We are trying to do something a bit more complicated than normal and we would like some insights about how best to approach the problem.
We are sending out a survey with sensitive information in it depending on the recipient. It is going out to multiple classrooms directly to a teacher. Each teacher gets a survey with 6 pre-selected participants selected to participate. These participant names cannot be contained in an email or accessible by ANYONE ELSE but the teacher (IRB reasons). Therefore, a huge droplist isn't possible. Survey assessment information needs to be completed for each of the 6 participants. Teachers have to be able to pick what order they fill out the survey for each participant, and they have to be able to come back to it (classroom chaos) using the same link.
Solution1: We have found a hack solution. I have individual surveys made that are permutations of the master and we send out an anonymous URL. In each new "project" they have loaded a dropdown with all the institutes, teachers, and rooms (because this information isn't sensitive, we can allow them to use a bit of dropdown) even though the survey is made specifically for the room (saves times). In each survey, there is a saved unique list of the 6 participants. This is the first time they get to know who they are assessing. They select one from the dropdown, fill out their information, and at the very end the survey link gets redirected to its self. The then do the same thing for the other 5 participants at their leisure. Because they are allowed to return to the survey, if something comes up they can just comeback to it and continue. If there are duplicates or a setting is off we have to clean it up in post.
This is chaos with respect to projects. There will be 100s at the very end.
Solution2: A one-survey solution. We tried using a distrubution list with all these fields filled out for each teacher. In addition to the institute, etc. fields partcipant1, partcipant2, participant3, partcipant4, participant5, and participant6 populate the dropdown. This would work really well if it was possible to redirect to the same survey so that it could be taken again. It is not possible from what I am guessing with email distribution. I used Q_URL for example. The system wants one response period, and I can't find any setting like "ballet stuffing", "Prevent multiple submissions" = off.
Solution3: Using the loop and merge feature. Is it a good solution to populate the assessment roster using the partpant1-6 fields, and ask the teachers to pick the next student until they are finished? We are concerned with them saying they are finished for the day after only doing 3 with the expectation that they will continue doing the rest and get locked out exactly how Solution2 locks you out. We would have to create a new link (not retake) whenever this happens.
Does anyone have any ideas about how to handle this problem? The issue is that these surveys are going out to teachers with very little introduction to what they need to do, so we want to make it as easy as possible for them.
You try creating a unique link for each student (Survey A) and then giving each evaluator six of these inside survey B.
You could either create different versions of survey B for each teacher or use an authenticator to populate which students they evaluate.
This way, each student survey can only be filled once, but the teacher can return to their survey as many times as they want.
I think you are on the right track with Solution 3. You can add a rank order question so the teachers can choose what order they want to answer the follow up questions for the students. In the Loop and Merge settings, you will check Loop based off a question and fill in your rank order question, All choices then be sure to click "Order by rank."
Some other things you will want to do in your survey options to prevent lock outs:
- Turn on Allow Respondents to finish later (if you use individual links this isn't necessary but a good habit)
- Incomplete Survey Responses: make sure these setting are realistic and far enough out for distractions
I would recommend using the Qualtrics email distributor if possible. This will allow you to send reminder emails to both those who haven't started or completed the survey. It could be a good prompt for all those that get too distracted by their classroom.
If attached a rough project that outlines the Loop and Merge set up.
Student_Assessment.qsf
https://community.qualtrics.com/XMcommunity/discussion/comment/52287#Comment_52287Am not exactly sure what you mean by surveys A and B.
"You try creating a unique link for each student (Survey A) and then giving each evaluator six of these inside survey B."
Things are building pretty organically, and it does seem like unique links for students ahead of time would be hard to come by. There really is an update-as-you-go situation, but that being said, we would still have to update the participant fields in a distribution list.
"You could either create different versions of survey B for each teacher or use an authenticator to populate which students they evaluate."
The different version is exactly what I am trying to avoid because there are going to be just too many projects. Assuming we don't use a distribution list for repeatability, we could pass an embedded URL to teachers individually that would trigger some sort of lookup list. Is that what you mean by "authenticator"? Is there a built in way to have an appended URL parameter unique to each teacher use a secure look-up list of students?
How many teachers do you need to send this out to?
I'm wondering if you could leverage the Table of Contents feature for this. You could create unique survey links for each teacher (hopefully you don't have too many you're distributing to), which would allow them to go back and access the survey whenever. Then, you'd have a block of questions relevant to each student. When you add the Table of Contents feature to the survey flow, each student's block would show as a "chapter" in the survey navigation visible to the teacher - this would allow the teacher to click through each "chapter" to address the questions for each student before submitting the survey.
You survey flow might look something like this:
Within the survey, this is how teachers could navigate through the Table of Contents to review each student:
You could also establish embedded variables for students 1-6 and assign values for each teacher either through a contact list upload, or by manually assigning the value for each teacher's respective survey within the survey flow:
Always a few different ways to approach things, but let me know if this is helpful!
-Erin
https://community.qualtrics.com/XMcommunity/discussion/comment/52328#Comment_52328Wow, this is clever. I am going to start working on it a version of it now.
Thank you for your help bstrahin. I will have questions for you later if the table of contents feature doesn't work out. I don't love the merge and loop because it is hard to keep track of your place. Entry could happen over the course of a day or two, and who is next might need to be adjusted based on attendance or accessibility while the survey is started. So if I have to use loop merge, I will have an additional question at the end of the loop for who is next I think.
https://community.qualtrics.com/XMcommunity/discussion/comment/52330#Comment_52330Happy to hear that this might be a helpful approach! Good luck!!
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