SurveyForce Component

Doubtless that while operating your distance learning process, you'll need a great amount of information that will be complicated to get, as your Students are online users. Survey Force is the component that allows teachers to create surveys in the FrontEnd. A survey may be represented as a number of various-typed questions, that Students are asked to answer. You can create as many surveys as you wish and each of them will aim at finding Student's opinions and attitudes towards the subject you have to get the information about. This powerful tool is easy to use yet will be quite effective when it comes to results.

To enable the integration, navigate to SurveyForce –> Configuration in the admin area of the system and activate LMS integration option:

Once this option has been installed, the teachers will be able to create their own surveys at the FrontEnd, as well as to create user’s list of who should take the survey. The additional option allows to add users from LMS classes to this list.

Fig. 'Integration'

Now authors have the opportunity to create surveys in the front end. The survey management and creation system in the front end is absolutely identical to the system in the back end. Surveys creation page opens by default (what is meant is the link http://your_site/index.php?option=com_surveyforce) if user has sufficient privileges (i.e. he is set as author or LMS teacher while the integration mode is turned on).

To work with usergroups click Usergroups on the right menu of the screen. The system will display a list of created usergroups.

Fig. 'Usergroups'

Use the icons at the top of the list to manage usergroups in the following way:

Icon	Name	Description
	New	Click the New icon to create a new usergroup.
	Edit	To make changes to a certain usergroup, select a check-box next to the group you want to modify and click the Edit icon.
	Delete	Select the check-boxes next to the groups you want to delete and click the Delete icon.

In addition, the form is provided with pagination for better usability and allows to move to the next page, previous page, to the start and to the end of it. It is possible as well to filter the items of the list in the Display# field by choosing a number of entries that should be displayed on the page.

To create a new usergroup:

1. Select the new icon () on the Usergroup page. The following form will be displayed:

Fig. 'Adding a Usergroup'

2. In the field List name enter the name of the newly created group. Select a check-box next to the inscription Add all users from LMS group (class) and select a group from the displayed drop-down list.
3. Likewise, you can choose users individually by selecting check-boxes next to usernames in the list followed by the inscription Add users manually from the list.
4. After making all the necessary entries you can click either Save icon () to save changes and go back, Apply icon () to save changes and stay on the same page or Cancel () to discard changes.

To work with the list of surveys, click the surveys on the right menu of the screen. The system will display a list of surveys available for users.

Fig. 'Surveys'

Use the icons at the top of the page to manage the surveys the following way:

Icon	Name	Description
	View Survey Results	Select a check-box next to the survey, the results of which you want to view, and press the View Survey Results icon.
	Publish	Select a check-box next to the survey you want to be published and press the publish icon; likewise, you can press the unpublish icon in the Active column, and the survey’s status will automatically be changed to published.
	Unpublish	Select a check-box next to the survey you want to be unpublished and press the unpublish icon.
	Move	Select a check box next to the survey that you want to move to another category and click the Move icon. From the displayed list select a category to which the survey should belong and click Move.
	Copy	Select a check box next to the survey that you want to move to another category and click the Copy icon. From the displayed list select a category to which the survey should belong and click Copy.
	Delete	Select a check-box next to the survey you want to delete, and click the Delete icon.
	Edit	Select a check-box next to the survey you want to modify, and click the Edit icon.
	New	Click the icon if you want to create a new survey.
	Categories	Click the icon if you want to return to Categories page.

In addition, the form is provided with pagination for better usability and allows to move to the next page, previous page, to the start and to the end of it. It is possible as well to filter the items of the list in the Display# field by choosing a number of entries that should be displayed on the page.

To create a survey:

1. Select surveys on the Surveys page. Choose the New icon () in the displayed window. The following form will be displayed:

Fig. 'New Survey'

2. Fill out the fields as described in the table below:

   Field	Step
   Name	Enter the name of the survey.
   Description	Enter the description of the survey. It will be displayed on the first page when a user will start the survey.
   Image	The field is optional. However, you can select image for the survey’s background.
   Category	Select the category of the survey. The default setting is Testing category.
   Language	You can select the language of the survey. The default language is English.
   Expired on	The field is optional. However, if you wish to post a survey for a certain period of time, you can select a date when a survey expires.
   Active	If you want the survey to be published select Yes; otherwise select No.
   Auto Insert Page Break	If you want each survey’s question to be displayed on the new page, select Yes; otherwise, select No.
   Public For Invited Users For Registered Users For Users in Lists	This field contains an option for selecting a usergroup which was previously created. You can select check-boxes next to the groups which will have access to the survey.
   Final Page	You can choose either to show survey’s results on the final page or text that you can type in the field below.

3. After making all the necessary entries you can click either Save icon () to save changes and go back, Apply icon () to save changes and stay on the same page or Cancel () to discard changes.

Each survey contains questions a user should answer. To create a new question, select the necessary survey and click its name link. Out of the drop-drown list select the question’s type and click the new icon () on top of the page. Currently, you can choose out of the following questions:

• Likert Scale When you want to know respondents' feelings or attitudes about something, consider asking a Likert-scale question. The respondents must indicate how closely their feelings match the statement on a rating scale.
• Pick One Question has two or more options. The student can select only one answer.
• Pick Many When you want respondents to pick the best answer or answers from among all the possible options, consider writing a ‘Pick Many’ question.
• Short Answer The student is required to type in their answer. Responses 3-6 words long are appropriate for short answer questions.
• Drop Down question Two columns of information are displayed. The student must indicate the appropriate matches of information.
• Drag'n'Drop question Two columns of information are displayed. The student must indicate the appropriate matches of information via dragging options from right column to the left. 
• Boilerplate This question type is used for displaying some text for explaining or instructions. It is not necessary to answer it.
• Page Break This is the special question type which is used for dividing the survey into pages. All the questions situated between two Page Breaks will be displayed on the one page. Dividing the survey into pages using Page Breaks will be ignored if the mode ‘Auto insert Page Breaks’ will be turned ‘on’.

Once the form of the new question is opened you will be offered to fill in the input question text, select survey for which the question is assigned, select 'importance scale' for question, select if answering on this question is necessary, select if the Page Break will be added after this question, and fill in additional information that characterizes and describes answer variants (for each question type information differs). On completion you should press the Save icon ().

Once the quiz is created, the selected users can answer its questions and the teacher can afterwards see the results of the survey. To do this, you need to select a check-box next to the necessary survey and press the Results icon
().

Fig. 'The Results Icon'

Depending on the amount of the respondents and the number of different types of questions the teacher can see the diagrams as for example in the following figure:

Fig. 'Survey Results'