A&S Learning Design & Technology Knowledge Base

Feature Comparison: Zoom Polls vs. UVACollab Polls vs. Poll Everywhere vs. Microsoft Forms

Updated on

When choosing your tools, remember that the best tool for your course is generally

  • What you and your students are most familiar with.
  • What ensures all students have a way to participate.
  • What's doable.
  • What's supported by the university (you're going to need support).

Zoom Polls, UVACollab Polls, and Poll Everywhere are three tools you can use to conduct polls in your course.

Feature Comparison Chart

The following chart compares the features offered with Zoom Polls, Collab Polls, and Poll Everywhere.


Zoom Polls
UVACollab Polls
Poll Everywhere
Microsoft Forms
Question Types
Multiple choice (single or multiple answer)
Multiple choice (single or multiple answer)
Multiple choice (single or multiple answer), open-ended, word cloud, Q&A, clickable image, ranking (only in surveys), competition mode
Multiple choice (single or multiple answer), ranking, rating, Likert scale, date selection
Download results
Yes (CSV)
No
Yes (CSV)
Yes (Excel)
Display Live Results
Yes, only after all participants have responded
Yes, see answers populate in real time
No
Participant Results
Anonymous, display name through meeting registration, or display name by user authentication Anonymous only Anonymous or user registration to display username Anonymous if instructor selects that; otherwise linked to user name in Teams account
Automatic Grading No No  Yes--read more here Yes--read more here
Poll Collaboration Between Users
No Yes - info here Yes - info here Yes

Zoom Polls

Zoom polls are launched within a Zoom session using the Polls button in your Zoom menu.

Zoom Meeting

You can create a Zoom poll in your virginia.zoom.us account when you edit a meeting. Zoom has instructions on how to create and launch a poll, as well as how to download poll results. Zoom polls allows for multiple choice questions that can be either single or multiple answer. Both the meeting host and co-host can launch Zoom polls and display the poll results, but only the person who scheduled the meeting can create and edit the poll since it is in their Zoom account profile.

UVACollab Polls Tool

The Polls tool in UVACollab allows users to create single question multiple choice polls that can have one or more answers. The Polls tool can be added to your UVACollab site through Site Settings and is located in your site tool menu.

UVACollab : Practice Course Site-Jessica : Polls - Google Chrome

UVACollab Help has instructions on how to create a poll, see poll results, manage poll creation permissions, and how to take a poll as a student.

Poll Everywhere

Poll Everywhere is a UVA-supported polling tool that can be added to your UVACollab course site tool menu. You create Poll Everywhere activities on your Poll Everywhere account

In Poll Everywhere, you can create multiple choice (single or multiple answer), open-ended, clickable image, word cloud, Q&A, and ranking questions. Each question is a single "activity", with the exception of a survey activity, which contains several question types, and competitions, which have several multiple choice questions and awards users for speed as well as accuracy.  

When you activate a poll, it displays it on your PollEv.com response page. Using that URL, students can answer Poll Everywhere questions in their computer browser or on their mobile device. 

For more information on using Poll Everywhere, visit its Learning Tech page.

Microsoft Forms Polls

If you are using Teams for your course home, you can create a poll, quiz or survey in Microsoft Forms. You can add Microsoft Forms as an app to your Teams homepage.

0 Comments

Add your comment

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Previous Article What are my software options for recording my lecture? (Zoom vs Panopto vs Kaltura vs VoiceThread)
Next Article How can I give a guest access to my Zoom online meeting?