This book reflects the growth of teaching profession, which demands more from teachers these days to keep up with various job loads. The tasks of educators has evolved to be more challenging as they need to keep up with varying activities while juggling to provide the best in their teaching and learning processes.
With that note, carrying out survey is useful to understand situation and improve practices especially in the educational setting. However, conducting survey in the traditional ways can be both tiring and devastating. Hence, it is only prudent if teachers are apt in knowledge and skills to manipulate technology to ease their job.
This book is specifically written with that tasks in mind, ultimately aimed to provide teachers and educators alike with available online resources to support their needs. The idea came with the need to choose an online survey tool and I realised that making a choice from the numerous options can be rather complicated. Hence, I compiled this book which encompasses the online survey tools available to date. It resulted in 15 chapters, reckoned as useful for beginners.
Introduction to ArtificiaI Intelligence in Higher Education
Web Tools for Online Survey
1.
2. Web Tools for Online Survey
Johan Eddy Luaran
i-Learn Center
Universiti Teknologi MARA
2014
3. First Printing 2014
All right reserved. No part of this publication may reproduced or transmitted
in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying,
recorded or by any storage information or retrival system, without the prior
written permission from the author.
4. PREFACE
This book reflects the growth of teaching profession, which demands more from
teachers these days to keep up with various job loads. The tasks of educators has
evolved to be more challenging as they need to keep up with varying activities while
juggling to provide the best in their teaching and learning processes.
With that note, carrying out survey is useful to understand situation and improve
practices especially in the educational setting. However, conducting survey in the
traditional ways can be both tiring and devastating. Hence, it is only prudent if teachers
are apt in knowledge and skills to manipulate technology to ease their job.
This book is specifically written with that tasks in mind, ultimately aimed to provide
teachers and educators alike with available online resources to support their needs. The
idea came with the need to choose an online survey tool and I realised that making a
choice from the numerous options can be rather complicated. Hence, I compiled this
book which encompasses the online survey tools available to date. It resulted in 15
chapters, reckoned as useful for beginners.
Each chapter contained fundamental information about each online survey providers
made up of five parts, starting with a brief description of the specific site. To direct
readers to the site, a hyperlinked address follows after the description which can be
easily spotted with the icon . In the third part, I listed the benefits of using the specific
online survey tool to elicit generic ideas on how readers can advantage from the tool. If
the tool was found to be appealing and suitable, the reader can then follow the step-bystep manual to navigate themselves at its respective site. The guide is enriched with
helpful screenshots of the sites so that users can make the most out of the online
resources. The guide can be seen as a simpler version of the tutorials commonly
available on the internet, heavily focuses on the features for educational purposes.
Lastly, references which are included at the end of every chapter are prepared for
readers who are intrigued to further reading about the site.
I certainly hope that this book will complement the currently available resources in
bridging research and practice. My goal is that the ideas in this book will support the
probe of generic perceptions through online surveys while refining educational
practices as a whole.
Johan Eddy Luaran
7. Survey Monkey
What is Survey Monkey?
Survey Monkey is the leading site for designing, conducting and analysing online surveys. It has been
an important tool in the world of online research for 10 years. All types of users, from first-time
researchers, college students to large companies, have been known to utilize the program (Survey
Monkey, 2013). Its success can be credited to the free account option and its user-friendly interface.
However, account members need to upgrade to any of three pro account types which are the
“Select”, “Gold” or “Platinum” accounts. Each of these pro accounts offers more detailed services
respectively. These services are such as the SPSS integration for the “Gold” account and expert
phone support for the “Platinum” account. Furthermore, Survey Monkey can also connect to the
customers’ social networking sites such as Facebook or their own website thus making it easier for
them to reach their target samples.
http://www.surveymonkey.com/
Benefits Survey Monkey offers
1. Free service
The basic tools required for online survey making is offered for free for anyone to use.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
Several pro-account upgrades are made available for users who intend to get more features
that would assist them in not only designing but also publishing, collecting and analyzing
their surveys and responses.
