InfoGuides: Collect Data with a Survey: Survey Software

Mason currently has a site license for Qualtrics, a research-grade software that is also easy-to-use. Students should be able to have their own accounts--contact the administrator for your department to determine what instructions you should give. For small classes, have the students add you as a collaborator. For large, recurring classes, you may want to request administrator permissions yourself.

Best for the Mason Community

These are available to everybody.

Software	What for	Tutorial
Qualtrics	Best for *almost all* projects, see Tab.	Support
RedCap	For more complex projects or those with special needs, may be better. See Tab.	Help & FAQ
Microsoft Forms	For brief surveys needing SSO authentication, this may be easiest.	Support

If you have reviewed the information linked above and have questions about what software to use, contact Data & Digital Scholarship Services at datahelp@gmu.edu to get additional advice.

REDCap vs Qualtrics

REDCap is slightly more difficult to get started with and does not have as many options as Qualtrics when it comes to question types or layouts. But, it still has everything you might need for research data collection. If you do not know what software to use, you can contact Data & Digital Scholarship Services at datahelp@gmu.edu to discuss the various options.

TIP: Unless you really need one of these features, choose Qualtrics instead

Topic	Qualtrics	REDCap
User-Friendliness	Very easy to get started and use; includes training from Basecamp.	Less user-friendly, but good tutorials. and tips
Customization	Surveys look nice by default, lots of overall and item customization (including CSS). Easily control how many questions are on each page. Can add special features with Javascript within questions	Does not layout survey using best practices by default. The ability to have fine grained customization over placement of elements, but piecemeal. Add tags to control question featuress.
Features	Extra features not included in George Mason's package (e.g., File Upload question types) are expensive.	Allows for File Upload question types.
Longitudinal Studies	No special support. Must manage the assignment of unique identifiers to combine data over time.	Use built-in tools to manage multi-session studies Calendar and scheduling module to plan and organize Can use the same form at multiple time points, or not
Data Entry	No special tools, but perfectly fine.	Includes Data Resolution Workflow Allows displaying messages that only appear for data entry or vice-versa Allows identifying incomplete records and tracking data changes
Privacy	Data is stored on Qualtrics' server, Not approved for studies using Sensitive data.	hosted on a server at Mason, so no data is held by a private company. supports save and continue even in a completely anonymous survey,. allows "sending" files with sensitive data more fine-grained permission granting for teams

If you are transitioning between REDCap and Qualtrics, here are some terms matched to the other.

REDCap	Qualtrics
Instrument / Form	Block
Production Status	Publish
Snapshot	Version
Branching Logic	Display Logic
Stop Actions	Skip Logic (to End of Block)
Auto-continue	Survey Flow

Other Options

Zapier's list of the 20 Best Online Survey Builder Tools with links to reviews.

Software	Availability / Cost	Tutorial
Google Forms	Free with Google Account, some features like skipping	Lynda.com
Questionpro	Students can get a Free Pro account for advertising	Help Center
SurveyMonkey	Popular and relatively easy-to-use, can get expensive	Lynda.com
LimeSurvey	Install on your own server for FREE, or use the hosted version which gives 25 responses free and not too expensive for small studies	Manual