Surveys

Manhattan 3.0 Administrator's Reference
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The Administrator's Survey Lists

When you select Surveys from the menu for the first time, you'll see a page like this:

Once you've created and delivered some surveys, you'll find them listed here, but initially your list will be empty. You'll see what's behind the Create a New Survey button shortly. Manhattan allows teachers to create and manage their own surveys as well. As discussed in How can I take a copy of a teacher's Private survey?, the Enter Teacher's Surveys button allows the system administrator to see the list of surveys a particular teacher has designed.

Your surveys are divided into four groups:

Private Surveys: These are surveys that can seen only by you and other server administrators. Your list of Private Surveys will include both surveys you are in the process of designing, and "finalized" surveys that are ready to be delivered or made available to teachers.
Public Surveys: Contains a list of surveys you have chosen to make "public". Any teacher of a normal, centralized course (see Normal, Template and Standalone Courses) will see these surveys on their own public list when they enable and enter the Survey module for any classroom. Teachers can choose to deliver the survey you made available as-is, or they can copy it into their own Private list and modify it.
Surveys delivered via Manhattan: Any teacher can deliver a survey to his students within the confines of a Manhattan classroom. As you'll see shortly, a Manhattan administrator can also deliver surveys, either to one classroom, to several classrooms, or to every classroom on the server. The "Surveys delivered via Manhattan" list contains surveys that you, as system administrator, have delivered in this manner.
Surveys delivered via the web: In addition to delivering surveys to students and teachers enrolled in Manhattan-enabled classrooms, the system administrator(s) can also deliver surveys that are fully accessible to anyone on the Internet. This makes it possible to use Manhattan to create surveys for any purpose, for any population. Surveys delivered in this way will appear under the "Surveys delivered via the web" heading.

Creating a New Survey

When you click on the Create a New Survey button, a new window will open with this form:

The three elements on the form are:

Survey Name: This is a simple name used to identify the survey within your Private list. While there is a generous size limit, you should keep it relatively short. The only purpose of the Survey Name is to identify it on your Private list - students will never see what you type here. Do NOT use any HTML codes in this field, and the title can only contain letters of the alphabet and spaces - no punctuation marks.
Survey Heading: Whatever you type here will appear at the top of the survey when it is opened. Essentially, you should simply type a title for the survey. Your title will be centered on the page and displayed in a boldfaced font. Although you can put a few HTML tags here, there really is no need to. Just type a one line title!
Background Color: This specifies the background color of the survey, using standard HTML color codes. The default is #FFFFFF, which gives you a white background. You can click on the Color Chooser link to select a color from a pallete. Note that the text color will always be black, so you should definitely avoid selecting dark background colors!

The choices you make on this form can be changed at any time.

If you are following the tutorial, make the following entries then click the Submit button.

Survey Name: Computer Ownership

Survey Heading: Computer Ownership Survey

Background Color: #FFFFCC

After clicking Submit, you'll get a page like this:

This is the form used to design your survey. First, notice the button End this editing session in the upper left corner of the page. Click that button when you are done making changes to the survey.

The page is divided into sections contained by a rectangular border. Each section represents an element of your survey that can be modified. The first section, which is shown in the above screenshot, always represents the title, heading and background color of your survey. The other sections, which you'll add shortly, represent either a question or can be "Text/Instructions" entry where you can enter instructions for the people taking the survey, or any other text you'd like.

At the bottom of each section, you'll find these buttons, a few of which can be "grayed out" if the command does not apply at the moment, or completely missing if the command never applies to a particular section:

Modify: Brings you to a form that allows you to edit the item.
Add Below: Brings you to a page that allows you to add a new question or a custom entry. The new item will appear below the current item.
Copy: Copies the current item to an internal "clipboard", replacing the last item placed in this clipboard. The item can be "pasted" elsewhere in the same survey by clicking on the Paste button.
Cut: Performs the same as the Copy button, except the current item is deleted from the survey.
Paste: Inserts the last item that has been Copied or Cut below the current item.

The Paste button will be grayed-out until you click on one of the Copy or Cut buttons. Also note that the first item in a survey is special in that it represents the title of the survey, some heading information, and the background color used in the survey. Since there can only be one element of this type in any survey, the Copy and Cut buttons will never appear for the first item. (see the above screenshot.)

To add the first question to the survey, click the Add Below button. You'll get the following page:

The row of buttons along the top show you the elements you can insert into a Manhattan survey:

Text/Instructions: "Custom" elements are not questions at all. Instead a Custom element can be used to insert HTML formatted text into the survey. Typical uses are to insert general instructions at the top of the survey, or text that describes the purpose or instructions for a particular group of questions, or a thank you note at the very bottom of the survey.
Likert Question: A "Likert scale" question consists of a question or statement, followed by a set of from 2 to 8 radio buttons arranged horizontally. Unlike a multiple-choice question, however, only the left-most and right-most choices are labeled. An example might be "This course met my expectations." Strongly Disagree ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ Strongly Agree
Multiple Choice: This is your typical multiple-choice question. The respondent must select from a list of responses, by clicking on a radio button next to each choice.
Short Answer: The "Short Answer" question type provides the respondent with a simple one-line text entry field. They can type whatever they wish into this field. As an example, you might use this question type if you want respondents to enter their name.
Essay/Comments: The "Essay/Comments" question type is similar to the "Short Answer" question type, except the respondent is presented with a rectangular text box where they can type as much as they want. These are typically used to provide a way for respondents to type general comments related to the survey.

