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Creating a Survey

General Details

  • Click the blue ‘+ Survey’ button in the top right-hand corner of the screen.
  • Enter the name of your survey in the ‘Name’ box. This is what will appear at the top of the users screen, and how you can find the survey in future.
  • Enter the text to appear at the end of the URL in the ‘URL Name’ box (for Lincoln SU, this would appear after https://lincolnsu.com/survey/.........) – note that once you choose a URL, you will not be able to use the same one again even if the survey is deleted.
  • Set the Start / Expiry Date either by manually entering the date and time on your keyboard, or by clicking in the box to open a calendar - note that you can extend the expiry date after this point if you decide to change it.
  • In the ‘Audience’ box, select whether the survey will be Anonymous (open to anyone with the survey link without the need to log in), or restricted using Rules (these can be set by making reports in the Reporting module) based on student groups or demographics, for example restricting a survey to International students.
  • If you are applying Rules to the survey (meaning only students who fall into this group can answer the survey), select the relevant report in the ‘Audience Rules’ box and click the blue ‘Add’ button. You can also apply rules to specific questions rather than the whole survey.

Pages and Sections

  • Click the blue ‘Add Page’ button on the bottom right of the screen to begin building the survey.
  • A section can be created within a page by clicking the blue ‘Add Section’ button on the bottom right of a page. By adding another page, survey participants will be required to click ‘Next’ to continue with the survey. Adding another section within a page will create a new subheading to separate the questions.
  • You will need to name all pages and sections added to the survey, or they will appear to the participant as ‘New Page’ or ‘New Section’.
  • Remove pages and sections using the red ‘Remove Page’ or ‘Remove Section’ buttons – note that this will remove any questions within a page or section if deleted.

Adding and Removing Questions

  • Under a section, add a new question by selecting the question type from the drop-down menu, and clicking the blue ‘Add Field’ button.
  • Click the red ‘Remove Field’ button to delete a question.
  • Rearrange questions within a section, or sections within a page by clicking the blue ‘-‘ button to collapse an item, and then dragging it up or down.
  • You can add rules to specific questions, rather than adding a rule to the whole survey. For example, if you wanted to send the survey to all Postgraduate students, but had one question that was only relevant to Postgraduate students who are Course Reps. To do this, select a rule from the ‘Rules’ drop-down menu on the specific question.

Additional text can be added to a question, for example to explain the scale used. This can be entered in the ‘Help Text’ box under each question.

Question Types

Below is a description of the 7 main question types. You can make any question required, so that participants cannot submit the survey or click to the next page without answering, by checking the ‘Required’ box.

  • Checkbox – Respondents can select as many answers you allow, and you can determine whether the options are randomised. Type the options into the ‘Checkbox Options’ box, and then enter the amount of maximum choices.
  • Drop down – Items appear in a drop-down menu, and respondents can only select one option. Click the blue ‘Add Item’ button and enter the name each possible response. You can redirect students who give certain answers to different pages by changing the destination in the drop-down box next to the black arrow. For example if you asked “Have you used our café in the * last 3 months?” if a student answers “No”, their answers may not be relevant to your research and you can direct them to the end of the survey.
  • Input Box – Respondents can type a short response to a question.
  • Matrix – This presents multiple options in matrix format. Respondents can select one option per row, and these can be entered in the ‘Rows’ and ‘Columns’ boxes.
  • Paragraph – Respondents can type a longer response into a box.
  • Radio – This works similar to the Drop Down option, in that you can direct respondents to different pages based on the response they give, but this type uses a Checkbox appearance.
  • Text Block – Enter text that does not require a response from the participant, for example an introduction.

Updated on 13th May 2020