Creating a Survey - The Quick Survey Builder makes it fast and easy to get started with creating questions for your survey.

Creating Questions - Learn how to add, delete, copy, and edit questions on the Survey tab.

Question Types Guides - Qualtrics has a huge variety of question types to choose from. Many of the question types can be modified in a near-infinite number of ways. Let your imagination run wild.

Collaboration - Allow others to contribute to your survey. This is very useful for academic researchers and others who may be working on group projects that involve surveys.

Display Logic - Decide how and when your questions/responses will appear to users. This is very helpful when creating conditional questions in your survey.

Validation - Ensure that respondents are providing their responses in the format you desire (e.g. providing a valid email address of the form "username@domain.whatever [.com, .edu, .gov, etc.]" or a phone number of the format ###-###-####)

Skip Logic - Send users to specific points in the survey based on specific conditions.

Piped Text - You can pre-fill portions of the survey using "piped text" from various sources within the survey. This could be text piped in from a previous question, from a List (see Distribution), or from a Quota (see Advanced Building). 

Rich Content Editor - Using the rich content editor, you can completely customize each question so it has exactly the look and feel you want it to have. You can modify the text, insert images, add hyperlinks, and even completely edit the HTML source code.

Look and Feel Settings - You can modify the look and feel of your survey to some extend. Missouri S&T uses a couple of basic templates, which cannot be modified by S&T users. However, you can perform some customizations of the plain template to add your own branding and unique look and feel.

Survey Options - There are many, many ways you can modify a respondent's survey experience. You can specify an expiration date, allow for password protection, prevent ballot box stuffing, or customize survey messages.

Add JavaScript - If you have a working knowledge of JavaScript, you can directly embed your JavaScript code into a survey. This allows for even more functionality and creative options for your survey.

Add Default Choices - You can specify which response is the default option for each question.

Loop and Merge - This is useful if you need to ask the same question multiple times based on a user's response. For instance, if a user says they attended 3 other schools and you want to gather information about each of those other schools, you can use Loop and Merge to ask the same questions about each of those other schools without actually creating 3 sets of questions.

Blocks - Qualtrics organizes questions into Blocks. It is often useful to create multiple Blocks of questions so you can guide users through a survey based on their responses or to better organize the presentation of the survey. For example, you might have a block of questions dedicated to demographic information and another block of questions dedicated to the actual topic of the survey.

Question Randomization - You can randomize questions/responses so each user gets a different experience. This may be useful if you are setting up a survey so it can be scored for each user. You can randomize questions within a block so that some questions will always appear in a certain order while others are randomized.

Branch Logic - This is a very powerful way of directing users through your survey based on designated criteria. While Display Logic can be used on a question-by-question or response-by-response basis, Branch Logic will take users to entirely different branches of the survey. Understanding how Branch Logic works will make your surveys more flexible and dynamic for respondents, maximizing your ability to obtain the data you are searching for.

Embedded Data - You can automatically add extra information to a survey that will be recorded in addition to the question responses. Embedded data is an extremely powerful tool, which enables you to increase the flexibility of your survey to account for various circumstances.

Email Triggers - An Email Trigger gives you the ability to send an email to a designated recipient whenever certain conditions are met. For instance, you can set up a trigger to send you an email whenever the survey is completed along with their responses. You can also set up the survey so it sends an email to the respondent with their own responses.

Quotas - With quotas, you can limit how many people are able to take a survey or respond to a given question. You can use quotas for a wide-variety of data-gathering purposes. At least one person at Missouri S&T is using quotas to limit seating for an event. When a timeslot is filled up, it no longer shows up for other users.

Scoring - You can use Qualtrics as a somewhat rudimentary testing tool. It is not quite as robust as some other online systems, but scoring has its uses on a Qualtrics survey.

Math Operations - Qualtrics supports some rudimentary mathematical operations like addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, exponents, square roots, absolute value, and rounding. You can feed data into a calculation from other questions using Piped Text. Complicated mathematical operations require more sophisticated methods, such as the use of JavaScript.

Publishing a Survey - Before anyone can take your survey, you must first Publish it. Publishing a survey automatically generates an anonymous survey link that can be used for distribution. Qualtrics will also run a check on the survey to see how user-friendly it will be for respondents.

Anonymous Survey Link - When a survey is made available for respondents, Qualtrics creates an anonymous survey link that you can use to either post on a website or send via email to a list of respondents. Anyone who uses the link will show up as an anonymous respondent, but you will capture their IP address. If you need to capture a particular user information, use Panels.

