ITS offers members of the campus community an online survey service hosted on secure Dalhousie servers. The tools associated with the service allow members to be self sufficient if they wish, but assistance in survey construction and analysis is also available.
The primary tool to create and administer an online survey is the program Opinio.
Opinio is survey software that enables you to produce and publish surveys. Surveys are hosted on Dalhousie's Opinio Web Server. All interaction with Opinio is conducted through a web browser.
- Survey developer obtains an Opinio account
- Survey is created using Opinio's web interface
- Respondants complete the survey on the web
- Responses are stored on Dalhousie's Opinio server
- Basic tabulations are available from Opinio
- Data is exported for further tabulation using statistical software.
Opinio access is available to all Dalhousie faculty and staff to conduct surveys as part of their teaching, research, or administrative activities. Faculty teaching a course that requires students to conduct a survey may obtain Opinio access for their students.
Dalhousie has a 200 user license, which means that only 200 users may have surveys in operation simultainously. This means that Opinio access must be requested and will normally be for a 2 month duration. Some scheduling of usage (e.g., for course use) may be required.
There are no restrictions on who may respond to an Opinio survey other than those established by the survey's creator.
Note: It is the investigator's responsibility to obtain the appropriate approvals to carry out an online survey of any given population for purposes of research or administrative planning.
Complete a username application form bring it to Poh Chua or fax it to 494-2319 attention Poh Chua. When completing the application form, check Other (type of account) and indicate:
- you want Opinio account
- start date (when you want to start setting up the survey)
- duration (normally 2 months), allowing time for preparing survey, collecting responses, and tabulation or export of the data.
Opinio access will be done using your NetID as your Opinio username, but you will have a separate Opinio password. Faculty applying for accounts for their students should include a list of the student NetIDs for which Opinio access is requested.
For further information or if you would like to have a survey setup for you (on a fee basis), contact Poh Chua, opinio@dal.ca or phone 494-2645.
Login to Opinio at https://surveys.dal.ca/.
If you forget your Opinio password, Opinio will email a new password to your Dal email account.
Online Demos (short videos for User Interface Overview and Simple Survey Creation) and a User's Guide are available from ObjectPlanet. A pdf version of the User's Guide is also available.
When reading the User's Guide, ignore the sections on installation, setup, and account administration.
One feature of Opinio is to restrict surveys to one response per IP address. This feature should not be used. Because of the way the secure web server has been set up, all survey responses appear to come from the same IP address.