Recommendations for completion and deactivation of the survey

Completion of the survey

We should pay particular attention to the completion of the survey (‘Thank you’ page). Completion of the survey is the last page of the survey, intended to thank the respondent for participating in the survey. It may also contain other elements, for example:

• A link to another website (e.g. a sponsor’s website; a website linked to the content of the survey);
• Information on access to results (in the survey, we often ask the respondents for contact details, such as an e-mail address to which we can provide the results of the survey; we invite them to a survey in the future, etc.);
• Invitation to participating in qualitative research;
• Completed survey of the respondent in PDF format that the respondent can transfer to his/her computer.

1KA offers a variety of scenarios that users can set for the respondent when they click on the ‘End’ button,

• ‘Close survey’: you can set that the user closes the browser window in which he responded to the survey – this is already pre-set; An example of a survey >>
• ‘Recursive’: this setting means that the same survey for re-replying or input will open once again after it has been completed; An example of the survey >>
• ‘Jump to link’: if you choose this option, a window opens where you can insert the URL of the website to which you want to redirect the respondent after completing the survey; An example of the survey >>

Deactivation of the survey

In the ‘EDIT’ – ‘Settings’ – ‘Activity / quotas’ tab, you can set when should the survey end, that is, when the respondents can respond or how long is it active for respondents. There are two options available. The survey can be deactivated on a specific date or when a certain number of (relevant) answers is reached. You can change the message that appears to the respondents when clicking on the URL of the deactivated survey.

In addition, we try to avoid the situation where the respondent is ready or even wants to participate in the survey, but he gets notified that the survey is deactivated. This often happens in so-called DIY-based research, where we often come across invitations to participate in online surveys, which are already deactivated and can be very uncomfortable and unethical for the respondents. Therefore, when deactivating the survey, you should also withdraw the invitations to the survey, pop-up banners, where an invitation occurs, etc. in time. If the link to the survey cannot be removed (for example, the survey URL is posted in a forum) – if the software permits it – we can change the link target, e.g. redirect to a website, or provide an explanation, information on results, follow-up studies, etc.

It is also unethical when the researcher has already completed the survey, but links to the survey are still active and the answers are nevertheless collected. The data is so in vain, because no one will use them.

In order to avoid such situations, 1KA has defaulted to deactivate the survey after three months, but the period can always be changed by the researcher at any time.

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