Email Survey Invitations - The Qualtrics Mailer tool lets you send out the survey via email. Each recipient will see a one-time-only link they can click to start the survey. It is unique for each recipient and can only be used once. By using this method, you can either use an existing List or create one from scratch. In either case, you will capture user data about the recipient that will show you how each recipient responded on the survey. You can also use this to send out "Thank You" and "Reminder" emails. It is also possible to send out an anonymous link.

Creating Mailing Lists - This is a very useful way of pre-populating a list of respondents for a survey. You can even add Embedded Data to a List that can be used inside of the survey when it is distributed via the List. You can send a survey to a sample of the List (e.g. 10 out of 100 respondents) or target a specific individual inside the Lists. Lists are the ideal method of distribution when it is necessary to capture individual respondent information.

Qualtrics actually has two different built-in reporting tools. The "Data & Analysis" tab gives you some basic reporting capabilities and shows the individual responses. The "Results" tab has more advanced reporting options such as Survey Statistics. The "Reports" tab lets you build customizable reports for printing and distribution.

Results-Reports - You can quickly review the data collected in a survey using Qualtrics' built-in reporting tools. You can drill-down to specific questions, add tables and graphs, and embed additional data. You can also export the report to Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and as a PDF.

Exporting Survey Data - Qualtrics responses can be downloaded to several different file-formats (CSV, SPSS, TXT, XML, JSON, HTML). This makes it easy to convert survey data into a format compatible with data analysis software (e.g. SPSS) or to perform sophisticated data analysis within the given format.

Cross Tabulation - On the Data & Analysis tab, you have the option of setting up multivariable analysis of your data set. Cross tabulation analysis will automatically calculate p-value and chi-square statistics for you.

SCENARIO 1: Event Survey Form

Q: I need to create a survey to gather feedback from my event. Ideally, attendees should be able to provide their feedback while at the event (or soon thereafter). I also want to offer attendees the option of receiving a "Certificate of Participation." How can I do this?

A: You can create a simple survey with several multiple choice questions where attendees are asked to rate various aspects of the conference on some sort of Likert scale (1 - 5, satisfied-unsatisfied, etc.). Alternatively, in Qualtrics, you can create a single Matrix Table question that contains ALL of the Likert statements and the associated scale. A Matrix Table question can have dozens of statements, many scale points (at least 10 or more), and can also allow for multiple responses, though this would apply to the table as a whole (you can't single out a single statement in the table as multiple answer and the rest as single answer).

As for the Certificate of Participation, this can be its own question. Then, you use Display Logic to show an additional question underneath if they answer "Yes" such that you gather any pertinent information that you may require such as a mailing address, first name, last name, and email address. You can use Validation to ensure that users enter in a valid email address or phone number or zip code.

Also, you should always have at least one open-ended Multi Line question for respondents to provide additional feedback that isn't accounted for in your Matrix Table Likert scale question.

It's also a good idea to use a reasonable Expiration Date in the Survey Options so that your survey is not open forever. You want to close the survey automatically after a certain period of time after the close of your event.

Finally, you can customize the look and feel of your event survey form to reflect the "branding" of your particular event (e.g. a conference). This works best if you are using the "Plain Jane" Qualtrics template for your survey, as the Missouri S&T template may interfere with your ideal look and feel.

View SAMPLE SURVEY

SCENARIO 2: Event Registration Form

Q: I want to register people to attend my event. I need to capture at least their first name, last name, and email address. I also need to know how many people will be attending, if they will be bringing other people, and where they will be bringing them from.

A: This is fairly straightforward. You can create one question with a Form that asks for all of the pertinent information like name, email, address, phone number, etc.) You can also include Validation to ensure that the respondents are providing information in the right format (e.g. that email addresses contain the "@" symbol and that phone numbers are in "###-###-####" format).

If they will be bringing other people, a simple Multiple Choice question can indicate if they will bring themselves (1), or more than 1. for simplicity's sake you might limit the options to "1", "2", "3", or "more than 3". At this point, you have a couple of options. You can keep things simple and use Display Logic to ask a follow-up question that is just an open-ended Multi-Line question where each additional person is listed on each line. A more elegant solution is to use Loop & Merge to ask a follow-up question for each additional attendee that captures the same information as the original attendee. Either one will work.

Finally, you can use an Email Trigger to send a copy of the responses to the individual that even includes Piped Text of their Response ID. The Response ID can be used by you as their confirmation number for their reservation in case they ask about it later. Sometimes people who register several months in advance will forget about their registration unless you remind them. The email trigger gives them a receipt of their registration form.

