documents being created each year managing them is posing serious challenge to organizations. This is where an Enterprise Document Management system can streamline the entire process. Here is how it can help you -

• Higher Data Security – Imagine a situation where important business documents are hacked by cyber criminals or they fall into the hand of one of your rivals. This can deliver a death blow to your business. With most businesses not having any safety protocol for document management this threat is much more serious than you think. EDM systems increase the level of security for your data and restrict their access only to authorized personnel.
• Improved Reporting – As a part of your training, presentations or other corporate activity you would be gathering reports and documents from multiple sources. Sorting and organizing them can be a painstaking process especially when you are handling large number of documents. An Enterprise Document Management System would allow you to store, organize and compare different versions of the documents and reports.
• Streamlines Training – Training and keeping your workforce updated on the latest business process is one of the most important corporate exercises in today’s world. But do you have a proper system to manage all your presentations? Are all training materials seamlessly available to people who need it? These EDM tools come with robust Content Management Systems that streamlines your training process.
• Time Saving – While this is one of the most obvious benefits of such a system it deserves to be mentioned. If you don’t adopt an organized approach to document management your team is likely to spend hours searching and sorting documents often shifting their focus from core functions. With such a system in place you will be able to improve productivity of your resources which directly helps in increasing your profits.

Summary – In this article we discuss some of the biggest benefits of Enterprise Document Management systems and how they can streamline your entire business. 

Audience Response System Records The Response Of Audiences In Real Time

You must be wondering what is an audience response system? You might have utilized this technology somewhere once or twice, but you were unaware of the fact that this is something that can be owned and operated by a speaker, trainer, or educator. An Audience Response System, or ARS, is a kind of device which deals with the responses of an audience in real time. It refers to the interaction that occurs between the speaker and his or her audience through the utilization of the multipurpose wireless technology and the presentation software. This system keeps the audience fully involved in the discussion allowing participants to provide feedback instantly.

All information is presented in a graphical format in front of the audience

Response technology collects votes from small or large groups of people and quickly displays the aggregated data in a graphical (chart) form to promote discussion, interaction and analysis. An audience response system can also be called group response technology or classroom performance system and often serves as a replacement for hand raising or verbal responses, as well as paper quizzes and tests. Participants use keypads (often called clickers) for selecting the most appropriate answers allowing group participation in speaker-driven discussions.

Increases level of awareness and the spread of knowledge among the audience

Participation of the audience is done by selecting the most appropriate answer from the options which are provided by the speaker. All their answers are delivered to the receiver (base station, or base) and from there, to an interactive software, where the data is collected and consolidated. Information is presented almost instantly in a form of graph in front of the audience. The audience response system increases the level of awareness and the spread of knowledge among the crowd.

Increase Attention Level During Your Lecture Or Meeting By Using An Audience Polling System

Audience polling systems are the best way to increase the level of interaction between a presenter and an audience. Response technology makes use of wireless devices called keypads, data collectors called receivers and presentation software operated by a speaker to create an interactive slideshow. By using audience polling technology, the presenter can increase the retention level of an audience by asking interactive questions and immediately showing the results in real time. Polling systems are utilised by meeting producers, associations, and audio visual teams to engage audiences during live events and instructor-led training.

Participants respond to questions through handheld devices called clickers

Response systems collect audience feedback through wireless clickers, or internet-connected devices such as smartphones, tablets, and computers. A base station, or receiver, communicates with the keypads and transfers the participant data into a computer. Once received by the system, each vote is quickly aggregated and displayed on the screen in a graphical form. Presenters can review the data live during a presentation, or simply save it and analyze it after an event. Many speakers use audience polling to conduct pre- and post-evaluations, live event surveys, or quickly help groups come to a consensus.

Instructor-led training environments

Trainers use audience polling to track and document trainee performance and course curriculum. Keypads are assigned to employees and distributed prior to a live training so that answers can be tracked down to each employee. During the course, trainees use the clickers to respond to questions and quizzes integrated into the presentation. Participants’ responses are stored within the system and organized into a variety of reports. The data collected during the training session is often stored for analysis or documentation of participant attendance, performance, and course completion. It can also be exported to a central Learning Management System (LMS) for enterprise-wise tracking or compliance purposes.

