ONLINE SURVEYS

About

Flashlight is a Web-based survey system that can be used to create surveys, gather responses, and analyze results. As a Flashlight subscriber, ATCS can provide access to the application for Sac State faculty and staff upon request.

We are in the process of transitioning to the new version of Flashlight. New accounts will be created on the new version. Existing accounts will soon be moved over to this updated version. If you have an account on the old version and would like access to the new version, send an email message to onlinesurveys@csus.edu.

For additional information regarding the new version of Flashlight, see the TLT Group’s Flashlight 2.0 Features page.

Flashlight is produced and managed by the TLT Group (Teaching, Learning, and Technology), a non-profit Corporation. For additional information about the TLT Group or the Flashlight program, visit the TLT Group's Flashlight Web site.

Key Features

• Write your own survey questions, choosing from many different question formats
• Collaborate and build on one another's work. Keep a survey or other online form private, or make it available to others to author.
• Customize your survey using familiar Web editing tools
• Use surveys created by other institutions as templates for your own
• Use metadata to determine which questions in a survey get delivered to different groups of participants or even distribute the authoring of a survey across several different groups of stake-holders. (Flashlight 2)
• Distribute a survey across several pages. (Flashlight 2)
• Email respondents reminders to complete the survey, or send out e-mail reminders to those who haven't yet responded [retaining anonymity]. (Flashlight 2)
• Share surveys and data with groups of users
• View simple analyses of data directly on the system
• Download raw data to your own statistical software for analysis

Why Use Online Surveys?

• Create anonymous surveys using your own questions
• Tailor the questions and text to different subgroups of respondents, so that your questions can become far more precise. For example, in a statewide study of health care facilities, you could ask people just about facilities that you know are in their zip codes.
• Open-ended questions can be quite useful. Responses to open-ended questions are longer, and less expensive to analyze, when the questions are asked online.
• Adapt surveys and item banks created by other users, including authors at other institutions or mix and match pre-existing questions with your own
• Deliver completed surveys via the Web
• Access simple summaries of student responses or download the information for more detailed analyses
• Course, program and student assessment

Resources

See the handouts, resources, and tutorials pages.

Getting Started

Flashlight 2 (all new online survey accounts, as of 6/15/2009):

1. Request an account. Submit the Request Form.
2. Create Survey
   • Set survey description, goals, dates
   • Create questions, preview survey
3. Create Respondent Pools
   • Used to collect responses for a subset of survey participants.
   • Create pools manually, from a copy of another pool, or by importing an Excel spreadsheet.
4. Deliver survey
   • Single URL - obtain URL from the Respondent Pool.
   • Email URL - add participant's email addresses to your Respondent Pool(s), then use the Message option to deliver an email invitation to each participant, for each pool.
5. Collect Results. Accessed from the Reports section for a survey
   • Quick Report - Quickly view collected results.
   • Excel Report - Download raw data to spreadsheet format

See the Flashlight 2 QuikRef (PDF format) for a printable, more detailed version of these steps.

Flashlight 1 (existing accounts only; new accounts no longer created on this system as of 6/15/2009):

1. Log into Flashlight [Online Surveys] from the Flashlight Login page.
2. Create/edit your survey using Flashlight.
3. Preview the survey using Flashlight.
4. Deploy your survey to respondents.
5. View and/or download survey data.

Human Subject Policies

Any research conducted by Sacramento State faculty, staff, or students involving human subjects or any research related activity involving human subjects that utilizes Sacramento State time, facilities, resources and/or students must be reviewed by the CPHS to ensure compliance with applicable federal and campus policy. Policies and Procedures for the Protection of Human Subjects are available at the Research Administration and Contract Administration web site.