By Tungilik (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons
How to Conduct Web-based Surveys at Stanford
There are two local survey tools available to Stanford social science students.
Stanford Qualtrics
The Qualtrics survey system is site licensed for use by the Stanford community. Qualtrics is a powerful survey system which not only affords easy-to-develop web-based surveys, but has facilities for advanced randomization schemes allowing researchers to operationalize their survey designs using one tool. Learn more.
IRiSS Opinio
IRiSS runs the Opinio survey software on a dedicated server for the purpose of supporting social science survey research with special needs not covered by the Qualtrics hosted service.
Is Opinio a good fit for your surveys?
The two main advantages of Opinio are that the surveys are hosted and served from secure Stanford-located computers and surveys are sent and completed from Stanford URLs.
What is Opinio?
Opinio is a web-based survey development application used to author, deliver, and analyze results from web-based surveys. The software allows you to use standard and advanced web form elements to create quick-to-deploy yet customizable surveys that are available to respondents immediately.
Who can use Opinio?
This service is open to all social science faculty and research collaborators in Stanford's six social science departments.
Do I need to know how to program?
Not at all. Through a browser, simply use the Web-based application to fill out some general information, click on the type of questions to add, then fill out the content of the question and responses. Page breaks and images as well as many other types of HTML elements can be added though the web interface. Putting together a simple survey only requires knowing how to click and type questions.
Who can I send the surveys to once they are completed?
Surveys can be sent to anyone with access to the web. Security features may be used to restrict access to the survey respondents, thereby avoiding random and unwanted data entries. Closed surveys can be run through mailing lists where respondents are automatically emailed and reminded to complete surveys on a predetermined schedule.
Can respondents reply using a mobile device?
While there is an Opinio mobile app, it currently will only connect to the central Opinio service and not the service run by IRiSS. If a mobile device has internet connectivity, then the device can simply load the web-based survey directly from a browser.
What happens after respondents submit their responses?
Responses are stored in a secure database and backed up nightly. Reports can be run against them directly from a web browser. Additionally, data can be exported in SPSS, MS Excel, and CSV formats directly to your desktop.
Can I bank questions for later use?
Yes. Opinio allows for questions to be added to a question bank for later use. The creation of survey question libraries allows researchers to easily field variations of previously run surveys.
What does it cost?
Please contact IRiSS-info@stanford.edu to get a quote.