View SAMPLE SURVEY

SCENARIO 3: Peer Evaluation Of Group Presentations

Q: I want to have students answer a very simple multiple-choice question about all of the group presentations. Each group will be ranked from 1 - 10. Students will consider each group's performance based on some established criteria: Did students present material clearly and understandably? Did the group fully answer the questions posed in the assignment for their presentation? Do you feel you fully understand the objectives and results of the presented material? And so on...

Also, students will not be ranking their own group and should therefore not see their group in the list of groups to be evaluated.

A: This can be accomplished by using Mailing Lists to distribute the survey to students and then using Display Logic so that all other groups except the respondent's group will show up in the list of groups to be evaluated.

Mailing Lists allow the creator of the survey to send it out to a list of specific individuals. In this case, that would be all students in the class. Unfortunately, it is not possible to do a direct import of a class roster from Canvas into Qualtrics, but it is relatively simple to download the class roster from Canvas and tweak it a bit so that the format is compatible with an external list (in CSV format) which can be uploaded into Qualtrics. This really should not take more than a few minutes. When you email the survey via a List, each respondent will receive a one-time link they can use to access the survey.

By distributing the survey via a List, you can monitor who has taken the survey. When you examine the responses in Qualtrics, each response will indicate the name of the person who completed the survey as part of the survey data. Normally, for anonymous surveys, you can only capture the IP address. Furthermore, you can send out reminders and thank you emails to people to ensure that everyone has completed the survey.

We also recommend that you add yourself to the List so you can test out the survey yourself.

The first question of the survey should be a Multiple Choice question asking respondents which group they belong to. Students should know this information from their original assignment instructions. A more advanced version will import Embedded Data from the List into Qualtrics so that this can be generated automatically when the survey is distributed.

Another question is set up as a Matrix Table where the statements on the left correspond to each other group. Piped Text is used to carry forward the group names from the previous question. You can recycle the survey for additional assignments. All you have to do is copy the survey and change the group names (if necessary) and those changes will carry forward throughout the rest of the survey. You can use the same List or a different List for a different class of students if teaching multiple sections.

Display Logic is used to exclude the selected group from the previous question. In other words, if there are 5 groups, and the student selects Group 3, then the Matrix Table will only display Group 1, Group 2, Group 4, and Group 5, as these are the groups members of Group 3 are asked to evaluate. The columns of the Matrix Table correspond to the 1-10 score for each group.

So, each student should be able to evaluate each of the other groups in just a few minutes by clicking the appropriate radio buttons in the Matrix Table for each group.

When it is time to look at the results, you can download the results into an Excel CSV file. There will be a column for each group. Cells that are blank indicate which group the student belonged to.

View SAMPLE SURVEY

SCENARIO 4: Sign Up For A Product Or Service

Q: In order to use iThenticate, graduate students and faculty members need to have an account created. The standard IT ticketing system is somewhat inefficient for someone just interested in getting an account. We want to use Qualtrics to create a registration form that will notify the appropriate iThenticate administrator that an account is needed. Potential users need to supply a first name, last name, and valid S&T email address.

A: Setting up a form is easy to do in Qualtrics. Validation can be set up to verify that users will be submitting a proper email address (preferably a text string that contains "@mst.edu"). Display Logic is used to only show the form if a respondent indicates that they would like an account created.

Users are still able to submit requests for an iThenticate account via the IT Help Desk's ticketing system or by submitting an email to cafe@mst.edu, but the iThenticate Account Request Survey seems to be the most efficient means of processing the requests in a timely manner.

View SAMPLE SURVEY

SCENARIO 5: Register For An Event With Limited Seating

Q: I want to register people to attend my event. I need to collect their demographic information (name, email address, etc.). Also, this event has limited seating in each time slot, so I need a way to only show available seats to each respondent.

A: Create a survey with a handful of questions. The demographic information can all be collected in a Form-based question with some basic Validation to ensure users include a valid email address. Another question can be set up as a straight Multiple Choice type question where the respondent selects their desired time slot for the event. Quotas will be used to count how many individuals sign up for a given time slot. A mathematical equation will show the number of current seats available out of the total number of seats. This equation simply subtracts the current quota value from the available seating and shows that number as [Y - X / Y] seats where X is the current quota value. When that slot is full (i.e, when X = Y), Display Logic will prevent that slot from being an available choice for the question.

A customized End-of-Survey message will show the respondent what they selected in the survey. They can save/print this screen as a receipt. An Email Trigger can also be configured to send a copy of their responses to the respondent as another form of receipt. They can bring this with them when they attend the event. If the event organizer has sufficient Qualtrics access, they can look up the respondent in Qualtrics and verify they are registered.

View SAMPLE SURVEY