Improve Efficiency And Maximize Organizational Capabilities

Data analytics tools are utilized by all types of companies to sort out the enterprise data for the identification of patterns and establish relationships. It enables businesses to gain greater insights into the organizational, industry, or market trends. The intelligence system combines the functionalities of the query tools, sophisticated reporting and online analytical processing technique (OLAP) to come up with the powerful and robust data analytics solutions for the companies.

Access wide range of data sources

As business environment is getting more and more competitive, companies are finding ways to surge ahead of the competition. Streaming their data processing and utilizing the data analytics reporting tools is one way to improve their efficiency and maximize their capabilities to grow and succeed. The deployment of data analytical system is one way to improve the productivity of the company and also to reduce the errors in the day to day functioning of the business. The data analytics program enable firms to access wide range of data sources.

Carries out data cleaning and processing and organization of information

It also allows companies to simultaneously access patterns as well as trends and to create hot lists which can be accessed through multiple locations by multiple users at a time. Many companies these days are facing the problems of duplicated data, redundancies and some kinds of confusing entries and this type of errors leads to losses. The highly efficient data analytics reporting tools can carry out the data cleaning and process and organise the information efficiently in comparison to the traditional data management techniques.

Gain an insight into organisational data for optimum decision making

The data analytics reporting tools serve as the quickest and most efficient way to gain an insight into your organisational data and utilize it for the optimum decision making. The software enables you to try out in-depth data analysis and to generate business intelligence reports that can be utilized for both external and internal use. The data analytics system imparts the clients with the level of efficiency that can￢ﾀﾙt be matched with the outdated and traditional data input systems.

Increase Knowledge Retention And Participant Engagement

Audience response systems are a group communication tool used by presenters, trainers and educators.  Associations, corporate training departments, and educational institutions use audience response systems to enhance engagement in classrooms, increase retention of lesson content, and make safety and ethics training memorable and accountable.

 Evaluate goals of your company to buy the best ARS device

• Whether you want to rent or buy, investment in an ARS system is the best way to inject interactivity into the traditional didactic lecture
• Audience response systems generally provide customers with options for response devices and software programs so each system can be customized to match the needs of your organization
• Before buying an ARS system, determine your typical group size, presentation format, and polling need so that you can properly assess which system will work best for you
• Once you have determined the specific scope of your purchase, make sure the ARS provider offers lifetime product support, extended equipment warranties, and the option to include remote participants with mobile polling capabilities.

Find out how often you are going to use audience response technology

When looking for audience response system to buy versus event rental options, it is best to determine your frequency of use. Is it a one time use, monthly event, or a daily training class? The rule of thumb is if you plan on using the system more than 3 times a year, it makes the most sense to buy a system rather than to rent the system on a per-event basis.  Most users who buy a system use it at least 3-4 times a year.  Many trainers and educators use audience response systems daily to educate, engage, and entertain their participants.

How do people use Audience Response Systems?

Audience Response Systems can be used by associations to conduct elections. They are utilized by educators to test, quiz, and take attendance.  Presenters use the technology to poll their audience and ensure everyone is on the same page.  Trainers use the technology to reinforce key concepts and document compliance.

Measure Opinions and Responses in Real Time

Speakers, trainers and educators seek to accurately assess their audiences level of understanding or interest during a live training session. While eye contact, applause, or group posture offer some insight, meaningful data and metrics used to be hard to come by. With the advent of audience response technology, real time feedback can quickly be gathered and aggregated via question and answer sessions. Audience response technology utilizes attendee response cards to transmit feedback from the audience to the presenter. The data is collected quickly and visually displayed to the group offering immediate insight and understanding.

