managing a quickmatch
This page covers what you can do while a QuickMatch is running, and how to give students credit for it. Most of it you will never use: a QuickMatch matches students as they arrive and needs nothing from you while it does, and the results arrive in your inbox when you switch it off. This walkthrough is for the uncommon occasions when you might need to intervene, and for instructors administering synchronous in-class Sway chats.
This page assumes the QuickMatch already exists; creating an assignment covers setting one up. Formal assignments are managed differently and have their own walkthrough.
A drawing of the Sway manage screen for a running QuickMatch, shown one screen at a time as you scroll. It illustrates the steps described below; nothing in it acts on the real product.
No assignments found
Minimum chat30 minutes
topics
- medical paternalismMedical paternalism can be justified if the expected gain to patient welfare is sufficiently high.
- kidney marketsWe should legalize kidney markets.
- abortionIn most cases, abortion is morally permissible and should be legal.
+ Add topic
Minimum chat30 minutes
topics
- medical paternalismMedical paternalism can be justified if the expected gain to patient welfare is sufficiently high.
- kidney marketsWe should legalize kidney markets.
- abortionIn most cases, abortion is morally permissible and should be legal.
+ Add topic
Minimum chat30 minutes
topics
- medical paternalismMedical paternalism can be justified if the expected gain to patient welfare is sufficiently high.
- kidney marketsWe should legalize kidney markets.
- abortionIn most cases, abortion is morally permissible and should be legal.
+ Add topic
Minimum chat30 minutes
topics
- medical paternalismMedical paternalism can be justified if the expected gain to patient welfare is sufficiently high.
- kidney marketsWe should legalize kidney markets.
- abortionIn most cases, abortion is morally permissible and should be legal.
+ Add topic
Minimum chat30 minutes
topics
- medical paternalismMedical paternalism can be justified if the expected gain to patient welfare is sufficiently high.
- kidney marketsWe should legalize kidney markets.
- abortionIn most cases, abortion is morally permissible and should be legal.
+ Add topic
Minimum chat30 minutes
topics
- medical paternalismMedical paternalism can be justified if the expected gain to patient welfare is sufficiently high.
- kidney marketsWe should legalize kidney markets.
- abortionIn most cases, abortion is morally permissible and should be legal.
+ Add topic
If this screen isn't already familiar to you, start with creating an assignment.
You're about to walk through how to manage a QuickMatch while it's running.
Pressing the space bar goes to the next screen, or you can scroll.
01 QuickMatch Chats list
QuickMatches are listed in the rail on the left, under Assignments. Each row is one QuickMatch: its name, the topics students are rating, a toggle that turns it on and off, and a menu.
Everything you do to a running QuickMatch is in that row, not in the tabs across the top. Those show whatever is selected in the rail, which here is the QuickMatch itself — its topics and its minimum chat duration, and no deadlines.
If you're not already familiar with this screen, go back to creating an assignment.
02 On/off toggle
A QuickMatch runs the same matching an assignment does: students rate the same statements, and Sway pairs students who disagree. The only thing missing is deadlines; QuickMatches do not have a launch time, opinion deadline, or completion deadline.
There's no delete button, only this toggle. Switching it off is also what emails you the report.
03 QuickMatch menu
The menu has four items:
- Force Matches pairs up everyone still waiting, whether or not they disagree. You will not normally need it. Only use it when it is strictly necessary.
- Force Completion ends all chats and promotes students to the understanding quiz and post-chat feedback.
- Hide Progress is a toggle for the progress meter.
- Export Results emails you the spreadsheet.
The first two do by hand what an assignment's deadlines do on a clock: its opinion deadline guarantees everyone a partner, and its completion deadline moves finished pairs on to the quiz.
what has no equivalent here
An assignment's deadlines also let Sway notice a partner who has gone quiet, and there's no QuickMatch version of that: it can't detect an unresponsive partner at all. We also haven't confirmed what Hide Progress hides, or from whom, so we're not going to guess at it here.
04 Force Matches
You will not normally need this button, and clicking it early costs students the conversation they were about to have. A student who is still waiting is waiting for a classmate who disagrees with them to submit their opinions, and as long as other students are still entering their opinions, that is usually a short wait.
The button pairs everyone still waiting, including students with no available partner who disagrees. It will match two students who both had no opinion about the same topic and, if needed, two who agree, with one of them selected to play devil's advocate. Sway handles that case, but it isn't the conversation they would have had a few minutes later with a partner who genuinely disagrees.
Use it when the wait genuinely isn't going to end: your topics turned out lopsided, or the session is nearly over and you would rather everyone was talking.
what happens if there's an odd number of students?
Force Matches is also how a three-person group forms in a QuickMatch: if exactly three students are left, they get one shared chat. A single leftover student keeps waiting. There is never a group larger than three, and Guide never steps in to even the numbers.
when it happens without you
The timed sweep never runs the moment a student submits their opinions — only on its own schedule, or when you click Force Matches. An assignment forms its trio automatically at the opinion deadline, which is the deadline a QuickMatch doesn't have.
05 Force Completion
This ends all chats and promotes students to the understanding quiz and post-chat feedback. Use it when you want to wrap a QuickMatch up and have students finish the quiz and survey.
06 Manually Exporting Results
Export Results is the fourth item in the same menu as Force Matches and Force Completion — the three dots on the QuickMatch's own row, beside its on/off toggle.
You will not often need to press it. The spreadsheet is sent to you anyway when you switch the QuickMatch off; the menu item is for getting a copy while it is still running.
07 Export Results spreadsheet
Export Results emails you this spreadsheet, with one row per student who has shared their identity. This is the file to use for assigning credit.
what each column means
Completed is TRUE only once chat progress reaches 100% — it has nothing to do with the quiz, so a finished chat can still carry a blank or unfinished quiz score. Chat progress itself rounds down to the nearest 5% and only ever climbs. Chat partner lists whoever the student was matched with, comma-separated for a three-person group, and reads “Identity not shared” whenever either side hasn't granted permission. Understanding quiz score has three states, not two: blank while the chat is still short of 100%, the words “Not completed” once the chat is done but the quiz isn't, and a percentage once both are.
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The assignment equivalent of this page — the roster, Chat with Guide, and suspending an account.
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