3. Social media-friendly
Users may choose to integrate their account on this site to their social media accounts. This
would also allow them to share their surveys with their social media contacts quicker and
easier in order to collect responses.
4. Customizable interface
Users are allowed to design the interface of their surveys, for example by choosing a
1
8. background colour.
5. Variety survey sharing options
Once a survey is published, users are able to share it using a variety of methods including
using a web link, emailing to respondents and sharing through social media accounts.
6. Ready-made templates available
Users may choose from a collection of ready-made survey templates to work on.
Get started!
Go to http://www.surveymonkey.com/
2
14. Kwik Surveys
What is Kwik Surveys?
Kwik Surveys is a fairly young site and has been around for five years. It claimed to have hosted
surveys for large companies such as “Pepsi, Tata and Disney” (Webwarehub, 2012). This site boasts
of its free and unlimited service but users can upgrade to paid “Premium” account. The benefits of
the “Premium” account are centered on better customer service and control over the advertisement
placements. At the same time, the analysis of the results for the survey is basic and does not
improve with the premium account.
http://www.kwiksurveys.com
Benefits Kwik Surveys offers
1. Free service
Users worldwide are able to use the basic tools required for online survey.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
Upgrade options are made available for a price designed to help users who want more
features to work with.
3. Social media-friendly
Users are able to share their surveys with their social media contacts quicker and easier in
order to collect responses.
4. Variety of question designs
Users are given the autonomy to design their survey questions in detail. Also, they are not
limited to creating surveys alone, but also other forms of question forms such as quizzes and
polls.
5. Customizable interface
An array of themes is offered even in the free mode for users to create surveys with a more
attractive interface.
6. Variety survey sharing options
Several basic sharing options are offered through this site such web link, email, and web
embedding.
8
22. Fluid Surveys
What is Fluid Surveys?
Fluid Surveys special features are its compatibility with any mobile device and its ability to function
offline. This program is complete with sleekly designed drag and drop interface, detailed options for
questionnaires and powerful analysis section (survey-reviews.net, 2012). As the site claims, it is in
fact an intuitive survey builder which responds to the needs and reflections of the customers
through its varied options for each survey question. Users can also upgrade to the “Premium”
account where they would be able to customize the questionnaire templates and download the
analysed data, among other benefits (Market Research for Beginners, 2013).
https://www.fluidsurveys.com/
Benefits Fluid Surveys offers
1. Free service
By registering into a free account, users can benefit from the basic survey designing tools on
this site.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
Premium account upgrades are available for more serious users which will allow them to get
more out of the site features.
3. Social media-friendly
Users may choose to share their surveys via their social media accounts in order to reach
their audiences quicker and with less hassle.
4. Customizable interface
Various modern and contemporary themes are available for users to choose from, allowing
them to create professional looking surveys.
5. Variety survey sharing options
Once a survey is published, users are able to share it using a variety of methods including
using a web link, emailing to respondents and sharing through social media accounts.
6. Ready-made templates available
16
23. Professional templates are only available for premium accounts; however, free account
users may still view these templates though they may not edit them.
Get started!
Go to http://www.fluidsurveys.com/
17
29. SoGoSurvey
What is SoGoSurvey?
SoGoSurvey is another highly recommended platform for survey research. Its advantage lies most
strongly in clever options for the report of the survey analysis. Plus, the designs for the report get
more detailed in the paid “Professional”, “Enterprise” and “Enterprise+” accounts respectively.
Besides the fully customizable questionnaire forms, easy invitations and easy reminder to target
respondents and the anonymous option for the sample, the premium accounts also provide
unlimited surveys, questions and responses and the ability to integrate the result with SPSS and to
merge different surveys to create a new survey.
https://www.sogosurvey.com/
Benefits SoGoSurvey offers
1. Free service
Only the basic tools required for online survey making is offered free of charge.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
Account upgrades are offered for users to get more out of the site for a certain fee.
3. Social media-friendly
Users may opt to sign up using their social media accounts, allowing for easy logging in and
sharing options in future.
