There are two data storage options available to you for your survey responses:
Store data in an online text file - This option will create a tab-delimited text file in your survey directory with everyone's responses stored in it. As each new person takes your survey, a new row with their data will be added to the file. In order to use this method, you must prime your data file successfully. (See Step 12 for instructions.)
Receive data via email - This option will generate an email message with each participant's data in it and send it to the Bates email address that you specified on the Basic Settings tab. As each new person takes your survey, a new email containing their data will be sent to you. Important: If you choose this option, your survey cannot contain the Question Type "Multiple Choice: Choose Many".
Which option to choose? - There are pros and cons to each of the above solutions.
Online data file: By storing your data in an online text file, all of your data will already be in a single location, instead of spread out among multiple email messages. Also, the tab-delimited format makes it very easy to import your data into Excel or SPSS. (See Step 14 for instructions on how to do this.) The major drawback of the online text file is that it is potentially available online to people who may wish to read your data. This file isn't designed to be easily found and read by others, but tech-savvy people can certainly get access to all of your data. You should be very cautious about this approach if you are collecting very personal information, or if you are asking a lot of open-ended questions where your participants may reveal identifying information about themselves or others. Even if you don't ask for a person's name, there is a possibility that the combination of demographic information could make that person identifiable (e.g. sex, major, home state, and year in school).
Data via Email: Receiving your data in email messages is more secure than storing the data online. Although unencrypted emails could still be compromised, it would be much more difficult for somebody to gain access to your data. This is the preferred method if you are working with personal data. The primary drawback of this approach is that it is more labor intensive to collect all of your results into a single location from the many emails that you receive, and the possibility for error or data loss increases as a result. Also, you will not be able to use the question type "Multiple Choice: Choose Many" or Random Assignment in your survey. See Step 14 for instructions and tips on how to work with emailed data.
Clearly the online data file is the easier option to work with, but only in circumstances where your participant's anonymity/confidentiality is not at risk. If you are unsure about which method to choose for a given project, you should consult with your advisor and/or the Bates Internal Review Board (IRB) for guidelines about protecting your participants' rights.
The Results File Suffix field allows you to specify a suffix for your results file name. Your results file is named after your survey name plus the suffix plus the ".txt" extension.
Copy URL to Clipboard button: Clicking this button will copy the address of your web survey to the windows clipboard. You can then paste it into other applications such as a browser or an email editor. (Note that you need to finish configuring your survey for this address to be functional. See steps 11 and 12 for instructions.)
The Finish tab provides some information about the files that will be created. The Results File Suffix field allows you to specify a suffix for your results file name. Your results file is named after your survey name plus the suffix plus the ".txt" extension.
When you have configured your survey to your satisfaction, click on the Generate Web Survey button. This will check that you have unique Variables Names for all of your questions. If you do, it will generate the HTML files that are necessary to put your survey online. Otherwise, you will receive an error message with instructions on how to correct the problem. You may click the Generate button at any time without worry. Doing so will only create files on your local computer or give you information necessary to correct problems with your survey.
Tip: You may generate your web survey as many times as you like in order to makes changes. If you choose to change any component of your web survey, simply clicking on the generate button will overwrite those files on your hard drive with your changes. It is useful to save your excel file with your configured survey in case you decide to make changes later on.
Tip: You can create multiple versions of your web survey by generating the files, then changing the Survey Name and clicking on the Generate button again. This will create a set of files named after each survey name.
Just because you have successfully generated your files does not mean that you are done! There are several more things that need to be configured first!
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