Let's start by adding a multiple-choice question to the survey:

Click on the Multiple Choice button near the top of the page.

Enter the following text into the fields, and click the Submit button:

Question: How many computers do you own?
1: None
2: One
3: Two
4: More than two

After clicking the Submit button, you'll see the new question added to the survey:

Notice in the above screenshot, that the "Paste" button is not available. That's because you haven't yet used "Cut", or "Copy" to place something in this survey's clipboard.

Click the Copy button on the multiple-choice question.
When the page refreshes, click the now-enabled Paste button.

After following the above two steps, you'll now have two identical questions in your survey. Let's use the Modify button to change the second question:

Click on the Modify button on the last question of the survey.
Use the form that appears to change the question to: "How many computers do you wish you had?" and click the Submit button.

On your own

Using the survey creation program is pretty straighforward. You should take the time to experiment by adding questions of the various types to your survey. Here's a few additional notes that will help:

You can change the order of the questions by creatively using the Cut and Paste features.
Manhattan expects "Text/Instructions" items to be formatted using HTML tags. This is the one place within Manhattan where knowing just a few HTML tags can come in handy.
Questions and responses can also include HTML tags. However, you should probably not get too creative here. Judicious use of bold, italics, and underlining is usually sufficient.

When you are done adding a few more questions to your survey, click on the End this editing session button on the upper left corner of the page. This will return you to your list of surveys, which we'll explore next.

Delivering a survey

If you're following the tutorial, you've now created your first survey. It's listed in a table under the "Private Surveys" heading:

As mentioned in The Administrator's Survey Lists, this page lists an administrator's surveys under four headings. "Private Surveys" are available only to server administrators. They are generally a list of surveys under development, or that have been completely developed and are ready to be delivered.

A number of commands appear as simple hyperlinks on the row corresponding to the survey you have created:

Preview: Displays the survey as it will be seen by the respondents once it is delivered. You should always preview the survey before delivering it, especially if you've made extensive use of HTML tags.
Modify: Allows you to continue editing a survey that has not been "Finalized".
Finalize: Marks a survey as completed. You must "Finalize" a survey before it can be delivered. Although you can't modify a survey once it's been Finalized, you'll see that you can make a copy of a finalized survey at the click of a mouse.
Info: Provides basic information about the survey, including its original author, and when it was created.
Delete: Used to permanently delete a survey. You'll find you get an opportunity to change your mind after you click the link!

Also notice the "grayed out" links under the Share and Deliver headings. These words will become live links once the survey is "Finalized".

If you're following along with the tutorial, click the Preview link to see how the survey will be displayed to users when it is delivered. The only difference between what you see and what they'll see is that the Close this Window button will be replaced with a Submit button once the survey is delivered. If you notice something that needs fixing, you can click the Modify link to edit your survey.

When you are satisfied with the survey, click the Finalize link. Once a survey has been "Finalized" a few things change in the list of available commands:

The Modify link is grayed-out. You cannot change a survey once it has been finalized. However, you can easily make a copy which can be modified by clicking the Copy (see below)
The Finalize link is replaced with a Copy link. When you click on this link, a copy of the survey is added to your Private list. You can then Modify that survey in any way you wish.
Four additional links become active These are explained further in Questions and answers:
- Make Public moves the survey to the "Public" area. Surveys marked Public by the administrator are available to any teacher on the system via a classroom's Surveys module. Teachers can deliver the survey to their own students as-is, or can Copy the survey to their own Private list, where it can be modified to their liking.
- Give a copy to moves the survey to any teacher's Private list of surveys, which is available within a classroom's Surveys module
- Deliver via Manhattan, which we'll explore next, allows the server administrator to deliver a survey to users in one or more Manhattan classrooms.
- Deliver via web allows you to survey people outside of the Manhattan environment. Anyone with web access can answer a survey that has been delivered in this way.

If you haven't already, click the Finalize link. When the page refreshes, your available links will change as described in the list above. Now click the Deliver via Manhattan link. You'll get a page like the following:

There are two steps involved in delivering a survey. The first is to fill out the above form, then click the Search button to get a list of Manhattan classrooms to choose from. Step 2 involves actually picking the courses from the list generated from the search done in step 1. Here's the scoop on the choices you need to make on the above form:

Who should see and be able to take the survey?

The choices here are self-explanatory:

All - Everyone can view/answer the survey
Students - Teachers can view the survey, but only student responses are recorded
Teachers - only teachers can view/answer the survey
Students only - only students can view/answer the survey

Should submissions list the user's courses?

