Online surveys

Completion status: this resource is ~25% complete.

Educational level: this is a tertiary (university) resource.

This learning project attempts to provide an objective introduction to the options available for conducting online surveys or questionnaires.

If you want to do a one-off survey, then there are many no-cost, hosted, proprietary website solutions, e.g.,

1. Survey Monkey - Alexa rank 1,000 - what is this?
2. Zoomerang - Alexa rank 4,500
3. SurveyGizmo - Alexa rank 50,000
4. SurveyTool- Alexa rank 76,000
5. mySurveyLab- Alexa rank 250,000
6. Pollograph - Alexa rank 3,000,000
7. Easy Survey - Alexa rank 5,000,000
8. QuestionStar - Alexa rank 5,500,000
9. SurveyProf - Alexa rank 12,000,000
10. How to create online surveys in Google Docs

(Survey Monkey seems to be the most popular and widely used of the sites listed above, but test them out thoroughly to work out whether they provide the functionality you're looking for).

Pros

• Relatively easy, particularly for those with limited technical know-how.

Cons

• Ultimately, these sites are out to make money e.g., by selling advertising, offering limited functionality (e.g. limited time) etc. So check them out closely and read the fine print - full functionality may require a subscription fee.

Learning exercise

• Set up a simple survey on one or more of the sites above, fill it out a few times, and then try downloading the data and opening it in a spreadsheet.
• Share what you learn here.

Complete control over the presentation and management of online surveys, requires installing this free and open source software on a server:

• LimeSurvey

If you are looking for a product with full integration and development support you may want to look into:

1. mySurveyLab- Alexa rank 250,000

Kraut, R., Olson, J., Banaji, M., Bruckman, A., Cohen, J., & Couper, M. (2004). Psychological research online: Report of the Board of Scientific Affairs’ Advisory Group on the conduct of research on the internet. American Psychologist, 59, 105-117.

• Online questionnaires (Wikipedia)
• Online surveys with Qualtrics
• Survey design
• Wikimedian Demographics (could also be extended to make "own" surveys)

• How to design online surveys.
• Survey generators
• mySurveyLab blog with articles with tips, methodologies, good practice