Institutional Research and Assessment has endorsed the Online Organization in managing surveys sent to online students for internal purposes. Online's policy for administering surveys is as follows:

• Administrative organizations within and outside of Online coordinate with Online Evaluation before administering surveys to online students or instructors.
• Online instructors are notified when surveys are added to their courses. 
• On-campus entities (i.e., Financial Services, Internship Office, Institutional Research & Assessment) may send institutional surveys that could include online students.
• Online students may be surveyed for student projects as determined and managed by Institutional Research & Assessment.
• Online Evaluation tracks all surveys given to online students and instructors.
• Individuals who conduct academic research follow the Online Research Checklist and Guidelines.

1. Contact the Online Evaluation team ([email protected]) to discuss and/or design your survey project. 
2. Once the survey is developed, fill out the BYU-Idaho Online Learning Survey Tracking Form. Be prepared to submit the following information:
   • Survey's title
   • Organization that owns the survey
   • Target dates for administering the survey
   • Specific courses that will be given the survey
   • Audience
   • Length
   • Survey questions
   • Link to survey

Surveys are sent to students and instructors from various campus offices for internal data collection as well as student research projects; as such, their sheer quantity can be overwhelming. An online student at BYU-Idaho could easily take 14 surveys just for one online course. Excessive surveys can cause "survey fatigue," which often results in invalid data, contributing to erroneous decisions and evaluations. 

This policy aims to reduce the impact of survey fatigue by coordinating survey needs. Online Evaluation identifies the best time to administer a survey, decides whether survey questions can be combined with an active survey instrument, determines whether needed data already exists from a different survey, and provides additional feedback for effective administration. Through collaboration with the Online Evaluation team, surveys are more concise and less numerous, which leads to a better online learning experience for students.