Please take a few moments to complete this survey.
This is an exercise in the creation of a survey using a free website, Surveymonkey. Using a survey is particularly helpful when bringing forward a new service such as the Homer Township Bookmobile. A survey can be helpful in gathering information which enables a library to become more responsive to its community. Surveymonkey can simplify this process.
An initial survey and a closing survey can also be very useful when compiling information for grant reporting. Surveymonkey makes it very easy to create, edit, and customise this type of document. Once created, it is simple to send this survey as a e-mail link, to an e-mail list, or to add it as a link to a website. The html coding is automatically created and may be cut and pasted to an existing website or blog. Pop ups are an option you can utilize in addition to five collection options, 3 completion options, survey limits, survey security, and closed messages. An example of a closing option is to add a final page which can be used to thank survey respondents. I have attempted to do this with the survey above.
Once your custom inquiry is "published", Surveymonkey helps organize the data as it is generated "in real time". This data can be filtered, configured to share results, or exported. However these last three options are available only to "professional subscribers". The gathered data is entered line by line in the order it appears in your survey. There are columns in which "response percentage" and "response total" are tabulated. You can analyze the results of your surveys with charts or graphs. The raw data can even be downloaded to Excel or SPSS.
This is a wonderful tool for libraries to use. It is free to use with up to ten question and up to 100 respondents. For a fee of $19.95 monthly or $200.00 yearly, a professional subscription may be secured.
A survey can be a really useful tool. In retrospect, I realize that in the recent past I have completed at least two surveys generated by surveymonkey. Didn't Dominican use surveymonkey to collect information from students for reaccredidation? Also, the president of our local bookmobile managers group just sent us a surveymonkey survey to complete about hours, job descriptions, budgets, etc. She plans to share this information with all of us and it will be immensely helpful for future planning.
Surveymonkey surveys are easy to use, don't have to cost anything more than the time it takes to prepare them, and can provide invaluable insight into a community. Libraries are always looking for cost effective ways to connect with their communities and surveymonkey seems like a great tool to do just that.
FYI: Surveymonkey is hiring! Perhaps they have a spot for a savvy 2.0 librarian.
2 comments:
Jody,
Glad to participate in your survey.
Claudia
Jody,
This was a really cool entry. Survey Monkey is used at my work (Sears), so while it was something I had seen before class, I was ignorant of the particulars.
I agree with you that this can be an extremely useful tool for libraries, as we discussed in class regarding the "Should we be able to take pictures in libraries" debate. I, for one, was not surveyed at Dominican on the reaccredidation process, but would really like to have been. This inspired me to create my own survey on the program that I will post to my classmates for my final blog entry in March. I will then funnel the info to Michael to chew on for future classes.
Thanks for exploring this cool technology and inspiring me to do something with it!
Mon
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