The Surveys & Polls module helps you quickly find out what parents, students or colleagues think (for example, feedback after a school trip) and check what students have learned with a scored Assessment. Recipients get a notification and answer from the platform or the app. Results appear straight away, with charts, and can be exported.
The module has been rebuilt. Compared with the old version, you now have:
a Dashboard with all the school's surveys, by status (Draft, Scheduled, Active, Closed);
two types: Survey / Poll and Assessment (with correct answers and points);
ready-made Templates and a reusable Question library;
a start date and a deadline, automatic reminders and anonymous surveys;
Co-owners and a Configuration page with the permissions of each role.
If you are an administrator, start with the configuration (section 2). Then create your first survey (sections 3–6).
Contents
1. How do I open the Surveys & Polls module?
Surveys & Polls › Dashboard
In the left menu, open Surveys & Polls. The submenu has three pages:
Dashboard: all the school's surveys and their statistics;
Templates: ready-made surveys and the question library (section 8);
My surveys: the surveys you have to answer yourself (section 9).
At the top of the Dashboard you see how many surveys are Active now, Scheduled or Drafts, the Response rate and how many answers are waiting in To mark. The Needs you card shows what is waiting for you. Below it, Needs your attention lists those surveys, next to Recent activity.
Click Board to see all the surveys in columns, by status: Draft, Scheduled, Active and Closed. You can also switch to Grid or List, filter the surveys (All, Mine, Shared with me) and search by name.
2. How do I configure the module?
Surveys & Polls › Configuration
Click the Configuration button at the top right. The page has three tabs: General, Permissions and Survey managers.
General: the school-wide defaults
Here you choose the settings every new survey starts with. The author can still change each of them on the survey itself.
Type: Survey / Poll or Assessment, pre-selected on the first step;
Who can see results (for example, Only me and managers);
Deadline time: the time used when the author picks only a closing day (by default 23:59);
Appearance of the answer page: the decorative background for surveys and polls and for assessments.
Further down you find:
Reminders: the “Closing soon” push to people who have not answered, sent once per survey, and when it goes out (for example, 1 day before the deadline);
Templates: whether the gallery also shows Kinderpedia's template library or only the templates made by the school.
Don't forget to click Save.
Permissions: who may do what
The Permissions tab is a table with the roles in columns (Managers, Survey managers, Admins, Teachers) and the permissions in rows. Managers and survey managers always hold every permission.
Create and edit: Create surveys, Create templates for the school, Manage the question library, Duplicate a survey to another school;
Audience a survey may be sent to: parents or students of their own classes or of any class, teachers, admins and management, the whole school at once;
Results and exports: see every survey of the school (read-only), export answers to a file, open the configuration page.
Note! A role without Create surveys can only answer. The author of a survey and its co-owners always see its results.
Survey managers
Survey managers can open, edit, publish and mark every survey of the school, as if they had written it. Use it for a coordinator or a stand-in. Click Add survey managers, pick the colleagues from the Teachers or Admins lists, then click Add and Save.
3. How do I create a survey?
Surveys & Polls › Dashboard › Create Survey
Click Create Survey. You have three options:
Start from scratch: an empty survey where you add every question yourself (Build your own);
Use a template: start from a ready-made survey (section 8);
Paste a list of questions: paste a text and each line becomes a question.
If you choose Paste a list of questions, click Start with your questions. Fill in the Title, choose the Type and type or paste the questions in Questions, one per line. On the right you see the Questions to create list straight away. Click Create survey: a draft is created and you go straight to the Questions step.
Tip: pasted questions all become Long text questions. You can change their type (for example, to Single choice) in the Questions step, by clicking each question.
If you choose Start from scratch, fill in the first step, Basics:
Type: Survey / Poll (opinions, no correct answers) or Assessment (with points, section 7);
Title (required) and Description. Respondents see the description at the top of the form;
Start date and Deadline. You can also fill them in later.
Click Create. The survey is saved as a Draft and you move on to the questions.
4. How do I add the questions?
Create Survey › Questions
At the top you see the three steps: Basics, Questions and Audience & schedule. You can go back to a step at any time by clicking it.
Click + Add question. The question panel opens on the right: type the text in Question, pick the Question type and choose whether Answer required? is Required or Optional. On the left you see a live preview of the question.
The question types are:
Short text and Long text: a free written answer;
Single choice and Multiple choice: the respondent picks one or more options;
Rating: a star rating (you choose how many stars the scale has);
True / False;
Put in order and the other types further down the list, useful mostly in assessments.
For Single choice or Multiple choice, type the options in Answer options (at least two). Use + Add option for one more option, or + Paste a list to paste several at once. Tick Limit how many people can pick each option if an option has limited places (for example, a time slot). Click Save question.
For Rating, set in Stars on the scale how many stars the rating has (for example, 5).
Saved questions appear in the list. You can reorder them by dragging the handle on the left, delete them with ✕, and save them to the question library with the star ☆, so you can reuse them.
To add questions you saved earlier, click From library. The questions are copied into the survey, and later edits here don't change the library.
When you are done, click Next: Audience & schedule.
5. How do I choose the recipients and the dates?
Create Survey › Audience & schedule
Under Recipients, click Choose audience. You can combine:
whole groups: Whole school, All parents, All teachers, All admins;
Users picked one by one: Children, Parents, Teachers, Admins;
Groups by class: Classes · children or Classes · parents.
Click a list on the left, tick the people or classes on the right (or Select all), then click Apply.