4. Customizable interface
While the interface design options are not a modern and sleek looking like other sites, this
site still offers basic options such as several colour palettes to choose from.
23
40. SurveyGizmo
What is SurveyGizmo?
SurveyGizmo clearly outlines its plans and pricing on its website. The paid accounts “Basic”,
“Professional”, and “Enterprise” have 14-day free trial period for interested customers. The free
trials are worth signing up for because the package benefits offer better survey designs, templates,
publishing options and report types among others. However, the free package is not up to scratch.
Student users who want to use this application are advised to take full advantage of the free trial
period of the premium suit.
http://www.surveygizmo.com/
Benefits SurveyGizmo offers
1. Free service
Anyone can sign up for a free account to use the basic survey designing tools on this site.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
Several pro-account upgrades are made available for users who intend to get more features
that would assist them in not only designing but also publishing, collecting and analyzing
their surveys and responses.
3. Social media-friendly
This site may not be as social media-friendly as others as users may alternatively opt to sign
up using only their Google accounts to ease the process.
4. Customizable interface
A number of professional/business-themed layouts are offered for users to create attractive
surveys.
5. Variety survey sharing options
An array of up-to-date sharing options are made available to ease the process of distributing
surveys.
34
47. Survs
What is Survs?
Survs is another survey site with four plans and pricing types; “Free”, “Basic”, “Pro” and “Premium”.
All include helpful features like templates and unlimited survey options. On the other hand, this site
is not generous with the number of questions which a free user can include in their survey; a survey
can only consist of five questions. For a standard research paper this is not very practical. Therefore,
for users who are interested to join this site it is more advisable to go for one of the paid plans of
either the “Basic”, “Pro”, or “Premium” plan if they have more than five questions for one survey.
The paid plans have features such as SPSS integration, priority customer service and the export
analysis function.
http://survs.com
Benefits Survs offers
1. Free service
The basic tools to make surveys online are offered for free for anyone to use.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
Their paid account upgrades offer many survey assisting tool integration such as with SPSS,
making it a wonderful one-stop center for serious research-affiliated users.
3. Customizable interface
Users are allowed to choose from a pre-designed set of colour palettes to decorate their
surveys.
4. Variety survey sharing options
A number of sharing options are made available to assist users in the survey distribution
process.
5. Ready-made templates available
Users may choose from a collection of ready-made survey templates to work on even in the
basic account.
41
54. Question Pro
What is Question Pro?
Question Pro is an ambitious online survey site which includes the “Team Edition” plan. This edition
caters specially to teams of more than five people. Therefore, researchers who come together as a
team can reap the benefits of the multi-user access and prioritized customer service. The site have
other plans which are the “Free”, “Professional”, and “Corporate” plans. The SPSS integration begins
with the “Corporate” plan. However, this site has some technical hitches and received bad reviews
for its customer’s service (SiteJabber, 2013). The interface of this site is not as user-friendly or
sleekly designed as many other sites catering to online surveys. In other words, this site is not an
ideal site for individual beginner researchers but could be a useful site for information gathering for
small business corporations (McCue, 2012).
http://www.questionpro.com
Benefits Question Pro offers
1. Free service
Anyone with access to the internet may utilize the basic feature of this site at no extra
charge.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
Several account upgrades are made available for users who seek to get more features that
would assist them in not only designing but also publishing, collecting and analyzing their
surveys and responses.
3. Social media-friendly
This site lets users integrate their accounts with Facebook, Google and LinkedIn, making it
easy for users to connect with their peers in their social and professional circles.
4. Customizable interface
Users are allowed to upload their company/organization's logo to be placed in the survey.
This would help give a more convincing look when their audiences view their surveys.
5. Variety survey sharing options
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55. Once a survey is published, users are able to share it using a variety of methods including
using a web link, emailing to respondents and sharing through social media accounts.
6. Ready-made templates available
A collection of pre-designed survey templates are available even for free account users.
Get started!
Go to http://www.questionpro.com/
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62. Free Online Surveys
What is Free Online Surveys?
