DIY Survey Generator Introduction
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DIY Survey Generator Introduction    IMPORTANT: Some survey instruments require approval by the Human Subjects Committee. Please review the HSC requirements. You are solely responsible for ensuring your compliance. The survey generator is an open-source (free) tool, and does have some limitations. However, for those not requiring stringent validation of their survey responses, sophisticated interaction with the user or complex multimedia, it offers an easy way to get a survey up quickly. Screenshots: Managing your surveys Choosing a question type Entering questions Editing your survey Essentially, creating a survey is a matter of adding questions one at a time, choosing the type of question (radio buttons, text fields, et al) and then entering the responses you want available (yes, no, maybe, etc). You can preview the survey at any time during its creation, and reorder questions arbitrarily. If you are conversant with HTML, you may embed it into the questions so as to grab images from other servers or to simply dress up the survey. Once a survey has been created, you "release" it for data collection, at which point you may no longer modify it. Upon release, the system provides you a long (ugly) URL which you may copy and paste into www.tinyurl.com or the like to make it shorter so that it is more convenient to include in your advertising, be it by email or web page or brochure: For example, an original survey URL would look like: http://lawson-hall.lawson.siu.edu:8080/survey/entry.jsp?id=1101138240750 But, a URL shortened via www.tinyurl.com would be like: http://tinyurl.com/4ph8p Once you "close" the survey, you can export the data for use in excel, SPSS, etc. Also, once you have surveys in the system, you may copy any of them for use as a template to speed the creation of similar surveys. The Pros: You have constant access to the system, complete control over your surveys, and may have as many of them as you like. The Cons: You must accept empty or incomplete surveys as the system does no validation of data. For example, if you ask for an email address, you cannot even verify that it at least contains an "@". Drop-down menus are not available for presenting responses; you get radio buttons, checkboxes, and text fields only. More functionality is forthcoming from the developers of the system, and will be made available as it is practical to do so. In the meantime, each user will have to evaluate whether this system will serve their purpose. If you find that your survey requires more functionality than can be provided via this open-source tool, then you are encouraged to contact Howard Carter, manager of ISS, to discuss the possibility of collaborating with a programmer or multimedia developer. If you are ready to get started, Email Doug Simmons to request a survey generator user account. Please mention briefly your association with SIU and the general purpose of your survey. |