Quickly Collect Audience Feedback

Replacing pen and paper surveys with response card audience response technology saves time, paper, and yields much higher response rates. Event organizers can replace session and speaker evaluations with electronic audience response evaluations. Audience Response Systems (ARS) collect data in seconds while paper survey’s take days if not weeks to analyze and evaluate. Response Cards allows participants to respond to questions in about 1-3 seconds per question. They can be used in small groups of 30, or large groups of 10,000. Response devices are fast and reliable, cutting time needed to vote, and evaluate results, thus saving organizations thousands of dollars in multi-day venue rental expense.

Deliver Effective Presentations

With real-time feedback delivered by response cards, presenters can more accurately and efficiently relay their message to an audience. Topics that interest the audience can be lengthened and areas that garner less attention can be shortened. A great way to evaluate where your audience is at the beginning of an event is to conduct a pre-event evaluation. At the start of your program, use the response technology to ask three for four questions about the subject matter you are about to cover. The audiences feedback will help guide you throughout the presentation.

Prepare for the Next Event

Audience response technology does more than just collect real time feedback during a session. The technology provides detailed reporting and analysis on every interaction that took place during your event. The aggregated data is professionally organized in a variety of formats and report styles allowing speakers to learn what works best from one event to the next.

Add Excitement to Your Learning Environment

In today’s modern classroom, technology plays a key role in student education. Classroom performance systems often called Student Response Systems allow educators to incorporate technology into every lesson. Teachers can quickly create questions for their students through PowerPoint-integrated software and students can respond to those questions instantly while sitting in classrooms using remote controlled handsets called clickers.

Ask questions and instantly gather answers

Handheld clickers, or response keypads easily replace hand raising to allow students to answer questions quickly and simply. The answers of each individual student can be kept anonymous or tracked by learner’s name in the student response software. Following each question, the responses are gathered and immediately displayed by a teacher in the form of graphs or charts allowing key concepts to be reinforced. Additionally, all student response data is stored within the response software for post-lesson analysis and reporting. All data is easily exportable to third party LMS systems, or standard export formats, such as XLSX (Excel), or DOCX (Word).

Increases level of participation of the students

Student Response System clickers increase learner participation by accelerating the process of answering questions. With a single button press, students can respond to questions rather than raising their hand and waiting to be selected by the educator. Furthermore, when responses are collected anonymously participation is heighten as learners are not singled out to respond individually.

Progress monitoring and growth assessment

Students can have the keypads assigned to them permanently for repeated use over the course of a school year, or teachers can link learners to keypads at the beginning of each lesson. Students’ responses are then recorded and integrated with learning management systems to provide a big picture view of classroom performance. Educators can also generate customized assessment reports directly from student response system to provide immediate quiz and test results.

Web Based Electronic Voting Systems

Electronic voting is a type of voting which is done through the utilization of electronic voting devices and voting software. There are many electronic voting systems which can be utilized for convenient, secure, and fast voting process. Electronic voting technology increases the response rate of voters as it accelerates response time and simplifies efforts to participate in the voting process.

Manage your election results easily, quickly and securely

Users can have tailor-made voting systems seamlessly integrated into their election process. These voting systems help users manage their election results easily, securely, and much faster than the traditional paper and pen methods. Many users of the electronic voting systems credit it with saving them thousands of dollars in expenses because of a shorter meeting – space rental, food, hotel accommodations, etc. Participants can vote anonymously during any kind of presentation or voting session. If you are looking for a wide response to your electoral decisions, the electronic voting systems can work as a highly secure and convenient voting system. 

Seek voting results in real time

You can utilize e-voting applications for priority ranking, elections, group contests and town hall meetings. All group responses are collected and displayed in real time. You can measure opinions and responses of the audience by using the most versatile polling technology and you can also gain feedback, comments and dialogues of the participants instantly. The audience can participate in the live polling sessions through the utilization of the electronic voting machines. These are small, hand-held, battery-operated devices that work on a secure, closed-circuit radio frequency.

Use e-voting system to figure out what entire group thinks

The audience can make use of their own mobile devices and smartphones to take part in the communication in real time. Now you can easily use the e-voting system to figure out what the entire group thinks. Collecting more details about your audience will not only make them feel connected, but also increases their engagement and level of interactivity.