Using Google Docs for Conducting Research and Surveys Online - Easy and Simple

If you are doing some research or survey, you know how difficult and time consuming it is to prepare questionnaire, mail it and tabulate the responses.

However, today a number of online survey tools and services are available, like the SurveyMonkey. Unfortunately, there are restrictions for free versions of such online survey tools. If you don’t like restrictions, move on to Google Docs. It is an Online Office suite from Google - http://docs.google.com - still, it can prove to be a handy tool for conducting research or survey online. Thanks to some new features added to it. These features enable Questionnaire / Survey Forms creation and emailing them directly. The beauty of Google Docs is that there is always a background spreadsheet linked for each such form. The responses to the questions are automatically added to spreadsheet in Google Docs.

With Google Docs, you can create your Online Survey / Research Forms. Send these through Email or simply send the unique URL of the online survey form. Survey participants do not require any Sign-in for filling online survey forms. Their responses can be filled out directly from email client. As already told, responses are automatically added to a Linked Spreadsheet. This spreadsheet can be used to further analyse the responses. It is easy, simple and fun with Google Docs.

For creating a Survey Form, visit Google Docs. Use your Gmail User ID and Password to login. If you do not have an Account with Google, better create it now. Once logged in, select a new spreadsheet. Make it sharable by clicking on “Share” tab. It will prompt to enter the title for the spreadsheet and save it. After that, from available options, select “to fill out a form”. Next step is to create a Survey Form. It is very simple and intuitive. Once the form is complete, you can preview it and send it by emailing it to large number of participants. The Google Docs responds back with a confirmatory email. As the participants start filling up the form, data is captured in a linked spreadsheet at back.

I have created a small presentation for explaining it.

The same is embedded here as well.

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