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New Mexico State University

Survey Monkey

The LRC has agreed to assist faculty with the SurveyMonkey online Survey tool. We have limited resources, so most of our assistance will be in the form of teaching you to use the tool to create surveys, collect the results, and suggestions for analysis of results rather than typing in your surveys or anylyzing the results for you.
Possible uses:

  • Research questionnaires
  • Annonymous survey of faculty/staff opinion on a topic
  • Registration form for a workshop
  • Teaching tool

Creating a web survey with Survey Monkey

SurveyMonkey is a useful tool for creating web surveys quickly and easily. However, before you create any survey, you need to think about the type of questions to ask, who your respondents will be and how you are going to anaylze the results. Certain types of questions and responses lend themselves well to questionnaires and others do not.

  1. Once the wording of your questionnaire is complete, speak to Dr. Jennifer Villa to obtain the login and password information for SurveyMonkey. To help you think the process through, there is a brief checklist of questions to ask yourself before you start to create the survey.
    Checklist of questions to ask yourself before you start:
    • Who is writing the questions and who will be entering the questions and responses into SurveyMonkey?
    • Is there going to be a paper version of the survey as well?
    • Is the paper version going to be distributed at the same time as the web version is published?
    • Who will be the contact person for problems (name &number)?
    • Do you need a link to the survey on a website or will you be emailing the link to respondents?
    • When is the survey going live?
    • When is the closing date?
    • When can it be taken it off SurveyMonkey?
    • Who is going to do the analysis?
    • When will the results be published?
    • Where will the results be published/publicised?
  2. Inform the LRC of the expected go-live date of your survey, its content area, expected usage and who to contact for further information. This is to enable us to deal with any users that have questions about the questionnaire.
  3. Our subscription to SurveyMonkey is a communal area, so access is not restricted between surveys. If you feel for this reason, that you would prefer to keep your surveys separate by having your own subscription and have a budget to to so, please contact the ERB to arrange this. SurveyMonkey also offers free basic subscription which includes all of the basic features of SurveyMonkey. It's a great option for individuals, students, and anyone who doesn't need the advanced features. Unlike other services, there are no annoying banner ads on your surveys. In addition, all of your survey responses remain absolutely private. Please note that basic subscribers are limited to a total of 10 questions and 100 responses per survey.
  4. Create the survey, making sure of the following:
    1. Because we are sharing the space, a page owner for the survey is mandatory. You can add this information at the begining or end. Either use an introduction page or place contact information on the thank you page.
    2. In your introduction briefly say what the purpose of the survey is.
    3. Your last page should:
      • say thanks for completing the survey
      • say when the survey ends
      • say when and where the results will be published
      • Have contact information if you did not put it in the introduction.
    4. In 'Options' review the closing date and closing message.
    5. Use the 'collect options' page to create a link - the 'create a link for an email message' is fine.
    6. Test the survey out by emailing it to a few people before it goes live.
    7. Once the survey is finished, do a final store of the results and delete the survey from the Survey Monkey website.

Tips on reviewing the survey results

  1. Store your results regularly by exporting or printing them.
  2. There is an option to download results in Comma Separated Variable (CSV) format, which can be use in Excel. The 'expanded raw data format' is often the most useful option.
  3. The data/filter/autofilter options in Excel are useful for analysing the responses quickly

Some questions and answers about SurveyMonkey

  • Who do I contact about using SurveyMonkey?
    Contact Jennifer Villa jvilla@nmsu.edu
  • What types of format are there for answers?
    See the link on the SurveyMonkey home page for examples.
  • Can I use bold/coloured text or add a hypertext link?
    No, Survey Monkey doesn't have this facility.
  • Can I edit the survey once it's gone live?
    Yes you can make small changes to questions - but beware, if you empty the contents of an answer completely you will also lose all the responses.
  • When are the results available?
    As soon as someone completes the survey, you will be able to see their responses in 'Analyze'
  • Can I email the survey?
    Yes, in 'Collect' use 'Create a link for an email'
  • If I want the survey to be anonymous, will it be? Can somone tell who answered the survey?
    SurveyMonkey collects the IP address of the computer, so you can tell if there have been multiple submissions from a particular computer, but computers on our campus and most other locations use dynamic addressing (the IP address is temporarily assigned when the user logs on) so you will likely not be able to find out whose computer was used and if the respondent is the owner of the computer used.
  • I would like to know who answered the survey, is that possible?
    You can include questions such as name, address, phone, etc. The professional subscription allows you to specify questions that require an answer--useful if you are using SurveyMonkey as a tool for setting up a conference or workshop.