Questionnaire management

MySchool has an inbuilt feature allowing school administrators to create their own questionnaires which can be sent to Guardians and parents. It is designed for straw polls and to obtain feedback concerning the students. If you are looking for parental authorisation forms, then look at this article and the permission feature for more details. For the moment, MySchool doesn't include any analysis package, nor detailed survey creation. 

How to access

Creation of questionnaires are restricted to Administrators, look under Administer, in the Advanced options, and find Questionnaires. This is not related to online application forms which are covered in this article. 

Opening the questionnaire function, brings you to the list screen, where you can switch between the Active, Draft and Archived questionnaires. Draft versions are saved as such during creation, whereas Active questionnaires become archived after their end date.

Note that there is the completed and sent statistic relative to each questionnaire. 

If you reuse a questionnaire regularly, save the base template in Draft. It can be edited and made active, whenever you need it.

How to create a questionnaire

Open a New Questionnaire with the button, and you can start entering the Admin details for the questionnaire.

 1. Short description

Enter a distinctive title, don't forget this will appear on guardians and/or student portals if they have been selected in the target audience.

2. Publish/Unpublished

Choose whether to publish this or not on the system. Spend some time creating templates, which can be reused quickly if needed.

3. Open until

How long the target audience will have to reply to the questionnaire, before it becomes archived.

4. Initial template/reminder template/confirmation template

MySchool will send an automatic message to recipients when the questionnaire is published and available, and also a reminder can be set for those participants who have not completed the questionnaire. Upon completion another message can be sent thanking the participants, or informing them of the next step. These messages are stored in the Edit Message.

You can edit the existing templates, but they will be used as the base template for all future questionnaires. If you need a specific message for the questionnaire then create a New Template, this will be available for your questionnaire once saved.

If a recipient guardian has their user status set to disabled, and if they are included in the target list, they will receive account activation details in the same notification mail. If they are active or archived this information will not be included in the notification.

5. Save to student file

The questionnaire can be saved as a PDF in the student My Files tab for reference purposes. Useful if the questionnaire has information regarding student user information.

How to build the questionnaires

Make sure you have a draft plan for your questionnaire. Search online for some help with Quantitative and Qualitative, Open ended v Closed questions. Don't make the questionnaire too long otherwise users may not complete. Most importantly make sure the questions are understandable and not leading. 

It maybe useful to include a text placement, which reminds users that the questionnaire is not anonymous, it has been sent in connection to the students profile on MySchool.

Always start by including a text introduction to the questionnaire and build sections. Use Add section to add a question or text holder. You can copy sections if needed, and preview the questionnaire once it has been saved. You can format the questions, and they can also be personalised to include student name, and email to be merged into the text.

Here are the list of sections possible.

• Raw text - Has no answer needed, and is used for introduction or explanatory text. 
• Question Radio -  Able to include multiple choice with only 1 valid reply from the respondent
• Question Checkbox - Include multiple choice with multiple replies to the same question
• Question Drop down - Drop down list with only one reply allowed.
• Confirm existing data - The system will pull the information held about the recipient and allow the users to change this data. This will automatically update the profile of the Student.

• Question Small text input - Single line field for short open ended questions
• Question Big text input - larger text box with multiple line possible
• Raw HTML - If you wish to build your own HTML questions, then copy and paste the code in this box.

If you wish to make a question mandatory for completion, then choose the appropriate type and check the Required box. Once you have set up the questionnaire you can Save. The Export button allows you export the replies received for the questionnaire to excel. You will be prompted to export the parent details as well, uncheck this option if you not required.

Selecting the recipients

The Parent Submissions tab allows you to select the target student population. the questionnaire will be sent to the main guardian of the pupil.

Open the field 'Add Students' with the head icon, the People Picker will allow you to chose per School level, Class, or Individually. This list also acts as a check list to see who has completed the questionnaire. The stats are reported on the list page when opening the Questionnaire function. You are again reminded that the Questionnaire has been sent to the main guardian of the selected student.

Parent Portal

Parents and Guardians can see the questionnaire if it is active, and published. Simply click the Open link to start filling in the questions. Once complete they save and their answers will be visible in the parent submissions tab.