Using Survey123

Introduction:

There are a number of survey sets which Geographers often consult for the purposes of collecting data, the gold standard of surveys and go-to consult often being the US Census records. Sometimes, however, the surveys that are popularly referenced for consult do not host the information sought for in the data collection process. In these instances, developing personalized surveys are a key way for Geographers to reach out to the community for data collection of a particular topic of interests. Survey123 provides a user-friendly platform that allows students to quickly formulate and customizes online surveys for a community. This lab provided students with a tutorial (through https://learn.arcgis.com/en/gallery/) on how to use Survey123 and manipulate details within its program for further use in future labs.

Methods: 

The tutorial was formatted in step by step exercises for students to replicate directly, and ultimately, produce a final product which, in the case of the example, would serve the Homeowner Association in evaluating the disaster preparedness of community homes in a given study area. The tutorial was divided into a series of four lessons overall, including: "Create a survey," "Complete and submit the survey," "Analyze survey data," and "Share your survey data."

During the first lesson under "Create a survey," students worked at constructing the overall survey survey form, focusing on the questions the survey will ask, and the standardized types of responses a surveyor may use to answer. The platform is set up in an easy to manage format that allows the survey builder to simply "Add" (Figure 1) a question with presets per each response type (numerical, multiple choice (single or multi-answer), text), and then use "Edit" (Figure 2) to formulate the actual question and modify any necessary response options.

Figure 1: Add a Question Type

Figure 2: Edit the Question and Associated Response Options

Once the survey was built and complete, students were able to move on to the "Complete and submit the survey" lesson portion of the tutorial. In this section, students perform a number of runs through their survey's final product, and submit them for use. In the case of this lab, the survey conducted a total number of eight times before evaluation.

The third lesson in the tutorial, "Analyze survey data." allowed students to visualize the statistical results of their collected survey evaluations. The Survey123 platform allows students to visualize their collective results to each question through the use of columns charts (Figure 3), bar charts (Figure 4), pie charts (Figure 5), and proportional symbol mapping (Figure 6). One of each of these methods is provided with the people per household question in the four figures below. Each question also hosts some statistical result tables posted below visual illustrations of the data collected, some include a number of statistics while others include simple percentages for certain responses.

Figure 3: Survey Question Results- Column Bar Graph

Figure 4: Survey Question Results- Bar Graph Chart

Figure 5: Survey Question Results- Pie Chart Graph

Figure 6: Survey Question Results-Proportional Mapping Graph

The last lesson on "Share your survey data" walked students through the process of publicly publishing their survey to be taken by the target community through the web. The final tutorial illustrates how the program allows for the generation of pop-up configuration maps with data collection points linked to text of their associated surveys as shown below in Figure 7. The survey creator can choose which survey elements they choose to remain in the pop-up configuration links within the maps so that personal information is not revealed to the public eye.

Figure 7: Data Collection Points and Pop-Up Survey Configurations

Conclusion:

Overall, experimenting with Survey123 through the tutorial provided was effective in helping students to learn the potential of the program, how to navigate its layout and manipulate its functions. Survey123 will prove useful in conducting personalized research which requires a self-generated survey to obtain new data about a population.

Sources:

Survey123
https://learn.arcgis.com/en/projects/get-started-with-survey123/lessons/create-a-survey.htm
ESRI