http://betterme.com
The basics
Using Betterme, you can either give or get feedback anonymously. It’s relatively straightforward, allowing a numerical ranking and a written comment. The interface is attractive and simple.
Betterme describes itself thus: “Why don’t people just say what they really think?” With this question in mind, we set out to create a communication platform that would enable coworkers, classmates, and friends to have the important conversations that even the most open communicators are tempted to avoid. Wouldn’t you appreciate it if your friends weren’t afraid to tell you that yellow just isn’t your color? Or if you could ask your colleagues for their feedback on your presentation and were confident that they would all answer honestly and constructively? We would all benefit from knowing the truth that sometimes we are unable to see ourselves. There are all sorts of different reasons that we don’t say what we really think. We’re afraid that negative feedback will offend or embarrass, we’re too bashful to provide positive feedback on a job well done, or we just don’t think that our feedback is important. e designed BetterMe with the goal of providing the world with an environment in which these apprehensions don’t exist. Based on assuring privacy and anonymity and fostering usefulness, BetterMe allows us to easily help each other improve and encourages us to accept and seek out that help in a constant effort to become better. We hope it is a tool for good in your life and the lives of people around you. It is, we hope, a way for people to finally say what they really think and for people to truly hear what was previously unsaid.”
Knowledge networking
Digital network systems such as the Internet have long been assocaited with anonymity, though in recent years the rise of Facebook has to some extent changed that cultural norm. Knowledge networking embraces the possibility that information (regardless of specific identity) can constitute the basis of a meaningful relationship between people.
What is great
Feedback can be requested via email — that way, you can ‘push’ your feedback request to all those whose views you value. Your feedback is completely anonymously provided. The same system can also be used to give feedback, enabling users to share in reciprocal exchange.
There are inbuilt basic analytics, which show off results in aggregate, enabling you to make sense of feedback collectively, rather than just individually:
Pedagogic Challenge
Feedback is at the heart of learning — in almost all cases, the provision of feedback is essential for any learner to be able to complete and embed the learning outcomes from a task; furthermore, reciprocity assists teachers in becoming partners with students rather than solely acting as authority figures ‘in charge’ of the learning encounter. The challenge would be, however, for students to become comfortable with the idea that their feedback to a lecturer is not just criticism or plaudits but in fact a potential way for them to shape the learning process as it occurs. While evaluations of teaching are now very common, used by universities at the end of units of study to assess what teachers have done (not always very accurately, as I have blogged), we also need ongoing feedback from students which then is used to revise and expand on teaching as we go.
One scenario for using this tool
Guiding the lecturer
A large first-year unit in health sciences, with over 500 students both on-campus and online, is designed to communicate both key facts about the sciences that underpin many professional health services and also to teach students that research, using scientific paradigms, is a key component of both that foundational knowledge and its application. The unit has regularly been challenging for students to complete successfully because the diversity of backgrounds and motivations means that the teacher is often unsure which concepts and ideas have ‘stuck’ and which need further explanation. Therefore, after each lecture, all students are sent an email (using the student email lists) that presents a short summary of the lecture and asks them, via betterme.com, to provide a ranking of each of 2-3 key ideas. The feedback is then reviewed and, at the start of the following lecture, problems and misunderstandings are cleared up.
Betterme:
- enables requests to be pushed to students via email; and
- provides a safely anonymous place for students to say what concerns them.
Alternatives
Several applications perform similar functions: Helpmeshine is designed for corporate use; Rypple is discussed below; Have a Say at Me looks promising – and you can publish selected feedback with comments; as well, you don’t need users to ‘login’ – they can leave feedback via a webpage which is then communicated privately to you – this latter service is shown below:
Further discussion and concepts
Dreher, H. and Maurer, H. 2006. The Worth of Anonymous Feedback. Association for Information Systems AIS Electronic Library (AISeL): BLED 2006 Proceedings.
Nicol, D. and Macfarlane-Dick, D. 2006. Formative assessment and selfregulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. Studies in Higher Education
31.2: 199–218.
Pollen, C. 2010. Rypple – How a Web 2.0 Tool Can Promote Learning in the Workplace. E-learn Magazine, 26 October.
