Create a Report on a Learner's Short Answers

[Randle2000]

Hi there-

I am an instructional designer/LMS administrator. For some compliance reasons, we need to be able to create some sort of short answer survey or quiz and then generate a report that displays both the question and answers for each learner (preferably from the LMS). There are no right or wrong answers... We just want to see the learner's feedback. I realize we could use third-party survey functionality, but we'd like to include short answer functionality into quizzes (but also see the responses).

For example, we may ask a multiple choice question, but the next slide might ask the learner to explain why they answered the way they did.

I realize that we may be a bit limited based on what our LMS has the ability to capture... But are there other options out there for capturing short answer responses and generating report summaries?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[BDuckWorks]

In the past, I've built my own approach for this using a FileMaker server installation to collect data, and an Adobe Flex front end programmed with the questions and survey fields.

At the risk of sounding like a product placement / ad, FileMaker 14 has much improved web support that might be run from your desktop, without the need for server. This will depend on your audience size, the number of surveys you're publishing, and the timing of the data capture & reporting cycle.

I would suggest that you check with your IT folks to see what database & web technologies are available to you. You might also investigate open source survey project options that you & an IT support person may be able to install and configure; then you would need to write the questions into that tool; and build the reports.

[Randle2000]

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your feedback. I figured we were looking at a solution similar to the one you suggested... Just thought I'd throw it out there and see if there was functionality that I wasn't aware of. I think we'll go the route of integrating some a survey API into our LMS. Seems like that would give us the fewest headaches, from an admin perspective.

Thanks!