Finalizing Online Surveys And Proceeding To The Next Steps

Surprise, it's a holiday!

Fortunately, at least two of five groups (3 female and 2 male) are continuing to work through the holiday and have sent me the links to their updated surveys. I have already responded to them with feedback.

Subtle note to other groups: If you have updated your survey in the last 48 hours and want me to take a look, let me know. If you have not updated your survey in the last 48 hours, when will you? Let me know so I can provide my usual thorough (though sometimes overly critical) feedback.

At this point, you should have created an online survey that includes:

1. A good title (that means it begins with an active verb)
2. A brief introduction that explains the what and why of your survey
3. At least 6 good questions.

Originally I had said to keep your questions to 6 but I have modified the number. I'm happy to allow you to decide how many questions you should ask. Be sure it's a reasonable number!

Next steps
When we meet again, Tuesday 1 March, I want to see completed surveys. In other words, you've worked out the rough edges of your survey and it's ready to go live.

But not so fast. We won't go live on Tuesday, but possibly by Thursday.

Before we finalize the surveys, I want you to think about the questions, and especially the answers you are likely to collect. If you were the client -- in this case, GUST PR, charged with publishing GUST Times -- would you be satisfied with your Team's end product?

Is the survey probing for the right information? Will the answers provide useful data to the client? Or will the client wonder: "Why didn't they ask this question, or that question?" Are you asking the right questions? Remember: The client is looking for useful data that will help her make good decisions about improving her product, the GUST Times.

What could you have asked that you're not yet planning to ask? Think about it. Discuss it. Make sure you will be proud of your data collection. Ultimately, you want the client to use your services again, and to promote you to other potential clients!

Getting results
Once your survey has been finalized, your Team must now think about how you are going to get at least 50, and ideally close to 100, students to respond to your online survey.

Each of you will write an email "pitch" . . . in other words, a brief message that you will send to your own database of students at GUST. The purpose of the "pitch" is to motivate the students to respond to the survey. Each Team member will email his/her "pitch" to respective Team members, with a copy to me. We'll then critique the "pitches" and select three to send to the databases over a period of time.

If you don't have an email database of GUST students -- develop one! Ask at least ten students for their email address and explain why -- you will be contacting them to ask them to complete a survey to help you get an A in MCM 206!

More to come!