Within Baseline, you have the option of administering your survey as anonymous or with the ability to collect unique identifiers (e.g., campus e-mail, ID, or username). These identifiers can be useful if you wish to integrate your survey results with demographic questions uploaded within the Baseline project listing or if you simply wish to know the identity of your survey respondents.
There are two options for collecting student identifiers within your survey results:
- Send survey out using our Mass Mailing tool--Because our mass mailing tool is set up within our system and requires an e-mail address for each recipient, our system will automatically connect the student's email address to their survey responses. The e-mail address will appear in the raw data file of the survey results (i.e., the view of the data when exporting under the "Detail" option).
- Include a Validation Screen at the start of your survey--If you would like to collect student identifiers, but are not able to use the mass mailing tool (e.g., you wish to post the survey link on a website), you can also ask your assessment team to add a validation screen to the survey. The validation screen will show up as the very first question on the survey and will require that the respondent enter ID or e-mail in order to continue. There are a couple options for setting up the validation screen:
- Ensure that only a predefined list of individuals are able to take the survey--If you have a very specific survey population, you will need to send your assessment team a file of student identifiers so we can ensure that only that defined group is able to access the survey.
- Collect identifiers from anyone who takes the survey--If you would like to know who is taking the survey, but do not care to restrict access, we can simply turn on the validation screen for the survey, so respondents can self-identify before beginning the survey.
The Project Request process allows you to specify whether you plan to use the Mass Mailing option. To ensure a validation screen is created for a survey, you can either indicate this in the project request form or contact your assessment team.