Creating and Using Surveys, and viewing Survey Results

The following article details how instructors can create and use Surveys in their courses on Brightspace.

Please note that the course layout, steps, and screenshots shown below may differ slightly for your campus.

Surveys allow instructors to solicit feedback from students in their courses regarding any aspect of a course. Using surveys, instructors can gather anonymous or non-anonymous opinions and information from users. Unlike quizzes, survey questions do not require right or wrong answers, cannot be graded, and can include Likert-style rating questions.

Creating or Editing a Survey

1. Navigate to the Surveys tool within your course. Click New Survey to create a new survey, or click on an existing survey to edit it.
   
    
2. Fill out the name of the survey, and provide it an organizational category if applicable. You may choose to have your survey give instant feedback, wherein any feedback entered for a question is instantly available to a user taking the survey. You may also choose to make the survey anonymous. Surveys only require a name and questions to function, all other settings are optional.
   
   1. Choosing to make survey results anonymous will not allow you to track who has completed the survey. This can be worked around by having a survey listed under Content, and then using Completion Tracking to check which students accessed the survey through Content. See the Linking a Survey in Content section for more information on adding surveys to a module in content.
       
   2. If instant feedback is enabled, any feedback entered for a survey question during the question's creation will be instantly available to a user taking the survey. Allowing instant feedback will remove the Submit button from a non-editable survey.
       
3. To add new questions to your survey, click on Add/Edit Questions, which will bring you to a new screen.
    
4. On the next screen, click New and select a question type to create a new question, and then select the type of question you wish to create. Alternatively, click Import to import survey questions from a file or the survey Question Library.
   1. When creating a question, you can add feedback via Options > Add Feedback. This feedback will display to any user
       
5. After you are finished adding, editing, or importing questions into your survey, click Done Editing Questions to go back to the survey options.
   
    
6. Under the Restrictions tab, more settings are available. These settings include availability dates, release conditions, setting the number of attempts a student can submit to a survey, and more.
   
    
7. Finish filling out the rest of the survey options, such as shuffling survey questions, as necessary. Click Save and Close when ready to finish creating the new survey.

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Linking a Survey in Content

1. Click on Content, and then access the module where you wish to create the link to your survey.
    
2. Once in the module, click Existing Activities and then select Surveys.
   
    
3. Click on the name of the survey that you wish to deploy into the module. The survey link will appear at the bottom of the module.
   Note: If you have not already done so, be sure to set the survey to be Visible to Students when you are ready for students to see and access the survey.
   

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View Survey Results with Statistics

1. Navigate to the Surveys tool within your course.
2. Click on the down arrow/chevron to the right of the survey you wish to view statistics for, and select Statistics.
   
    
3. If your survey is set to be anonymous, the Statistics page will show the list of survey questions, and the responses for each question.
   
    
4. If your survey is not anonymous, you will see a list of users and their survey attempts. To check a specific user's results, click on an individual attempt. To check overall results for a survey, click the View Overall Results button at the bottom of the page.
   

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Setting up Survey Reports

1. Navigate to the Surveys tool within your course.
2. Click on the survey that you wish to create a report for.
3. On the following edit survey page, click on the Reports Setup tab.
4. Click the Add Report button to create a new report.
   
    
5. Enter a name for your new report.
6. Choose a Report Type:
   • Summary Report: With this report type, you can display aggregate data for multiple choice, true and false, Likert, multi-select, and matching question types. You can also display text responses for written response, short answer, and fill in the blanks question types. Check the boxes next to 'Show aggregate data' and/or 'Show text responses' based on what information you wish to display in your report.
      
   • Individual Attempts: This report displays each attempt individually. You can choose to hide the user’s first and last name when the Individual Attempts report is viewed by checking the box for 'Hide user information'.
      
7. You can choose to immediately release a report after a survey submission, or alternatively enter a date and time for the report to release automatically.
8. In the 'Release Report To' section, select the check box beside each role you want to release the report to.
   • Important Note: You will need to select your own role in order to view the report in the future. If you are unsure what your exact role is called in Brightspace, both your campus and the SUNY Online Help Desk can clarify this for you.
9. Click Save to save your report, then click Save and Close to finish editing the survey.

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Reviewing Survey Reports

1. Navigate to the Surveys tool within your course.
2. Click on the down arrow/chevron to the right of the survey you want to review a report for, and then select Reports.
3. Click on the name of the report that you wish to view.
   
   Note: If you are not seeing any reports in this list, then either no reports have been set up, or an error was made in selecting the roles that have access to the report.
    
4. If you want to generate the report for responses within a specific time frame, check the boxes next to 'From' and 'To' and enter the date restrictions. Otherwise, the report will pull data up until a set 'To' date, will pull data from a set 'From' date and onwards, or will pull all survey data if no date options are checked.
5. Click Generate HTML to view the report in your browser. Otherwise, you can click Generate CSV or or Generate Excel to save the report as a file on your computer of the chosen type.
6. Click Done when finished.

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If you need further assistance or have additional questions please contact:
SUNY Online Support Services Help Desk
1-844-673-6786 | sunyonlinehelp@suny.edu