Data Collection and Analysis

Once an investigator is satisfied with their requested survey draft and they are ready for their survey to go live, they will request to activate their survey and the ORC will send them a live web link and a results link. When data collection is complete, the investigator can then request downloadable versions of their results exported to whichever format best assists them in the analysis of their data.

Live Web Links

Active web collectors, or live links, are the URLs placed in recruitment letters and distributed to survey participants to grant them access to the active survey. Unlike preview links which do not record responses, live links collect and compile the resulting data from every human subject participant that starts the survey.

In live surveys, response editing will also be disabled to prevent respondents from changing answers once they leave a page. To protect the confidentiality of your subjects, all survey responses are anonymous and participants’ IP addresses will NOT be included in your survey results. Unless otherwise specified, live surveys will be configured to support a kiosk setting in which the survey is taken multiple times on a single device. This multiple response feature can be disabled upon request.

Live surveys can still be edited but some restrictions may apply to ensure previously collected data is preserved.

Results Links

Whenever a live link is sent to an investigator, the associated results link is also included. The purpose of the results link is to provide investigators with the means of viewing their results so that they may track the progress of their data collection. Results links ONLY allow results to be viewed.

Once data collection is complete, the results may be analyzed more thoroughly through downloaded data exports.

At any point, investigators may request to clear their collected responses. When this happens, a member of the ORC staff will remove all response data that has been collected from the live survey link.

Exported Results

Exported survey results are available upon request for either All Summary Data or All Responses Data in one or more of the following formats:

Unless otherwise specified, the ORC sends investigators their exported All Responses Data. If you are unsure of which format to request, see SurveyMonkey’s Export Examples.