Instructor Support for Educational Systems

How do I create Surveys?

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This article provides you with information on how to create a survey and how you can create and add questions to this survey.

Surveys can be used to gain insight into how students rate your course. Possible topics for the survey can be feedback on the workload, literature, and/or the examination/assessment. You can opt for anonymous surveys, but you can also link the responses to the names of your students.

The main difference between Surveys and Quizzes, is that Surveys can be filled out anonymously. See the articles on Quizzes for more information. 

Creating a Survey

  • Go to Course Tools in the navbar of your course.
  • Click Course Admin.
  • Select Surveys below the heading Assessment.
  • Click on New Survey.

1. Give the survey a name.

2. Select, if needed, a category to which the survey belongs from the drop-down menu or click add category to create a new category (for example: Surveys Semester 1). Add a name and click Save.

3. Check the give instant feedback box to provide a student with instant feedback (that has been previously written) the moment they have filled in a question.

4. Check the make results anonymous box when students should fill in the survey anonymously. This option cannot be changed after the creation of the survey. Checking this box will also disable the ability to add release conditions to the survey.

5. Click Add/Edit Questions to add questions.

6. Add a description, if needed, that students will see before they fill in the survey or a submission message that students will see when they completed the survey. Click Expand description/submission Message and use the HTML editor to add the messages.

7. Add a footer if needed. This footer will be visible at the bottom of every page of the survey. Click Expand page footer and use the HTML editor to add the message.

8. Click Save and Close to return to the Survey homepage.

  • Click Restrictions to set dates, deadline and time limit for the survey. 
  • Generating a survey report can be done by following the steps of the Reports Setup. This report can be used to easily share data from a survey with others that usually do not have access to the survey’s statistics.

Adding questions

There are three ways to add questions to a survey:

  1. Creating new questions.
  2. Upload existing questions.
  3. Import existing questions from your Question Library.
  • Go to Course Tools  in the navbar of your course.
  • Click Course Admin.
  • Select Surveys below the heading Assessment.
  • Click New Survey or Edit for an existing survey.
  • Click Add/Edit Questions.
  • Click Import to import existing questions:
    • Click Upload a file to import files from your computer. You can click Browse Files or use drag-and-drop. Note: you can only import .csv or .zip files!
    • Click Browse Question Library to import previously created or imported questions.

We recommend adding questions that you have previously created in the question library (via Browse Question Library). This gives you a clear overview of all the questions neatly arranged and allows you to use them in multiple surveys and/or quizzes.  

You can now use the Question Library to select and add questions. Use the search and filter options to find the questions you want.

  • Use the search bar to find a question by filling in a (part) of the title.
  • Use the drop-down menu next to Source to select from which source you want to add a question. You can search in the whole library but also in specific surveys or quizzes.
  • Filter questions by type (e.g. multiple-choice, true/false or multi-select).
  • Choose how you want to sort (by type, by title/text or by the total amount of achievable points).
  • Select the questions you want to add.
  • Click Add.

Editing questions

Questions that have been added from the question library can now be edited.

  • Add the preferred question.
  • Click Move to move questions in the question library from one section to the other.
  • Click Delete to remove questions from the survey (you will not remove them from the question library).
  • Click Order to change the order of the questions.
  • Click Edit Values to indicate whether a question is Mandatory or not.
    • Click Save to save your changes and return to the previous page.
  • Click on the fold-out arrow next to a question and click Edit to edit the question.
  • Click Done Editing Questions to return to the Edit Survey page.

You will receive a warning when you Edit the content of a question that is already used in another quiz or survey.  

  • Previously created information items (Text/Image Information (TXT)/(IMG)) in the question library (for example a text about a case study that you want to use for multiple questions) can be added to a quiz and/or survey just like regular questions (via Add/Edit Questions). The Order option can be used to place certain questions below the information item. This way, when students are filling in the survey, they will see the information item (case study explanation) before they answer the related questions (this can be checked by using Preview).    
  • The Edit Values option can also be found on the Edit Survey page. Click the fold-out arrow next to the survey and select Edit.

On the Edit Survey page below Survey Questions you can:

  1. indicate next to Questions per Page how many questions are displayed per page. If you do not fill in a specific number (and confirm this by clicking Apply) the survey will be displayed on one page;
  2. check the Paging box if you want to allow students to view previous pages;
  3. use Shuffle questions at the quiz level to prevent all students from seeing all the questions in the same order (sections will be shuffled, not sub questions);
  4. create a path within your survey using Branching Wizard. Students will then answer questions in a set order and will only see one question per page. You will not be able to shuffle questions when you have selected this option (and will receive a notification if you have previously selected this option). Fill in the order of the questions by indicating which questions leads to what question after a certain answer or that the survey will end after a certain answer. Click Save to return to the Edit Survey page. Note: Branching only works with multiple choice and true/false questions.
  5. give students access to the survey with Invite Participants. Brightspace will send an email with a link to the survey to the participants. You will need to fill in a subject, a message and one or more email addresses when you click Invite Participants.
  1. Add a title and a possible message. 
  2. You can search for your desired students via the search bar.
  3. Select the students you want to invite to this survey.
  4. Click Submit to send the message.
  • A survey is only accessible to students when it is switched to Active­.
  • Students can only fill in a survey when they are logged into Brightspace. When a student clicks on the link in the mail they will get an error message when they are not logged in.

One of the tabs you will see while creating a survey is 'Objectives'. Currently, this tab is not in use and can thus be ignored. 

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