What is Hot Potatoes?

Hot Potatoes is a suite of programs published by Victoria University and Half-Baked Software. Teachers use the Hot Potatoes programs to create educational materials, especially exercises and tests. All these materials can be produced in the form of web pages, and the web pages can be uploaded to hotpotatoes.net very simply, from within the Hot Potatoes programs.

What Is hotpotatoes.net?

hotpotatoes.net has been created in response to requests from users of Hot Potatoes for a way of recording results from Hot Potatoes exercises. But as well as providing this basic function, it has grown into a fully-fledged Virtual Learning Environment, with password-protected teacher and student accounts, and automatic uploading of documents and other files from within Hot Potatoes, and other programs which create online exercises. Put simply, hotpotatoes.net is the perfect hosting solution for any Hot Potatoes user who doesn't have time to become a web design wizard.

As well as Hot Potatoes, hotpotatoes.net also provides hosting and results services for exercises created using other authoring programs, including TexToys, and Quandary.

I Would Like To Ask A Question...?

If your question is about Hot Potatoes, please send it to hotpot@uvic.ca. If your question is about hotpotatoes.net, please check our FAQ page first. If your question is not answered there, please contact us.

How Do I Try It Out?

You can start using Hot Potatoes simply by downloading from here, and installing it.

To use hotpotatoes.net, you will need the Hot Potatoes version 6 - currently only available for Windows. (The Macintosh/Java version does not currently support uploading to hotpotatoes.net.) When you have download and installed this version, follow the tutorial for detailed instructions of how to create Hot Potatoes exercises.

Once you have created some Hot Potatoes exercises or other materials, you can automatically create a "demo" account for yourself on hotpotatoes.net, and upload your materials to it. hotpotatoes.net Demo accounts are fully functional, but temporary.

I Already Have Hot Potatoes - How Do I Sign Up for hotpotatoes.net?

• First, download the latest Hot Potatoes version, install it, and make sure that you enter your Hot Potatoes registration key. (If you don't have a registration key, you can obtain one from this page - it's free!). .
• Create a new exercise, or load one of your existing Hot Potatoes exercises.
• Choose the command to Create a Web Page of your exercise, making sure that you choose the option for "v6 browsers". After saving the web page, the program will display this box:

• Click the Help button for a step-by-step guide to creating a hotpotatoes.net demo account, and uploading your exercise - or just click the Upload button and work it out for yourself!

Hot Potatoes exercises are useful, but can I upload anything else?

Yes - you can use the Hot Potatoes Masher program to upload all kinds of files, including word-processor and PDF documents, sound or video clips, and more. Just start the Masher program, choose the "Upload to hotpotatoes.net" command, and choose the file you want to upload. (Please note, though, that you cannot use the Masher to upload a sequence of Hot Potatoes exercises.)

OK, I have a demo account, and I've uploaded some stuff to it. What next?

If you want to record exercise scores from your students, you will need to create Student Accounts for them. To do this, you first have to log in as a teacher at the login page, using your hotpotatoes.net username and password. Once you have logged in, click the Help link at the top of the page for more information about how to use hotpotatoes.net, and create student accounts.

I love it - I want it! How much does it cost, and where do I order it?

Creative Technology currently offer two levels of subscription allowing different numbers of students and different amounts of storage. For details and pricing, please go to the hotpotatoes.net ordering page.

HELP! I created a demo account and uploaded some Pages, but now I can't log in.

Demo accounts don't last forever - they are only for evaluation, and we delete old ones regularly, to minimise the load on our servers. We only guarantee to keep a demo account for 7 days, though they sometimes last longer.