During the session, participants submit and evaluate comments. The participant uses a 5-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree to evaluate a comment. After, and only after , a participant has expressed his opinion about a comment, he is able to view the distribution of opinions. The votes are displayed as a bar chart within the list box area and counts above each radio button. Also the preloaded comments can stimulate the participant's memory and remind him of related issues.
Preloading comments can also prevent participants from focusing on the most recent events.
TA has been used successfully with several student groups within the School of CIS at the University of South Alabama to evaluate course content and instructor performance. Students are able to understand and use the tool effectively with as little as 10 minutes of training. Student comments indicate that most of them consider the assessment feature an important improvement in the process, particularly for improving confidence that the meeting record reflects the relative opinion of the group. Students are eager to discover whether their opinions are supported or rejected by the group. The anonymity provided by TA would be especially valuable to industry groups performing a strategic analysis.