Suppose you deliver a servey to all of the 500+ Manhattan classrooms on your server. A student, Jane Doe, is currently enrolled in 3 Manhattan courses. The question is, on the table that lists the raw data generated by the survey, should there be a column showing which courses a particular respondent is a member of? That is, should the (otherwise anonymous) data provided by Jane Doe when she answered the survey show that the responses were from someone who was in engl10151, phy10102, and bio13203?

Turning this feature on is useful if you're issuing a survey to a large population of Manhattan users and hope to do some cross-tabulation on the data based on what courses a student is enrolled in. However, in some cases turning this feature on can reduce the anonymity of the surveys, since it may be possible to deduce who was responsible for a particular set of responses.

Don't agonize over a decision here. Select "Yes" unless you are extremely concerned about running an anonymous survey. (If you are only surveying one Manhattan classroom, it doesn't matter what setting you use, since you KNOW who you sent the survey to!)

When should the survey be made available?

The survey will not appear on the "My Manhattan" pages of users until after the date and time you specify. (Use the Click to Select a Date button to select a date from a pop-up calendar.

When should the survey be removed from user pages?

Specify a date and time when you want to end the survey. After the date and time specified, the survey will be removed from the "My Manhattan" pages of users who have not yet taken the survey. (A survey is automatically removed from a user's login page the moment they submit their answers to the survey. Manhattan surveys can only be taken once.) You can use the Click to Select a Date button to select a date from a pop-up calendar.

When should you be able to view the results?

Specify a date and time after which Manhattan will allow the administrators to see the results of the survey. The setting is useful when you issue an end-of-course student evaluation of instruction. Even though Manhattan surveys are anonymous, students want to know that their teacher won't see the results until after final grades are submitted. By selecting a date that is beyond the due date for final grades, students can be assured that nobody can see the survey results until then.

(Actually, the Surveys module used by teachers - see the Manhattan Teacher's Reference - within a Manhattan classroom is a better place to issue end-of-course evaluations. Within that module, students are explicitly shown the date and time their teacher will be able to see the results of the survey and the results can be seen only by the teacher, not server administrators.)

The bottom line is that no one will be able to see the survey results until after the date and time specified on the form. Most often you will pick the current date and time, so you will be able to see the results as soon as they come in.

The bottom portion of the page displays a Search form that's similar to the one used by the Configure Courses section of the Administrative system. (See Configure courses for details on using the form.) The idea is that after setting the conditions listed above, you use the Search form to get a list of courses to choose from.

If you are following the tutorial, make the following selections:

Who should be able to take the survey?: Select "All"
Should submissions list the user's courses?: Select "Yes"
When should the survey be made available?: Enter the current date and time
When should the survey be removed from user pages?: Enter some date/time that's at least several hours into the future to give you time to experiment. You can enter a date/time that's far into the future if you wish.
When should you be able to view the results?: Enter the current date and time so you can see the results immediately.

Leave the search text box blank, click on the try For the tutorial group, and click the Search button. (See the screenshot above.) You'll be brought to the following page:

At this point, you need to select the courses you want to deliver the survey to. For our tutorial, select both courses, click the Submit button, and click OK when asked to verify your selections. Your survey will be delivered, and you will be returned to your list of surveys, which now looks like this:

Notice that the survey now appears under the Surveys delivered via Manhattan heading, and is no longer listed under the 'Private' surveys heading. You can quickly copy the survey back to your Private list by clicking the Copy link next to any survey that appears in any heading on this page.

Delivered surveys have three new options:

Bar Graphs: Displays the results of the survey as a bar graphs.
Table: Displays the raw data collected by the survey as an HTML table.
CSV File: Sends you the raw data collected by the survey in a Comma Separated Values text file. A CSV file can easily be imported into a spreadsheet or statistics program for further analysis of the data.

If you click on either of the Survey Results links mentioned above, you'll get a message like "No one responded to this survey." Let's fix this by having someone take the survey.

Prof. Einstein takes the survey

Login as Prof. Einstein. His username is ae4322 and his password should be relativity. You should now see a link to the survey on his "My Manhattan" page:

Click on the "Computer Ownership Survey" link, and the survey will be displayed:

Note the No thanks, I don't want to take this survey button at the top of the page. This button allows the user to discard the survey without answering any questions. (You can click it to see a JavaScript alert, but then click Cancel.) Answering the survey questions is straightforward.

If you are following the tutorial, answer the questions and click the Submit button at bottom of the page. When you return to your My Manhattan page, the link to the survey will be gone.

Viewing survey results

Now log back in as the super-user, and select Surveys menu. The Bar Graphs, Table and CSV File links are used to view the results of the survey:

When you click on the Bar Graphs link, you'll get graphs showing the responses to each question:

When you click on the Data link, you'll get the raw data printed in an HTML table:

Note the link near the middle of the above screenshot, which sends you a Comma Separated Values file containing the same data found in the table. You can also download the same file by clicking on the CSV file link on the survey menu. CSV files allow you to import the data into a spreadsheet for further analysis.

How to learn more

This tutorial just scratched the surface of Manhattan's survey capabilities. To learn more, read Questions and answers in this manual, and consult the Manhattan Teacher's Reference to learn how the Surveys module works within a Manhattan classroom.

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