Free Online Survey is a very popular site for online questionnaire research. This could be due to the
descriptive nature of the name. In reality, this site is similar to many other sites which offer up one
free-access account type. The benefits of the free sites are as follow: one survey could reach up to
20 questions and 50 responses with a 10 day limit. Users who exceed this limit would have to
upgrade their accounts in order to view their results. Any upgrade would enable the user to reach a
wider scope of audience for a larger research.
http://freeonlinesurveys.com/
Benefits Free Online Surveys offers
1. Free service
As its name suggests, this site indeed offers free features for anyone to create effective
surveys online.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
While it is named Free Online Surveys, for a minimum fee, users can sign up for any of their
three upgrade plans to benefit more from the website.
3. Social media-friendly
Users may choose to integrate their account on this site to their social media accounts. This
would also allow them to share their surveys with their social media contacts quicker and
easier in order to collect responses.
4. Customizable interface
Users are directed to create the theme and overall look of their surveys before beginning on
their survey questions. Many themes ranging from professional to children-friendly looks are
offered.
5. Variety survey sharing options
After creating their surveys, users may share them through a number of methods including
email, social media sites, web links as well as website embedding.
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70. Survey Planet
What is Survey Planet?
SurveyPlanet claims that it “wants to be the only online survey site ever needed” by its users and
this goal is not at all far-fetched. This site has a beautifully designed user-friendly interface which
helps the users interact with the tools provided. The service plans provided are generous. The free
plan includes unlimited surveys, survey responses and templates and easy sharing options through
social media. Premium paid plan includes “custom theming, CSV exporting, and unlimited survey
storage” and the price is reasonable. This is a definite users‘choice and would be especially useful
for first time researchers or students who are looking for a sleek new application.
http://www.surveyplanet.com/
Benefits Survey Planet offers
1. Free service
The basic tools necessary for online survey making can be utilized by anyone once they have
registered an account.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
A pro-account upgrade is offered on both a monthly and annual basis so serious users can
benefit more from the site.
3. Social media-friendly
Users can easily and quickly sign up and log in using either their Facebook, Twitter or Google
accounts.
4. Customizable interface
Various themes are offered at a price where users may preview first before deciding
whether or not to purchase. At the same time however, a set of predesigned colour schemes
are also offered at no charge.
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78. Zoomerang
What is Zoomerang?
Zoomerang is considered as one of the pioneers of online surveys. It has now joined forces with
Survey Monkey, which is the world’s topmost website for web-based surveys. This website has been
providing its services for a great number of years and it has built a client base for thousands of
organisations all over the world not including individuals. There are premium plans as well as a free
plan offered to users according to their needs and preferences, similar to Survey Monkey
(Zoomerang, 2013).
http://www.zoomerang.com
Benefits Zoomerang offers
Since its integration with Survey Monkey, Zoomerang shares the exact same features as its
counterpart.
1. Free service
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
3. Social media-friendly
4. Customizable interface
5. Variety survey sharing options
6. Ready-made templates available
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80. Create an account
As Zoomerang is now integrated with Survey Monkey, new users are automatically passed to Survey
Monkey. Therefore, do not be alarmed when you are redirected to surveymonkey.com.
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86. Murvey
What is Murvey?
Murvey is a free easy-to-use tool for designing surveys for online distribution. The website only
requires users to type in the texts after choosing the specific type of questions. The uniqueness of
this site is its ability to give users the chance to preview their surveys while creating them. After the
surveys are ready, the users can then either sign in using their Facebook account or sign up an
account with Murvey. Thus, the surveys can be saved. Then, the finished surveys will be available for
distribution by sharing the link to the participants targeted by the users (Murvey, 2013).
https://www.murvey.com/
Benefits Murvey offers
1. Free service
Basic survey making tools are offered for free for anyone with access to the internet. Users
are also not required to sign up to use this site.
2. Social media-friendly
This site allows users to sign in and sign up using a limited number of social media sites.
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92. Conspek
What is Conspek?
