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Guide to On-line Survey Technologies and the CMT
Commerical Software

Description

Dozens of commercially available software packages allow users to design, administer, and analyze surveys and questionnaires over the internet. These applications vary significantly in terms of sophistication, functionality, security, ease of use, technical support and cost. The best applications are those that offer:

  • The ability to customize the design and look and feel of the questionnaires/surveys
  • The ability to deploy unlimited number of surveys simultaneously
  • Sophisticated data analysis functionality including the ability to export data to SPSS, Sysdat and Excel
  • Sophisticated report generation capabilities including real time web publishing and export to MS Office applications such as PowerPoint
  • Proven stability
  • Responsive and competent technical support
  • The ability to imbed survey in existing on-line applications
  • Network and /or enterprise wide versions

In 2002 Service Manitoba evaluated five packages and determined that three were likely sufficient to meet the province of Manitoba's needs. These included Inquisite, Web Surveyor, and Halogen. In the end Manitoba decided to purchase Inqusite.

Results of the evaluation of the formats, Inquisite, Web Surveyor, Snap, survey View and Halogen:

Inquisite: A snap shot of the Inquisite web site.One of the five packages evaluated by the province of Manitoba.

Strengths

  • Flexibility: These packages are very flexible. Organizations can administer any type of survey (CMT, employee surveys, on-line focus groups etc) quickly and easily. Editing and survey administration is straightforward which reduces training time.

  • Able to deploy multiple surveys simultaneously: A key strength of many commercial software packages is that one can deploy an unlimited number of surveys simultaneously. This helps drive down the average cost of surveys.

  • Cost effective: If an organization anticipates deploying more than six surveys annually, the cost of a license for most commercial products is economical compared to the cost of outsourcing survey administration.

  • Multiple means of deploying surveys: These packages allows surveys to be administered in variety of ways (e-mail to known respondents, imbedded as hypertext link on web-site, or can be invoked within existing application)

  • Powerful and easy to use analysis and reporting functionality: A significant area of improvement in these products in the last few years has been in the area of data analysis and reporting. Most products allow users to instantly review frequency, percentage, cross tabs in tabular and graphic formats. In addition they allow users to publish these results to the web in real time

  • Easy to use: The better software packages have become very intuitive. Manitoba found the training requirements to operate at a basic level were minimal

  • Responsive and competent technical support: The well established industry leaders provide reliable and responsive technical support.

  • Security of data: An important feature of such software is that it is installed and deployed within a jurisdictions security environment. This ensures that any data collected is secure and safe.

Issues

  • Cost: For jurisdictions or organizations who are only looking to use this technology occasionally, the licensing costs of this software may be prohibitive. For example, the cost of licensing a single user of Inquisite is $13,000 Cdn plus $3,000 annually for maintenance and support.

  • Requires assistance of corporate IT staff to deploy: It is strongly advised that users seek assistance from their corporate/departmental IT staff to assist with configuration, deployment, and maintenance. Depending on availability resources and the relative priority of projects this can add to the time it takes to get surveys up and running. This imposes a level of complexity and cost for managers who are simply interested in getting data.

  • Restricted licensing: Can be a hindrance as use of survey increases. In Manitoba having access to only three (3) seats has imposed strains on existing staff as popularity of on-line surveys increases.

Example: Service Manitoba

Service Manitoba examined different Software program's and established that Inquisite was best for meeting Manitoba's needs. Created for non-technical professionals, one of the best features of Inquiste is its ease of use; it's intuitive - you can quickly create, edit and surveys. Inquisite's WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) technology allows you to place your survey objects with ease and accuracy. It uses MS Office-style Interface and it's compatible with Excel and SPSS. Below is a screen shot of a survey created by Service Manitoba for the Bilingual Service Center.