CEETE at UW-Madison
Collaboratory for Engineering Education and Teaching Excellence

2020 Fall Survey Template for the First Days of Class

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UPDATE:

  • For students to complete the survey (or any other activity) before September 1 at 7 p.m., you must complete this additional step. Under course Settings, on the Course Details tab, uncheck the box for “Students can only participate in the course between these dates.” Scroll down and click Update Course Details.

Why would I use this survey in my course?

For planning, you may need to ask students questions to find out some or all of the following:

  • Which time zone or geographic area are they in? Before Thanksgiving and/or after?
  • When students are available to attend office hours
  • Available technology and student technology concerns
  • Verification that students understand important details about the mode of instruction and other course expectations
  • Preferred name, the student’s pronouns, and/or major

We hope this will save you time in developing survey language and ideas. This is an optional resource. And if you have a different approach, we’d love to hear about it.

How do I add the survey to my course?

The survey is available as a resource in Canvas Commons. To add it to your course . . .

  1. Open Canvas.
  2. Click on the Commons icon (just above the Help icon in the account navigation bar).
  3. Type “2020 Fall Student Survey” into the search box. The author is Sara Hagen, and the item is a quiz.
  4. Click the blue Import/Download button.
  5. Import the survey into one course. (Hint: If you are teaching multiple courses, customize the survey first for one of them. Then copy it from that course and import it into another as needed. See step 7 in next section.)
  6. Navigate back to your course with the Dashboard or Courses icon. You’ll find the 2020 Fall Student Survey under Quizzes.

How do I edit and preview the survey in my own course?

  1. Click on the quiz. Then click Edit. From the Details page, read the quiz instructions, and delete any text that students won’t need. Click Save. You can also adjust the point value and category (Assignment Group) of the survey. We recommend giving at least a few points for completion. The graded survey type will assign full credit for completing the survey.
  2. To edit the survey questions, click the Questions tab, and edit as normal. Delete questions that don’t apply or that you won’t find useful. Add your own questions if needed. Shorter is better. To edit, hover over the question and click the pencil icon. Click the Update question button for each question you edit. When you are finished editing questions, click Save at the bottom of the page. See recommended syllabus language related to quarantine/isolation, face covering guidelines and compliance, and office hours recommendations.
  3. To change the order of the questions, click the 8 dots to the left of the question title, and drag questions up or down. (Note: students don’t see the question titles – they see Question 1, Question 2, etc.)
  4. Preview your survey multiple times to make sure the details are clear. Ask a colleague to preview it, too. You can ask us to preview it, too (allow 3 business days).
  5. Give your survey a due date from the Details page.
  6. Publish your survey, and add it to your course with your week 0 or week 1 materials, either in modules or on the homepage of your course.
  7. Repeat the process as needed for multiple courses. Import the quiz into another course. (Caution: check the option to Select specific content, not All content.
  8. For students to complete the survey (or any other activity) before September 1 at 7 p.m., you must complete this additional step. Under course Settings, on the Course Details tab, uncheck the box for “Students can only participate in the course between these dates.” Scroll down and click Update Course Details.

How do I find and use the survey results?

  1. Navigate to the quiz from Quizzes, Modules, or a page where you’ve linked it.
  2. To the right (or down below if on a narrow screen), click Survey Statistics. Ignore any information about whether students responded “correctly.” There are no correct answers.
  3. At the top of the page, click Student Analysis. A .csv file will download to your computer.
  4. Open the .csv file in Excel, and you’ll see a row for each student submission. (If you’ve allowed multiple attempts, sort by name to compare and decide which data to discard.) The student’s name is in column A. Beginning with column J, you can delete alternate columns.
  5. Analyze and act on each question’s column as appropriate. For example, if you used the question about whether the student understands the academic honesty policy, check that everyone answered that question; follow up with those who did not. Using Canvas Inbox is a good way to follow up with students. (Note: If following up on sensitive information, be sure to double check for duplicate names before sending. Match the SIS ID from the survey’s column C to their SIS ID on the People page. You can message directly from the People page by clicking on the student’s name and then on the envelope icon.)