As an online designing website specifically dedicated to create surveys, Conspek prides itself on
being a ‘do-gooder’ website. This is attributed to the fact that it provides free services to non-profit
organisations and other ‘do-gooders’ (Conspek, 2013). This website has an assortment of utilities
typical of any other survey-design online software. It provides the means to create surveys,
distribute them, keep track of the participants and other useful tools. The site allows free trial of ten
days after registration for interested users. For further services, the users must subscribe on a
monthly basis.
https://www.conspek.com/
Benefits Conspek offers
1. Free service
While users may sign up for a free account, the options and features offered in this site are
fairly limited as compared to free accounts on other online survey making sites.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
Users may opt for an upgrade if their wish to gain more from this site at a certain price.
However, Conspek also offers users a free month of its pro account if they publish a review
about the site either on Twitter or their blog. This gives users an attractive chance at getting
a taste of their pro-account features.
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101. Survey Share
What is Survey Share?
Survey Share is a simple online survey-designing website. It offers visitors a very easy way of creating
their own surveys, either simple or complex. The completed surveys can then be distributed to
participants in several different online social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter (Survey
Share, 2013). The customers can acquire the results of the surveys easily as they are downloadable.
Users have the choice to use the free tools provided by registering, or they can upgrade to a “Pro
Unlimited” paid accounts which will give them access to more tools. These accounts are divided into
three categories of payment plan; monthly, quarterly and yearly.
http://www.surveyshare.com/
Benefits Survey Share offers
1. Free service
The free account offers a great number of features including a question bank which most
survey making website do not offer.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
Once upgraded to its pro account, users have access to many professional data collection
tools that are offered on the site itself. This includes being able to better analyse as well as
download data.
3. Customizable interface
While users are allowed to customize the interface of their surveys, this feature is limited to
only selecting a colour theme.
4. Variety survey sharing options
A large number of sharing options is offered for users to distribute their surveys to their
audiences once the survey is published.
5. Ready-made templates available
Users can edit from ready-made survey templates, both saving time and assisting them in
coming up with good questions.
95
108. Stellar Survey
What is Stellar Survey?
Stellar Survey helps users design their own surveys, connect with audience and fully analyse the
results of their surveys (Stellar Survey, 2013). There are several different accounts for potential
customers to choose from; “Enterprise”, “Premium”, “Plus”, “Basic” and “Free”. Ranging from full
unlimited services to simple survey design tools, this website guarantees help for various users from
a single individual to large organisation. Stellar Survey uses a simple interface that provides a
straight-forward service to its customers.
http://www.stellarsurvey.com/
Benefits Stellar Survey offers
1. Free service
By registering a free account, just anybody can have access to the basic survey making tools
offered on this site.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
This site offers four paid upgrade plans, three of which are tailored to suit business-affiliated
users.
3. Customizable interface
Users are allowed to design the interface of their surveys by choosing a background colour.
4. Variety survey sharing options
Once a survey is created, users may share it via several methods including using a web link,
emailing to respondents and sharing through social media accounts.
5. Ready-made templates available
Users may choose from a collection of ready-made survey templates to edit and create from.
102
116. ZapSurvey
What is ZapSurvey?
ZapSurvey is a great online software which provides the means to design and create surveys. By
subscribing, users can create their own accounts and have unlimited access to all of the services
offered by the site. Members can simply use their very own web browsers to make surveys without
resorting to installing any software. Casual users have the option of using the free account which has
less access to the tools, but is still no less useful. This website allows customers to produce surveys
as well as help them to send and track the response from the target respondents (ZapSurvey, 2013).
ZapSurvey also gives a thorough analysis of the surveys complete with reports and graphs.
http://www.zapsurvey.com/
Benefits ZapSurvey offers
1. Free service
Through its free account, users are indeed able to create a usable survey despite it being far
less user-friendly and attractive compared to its counterparts.
2. Available Pro-account upgrades
Users may opt to upgrade to their paid accounts to gain more from this site.
3. Variety survey sharing options
Users are offered a limited number of sharing options to get their surveys to their audiences,
not including social media integration.
110