The audience appears under Recipients, with the number of Recipients resolved. Change it with Edit audience.
Under Schedule, pick the Start date and the Deadline. Below them you see when the reminder goes out to people who have not answered.
Tip: if you often send surveys to the same people, click Save as list and give the list a name. Next time it appears as a single choice when you pick the recipients.
Under Advanced settings you can choose:
Show questions: All on one page or one at a time;
Time limit (minutes): the clock starts when the respondent presses Start. Leave 0 for no limit;
Close automatically after this many responses;
Reminder before the deadline, in hours (between 1 and 24; leave it empty for the school's setting);
Anonymous survey: answers are shown without names, and the participants list shows only who has not answered yet;
Shuffle the question order or the answer options for each respondent;
Decorative background on the answer page.
With Save draft you keep the survey unpublished. Recipients see it only after you publish it.
6. How do I preview and publish the survey?
Create Survey › Preview / Publish
Click Preview at the top right to see the survey exactly as a respondent sees it.
Click Publish. If something is missing, a list shows what you still need to fill in (for example, Add at least one recipient, A deadline is required).
When everything is filled in, confirm with Publish in the “Publish this survey?” window. Recipients are notified and can start answering right away. If the start date is in the future, the survey becomes Scheduled and opens by itself on that date.
A published survey has the status Active.
Note! After publishing you can still change the questions and the type of the survey, but only until the first person answers. To stop the survey, click Unpublish.
After the first response an orange banner appears: the questions and the type can no longer change. You can still change the title, the description, the deadline and the audience. To change the questions, duplicate the survey (section 12).
7. How do I create a scored assessment?
Create Survey › Basics › Assessment
In the Basics step, tick the Assessment type. The other steps are the same as for a regular survey.
For questions with options (Single choice, Multiple choice), tick Correct next to the right answer and type how many points it is worth.
For written answers (Short text, Long text), fill in Points. Written answers are marked by hand after people respond (section 11).
In the Audience & schedule step, an assessment also has the Show correct answers after marking option under Advanced settings.
Tip: questions with options are marked automatically. The final score appears once you have also marked the written answers.
8. How do I use templates and the question library?
Surveys & Polls › Templates
The Templates page has ready-made surveys, by category. Using a template creates a copy; the template itself is never answered.
filter by category or by Favorites;
the eye icon opens the template preview;
the star adds it to Favorites;
with New template you create a template for your school.
In the preview, click Use this template. A new survey is created with the template's questions, and you can change it before publishing.
Any existing survey can become a template: in the survey's ⋮ menu, choose Save as template (section 12).
The Question library tab keeps the questions you saved with the star ☆ (section 4).
9. How do people answer a survey?
Surveys & Polls › My surveys
Recipients get a notification. Teachers and admins find the surveys they received in My surveys, in the To answer tab. The ones already sent move to Past. Click Answer.
Fill in the answers. Questions marked with * are required. With Save draft you can continue later, and with Submit you send your answer.
After submitting, the message You've submitted your response. appears.
In an assessment with written answers, a message at the top says that some answers are marked by the teacher. After submitting, the respondent sees that the teacher is still marking the written answers.
Once the teacher has marked everything, the respondent sees Your score and, under each written answer, the teacher's feedback and points.
Parents and students get the notification in the Kinderpedia app and answer from the app, in the same way.
10. How do I see and export the results?
Surveys & Polls › Dashboard › ⋮ › View results
On the Dashboard, click ⋮ on the survey's card and choose View results. At the top you see:
Responses: how many answered out of how many were invited, how many are in progress and how many have not started;
How long it takes: the typical time to complete the survey;
Where people stop answering: whether anyone leaves the form or skips optional questions.
With Export XLSX or Export PDF you download all the answers.
The People tab shows each respondent's answers. Filter by All, Responded or Pending, search for a person, or open a row with the arrow on the left. With Export you download a single person's answers.
The Questions tab shows a chart for each question: how many picked each option, the average star rating and the written answers.
11. How do I mark written answers in an assessment?
Surveys & Polls › Dashboard › Needs you › Marking
When an assessment has written answers that are not marked yet, the To mark number goes up on the Dashboard and the survey's card shows 1 to mark. Click the Needs you card.
The Needs your attention list shows the assessments with Answers to mark, next to Recent activity. Click Mark 1 answer.
The Marking page opens. On the left, under Responses, pick the student. On the right you see their written answer. Fill in the points (at most the question's points) and, if you like, some Feedback, then click Save marks.
The response then shows All marked, with the final score (for example, 10 / 10).
Tip: you can also reach Marking from the assessment's results page, with the Marking button. Fill-the-gaps answers are marked automatically, but you can change their points here (for example, for a typo).
The results page of an assessment also shows the Average score, the Hardest question and each respondent's Score.
12. How do I edit, duplicate, unpublish or delete a survey?
Surveys & Polls › Dashboard › ⋮
Click ⋮ on the survey's card (or on its results page). You have these options:
Edit: open the three steps again;
View results (section 10);
Duplicate: a copy of the survey;
Save as template: reuse it from the Templates page;
Unpublish: stop the survey;
Co-owners: the colleagues who work on the survey with you;
Delete.
In Co-owners, click Add colleagues, pick the colleagues, then the access level for each one, and click Save:
Full access: they can do everything you can, except delete or archive the survey or change the list of co-owners;
Read-only: they can open the survey, its results and answers, and change nothing.
Tip: before you delete a survey, export the results if you need them (section 10).
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