ǧÃŬAV

Qualtrics

ǧÃŬAV licensed Qualtrics is a survey tool available to ǧÃŬAV students, faculty, and staff for ǧÃŬAV business and academic research, coursework and higher education related activities. Qualtrics is user friendly and has trainings/webinars. Instructions to access the trainings can be found below under the Using Qualtrics heading.

When disseminating surveys to ǧÃŬAV students, faculty, and staff, alternatives to the use of mass emails are encouraged. For example, announcements containing the link to your survey can be distributed through venues such as Discuss ǧÃŬAV listserv, myǧÃŬAV Notice Board, and ǧÃŬAV Today as well as sampling when appropriate. Refer to the  to learn more about alternative means of distribution. 

Note: The ǧÃŬAV Mass Email Policy is being updated; however, if any mass emails are sent, they will need to be approved by your vice president, dean or senior campus administrator. 

Review the Following Before Distributing a Survey

  • Use of ǧÃŬAV licensed Qualtrics is permissible for use by ǧÃŬAV students, faculty, and staff for ǧÃŬAV business, academic research, coursework and higher education related activities.
  • Personal information collected, stored, and transmitted must be protected according to all applicable privacy guidelines, such as FERPA and HIPAA, as well as ǧÃŬAV and USG guidelines and policies. Transmission of identifiable data for students, faculty and staff is not permissible. Survey data must be stored securely. 
  • No mass emails can be sent unless approved by the appropriate ǧÃŬAV personnel. Administrative units must obtain written approval from their vice president or senior campus administrator. Academic units must obtain written approval from their dean.  
  • The vice president/dean for your area must 1) approve the survey in writing, 2) approve distribution list/email in writing, and 3) sign the email that is sent with the survey link.
  • All users must comply with ǧÃŬAV Mass Email Policy including the appropriate approval vice president, senior campus administrator or dean. To review ǧÃŬAV Mass Email Policy, see link above.  The Office of Institutional Effectiveness does not provide lists of email addresses when a mass distribution list is available.
  • The email sent (either through Outlook or through Qualtrics) needs to include an explanation of who is sending the survey, the purpose of the survey, whether the data are confidential, how the data will be used/shared, and deadline for completing the survey.
  • If appropriate, surveys must be approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) and comply with ǧÃŬAV IRB requirements. If you are unsure whether IRB approval is needed, contact IRB.

Accessing Qualtrics

Sign into  
Log-in using your ǧÃŬAV User ID and Password.

Using Qualtrics

Creating Projects

Once logged into Qualtrics, select Projects from the Main Menu located in the upper left-hand corner. The Create Project blue box can be found in the upper right-hand corner of the Qualtrics Projects screen.

Support

Qualtrics support can be found the following ways:

  1. To access the Support Portal, select the “?” button in the upper right-hand corner of the Qualtrics projects screen, scroll to bottom of dropdown menu and select Contact Support. You may select Chat, Phone, or Email. (Product area is Survey Platform & XM Directory).
  2. Qualtrics users seeking to reach out to the Qualtrics Community will need to select the “?” button in the upper right-hand corner of the Qualtrics Projects screen, scroll down the dropdown menu and select Ask the XM Community. Scroll down to see discussions.

Note: The organization name is ung. It sometimes requested when logging into certain areas.

Tips and Best Practices for a Successful Survey

  • Define the purpose of the survey. Prioritize a clear set of questions or issues you need the survey data to answer or inform and stick to those. The inclusion or exclusion of each survey question is then based on how much it will answer or inform those original questions or issues.
  • Sample when appropriate. The IE office can help identify a good sample methodology that will obtain a representative sample without encouraging survey fatigue of faculty, staff, and students.
  • Include a descriptive/introduction text at the beginning of the survey restating the purpose, etc. of the survey.
  • Make participants aware of the end of the survey with either a statement or submit button.
  • When permissible, use back/next buttons to allow participants to return to previous question.  This can be found under Survey Options.
  • Whenever possible make the questions mobile-friendly.  The mobile-friendly box should be checked in the editing box for each question. Matrix and open response questions are not as mobile friendly, but can still be used.  When you preview a survey check the mobile preview to the right of the screen as well.
  • If possible, make survey ADA compliant (go to:  Advanced Options, Check Survey Accessibility).
  • Use skipping and branching when appropriate to shorten the survey. Every additional question the respondent must answer increases the likelihood that he or she will drop out. Qualtrics has help videos to teach more advanced survey functions such as skipping and branching.
  • If you must have data formatted in a particular way for analysis, select and set-up that question type appropriately. Different types of questions result in different data formats.
  • Review the survey to make sure every question is necessary. The shorter the survey, the higher your survey completion rate. This includes demographic questions.
  • Ask one question at a time. Be careful to not include multiple components to a question. If a respondent is asked to rate satisfaction with content AND delivery of a presentation in a single question, for example, it becomes difficult to interpret the data as you don’t know whether he or she was responding to content or delivery.
  • Utilize the best survey question format to communicate the question to the respondent and collect the data in the format you need. There are multiple formats for matrix, single or multiple select, qualitative, and other types of question formats.
  • Ask others to pilot the survey (by sending them the preview link) and provide feedback on question clarity, survey length, and other observations. 
  • Pull a report or export the survey preview data to verify you are getting the information you need in the format you need.
  • Know your audience and vary the survey language and question format to your target population.  Remember to keep language neutral to avoid introducing bias into your results.
  • If you decide to use select demographic questions, the IE office has recommendations for wording and response options.
  • Before sending your survey to ǧÃŬAV recipients, check with the IE office to see if any other large surveys are going out to your target population at the same time. The IE office attempts to stagger surveys to lessen survey fatigue.
  • Consider an incentive appropriate to your population to increase response rates.
  • If you need a particular sample size to complete your analysis, keep in mind that online surveys typically have a 10%-15% response rate at ǧÃŬAV.
  • If you have questions about any of the above, contact the Institutional Effectiveness and Research Administration.