Lab 7: Survey 123

Introduction:

The objective of this lab is to follow an online tutorial and become familiar with Survey123. This is an ESRI app that is used for gathering survey based field data. The tutorial demonstrates how to create an HOA Emergency Preparedness Survey that would be used to help homeowners assess the safety of their homes in case of a natural disaster like an earthquake.

Methods:

To start, the survey was created at the Survey123 website. The first information added to the survey were the basic components of Name, Tags, and Summary of the survey which is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Name, Tags, and Summary Information

Throughout the tutorial, different tasks were performed with additional information about the application to fully cover all that Survey123 can apply. The types of questions added to this survey were either: Date, Singleline Text, GeoPoint, Single Choice, Number, Image, Multiple Choice, or Multiline Text. These options were located in the Design tab under Add (Figure: 2).

Figure 2: Questions that can be added into the survey

There were three different sections of questions in the tutorial: general participant information, 9 fix-it safety checks, and emergency asset inventory. Different questions were added to these sections that fit appropriately with the categories. Once the type of question was added, it was edited to display the correct label, and in some scenarios, hints were added to the questions to help the potential viewer answer the question most accurately. Another unique feature that could be added to each question was applying the Set Rule feature (Figure 3). This means that if a user answers a questions with a specific answer, a follow up question will also be asked. This a useful feature because some questions are only necessary as follow up questions to specific answers.

Figure 3: Set Rule Feature

After the survey was completed and necessary revisions were finished, the survey was published. The survey was completed six times with varying answers to provide enough data to analyze the results. The survey was also completed on the Survey123 field app. Completing the survey on mobile phone is more portable and the app allows the survey to be taken without service. The HOA Emergency Preparedness Survey can be accessed in the app and by clicking the collect button the survey starts (Figure: 4).

Figure 4: Survey123 Field App

After all the data was collected, it can be viewed in the Overview, Data, and Analyze tabs. The statistics can be viewed in different formats like pie charts, bar graphs or maps. The survey data can also be exported as a CVS, Excel, KML, Shapefile, or File Geodatabase. Lastly, the information collected from the survey was shared by creating a map. Pop-ups were edited so that no personal information was shared on the map. 

Results:

The survey data is represented in a web app that provides information of the locations of the surveys as well as other useful data in the pop-up window (Figure: 5).

Figure 5: Web App of Survey Data

This interactive map allows the viewer to select the different locations of the surveys to view individual information in the pop-up window.

Conclusion: 

The Survey123 tutorial was very accessible to complete and provided a lot of other useful information on how to use this application. This would be very useful in a variety of research projects. It is extremely user friendly which would allow anyone to be able to create a survey that fits with their research project. The fact that the survey can be taken on a mobile device or laptop makes it more efficient to collect more data. Survey123 also provides excellent analyzation and organization of the data once enough research has been collected. Additionally, the ability to transform the survey results into a web app is great feature to look at the data spatially. Survey123 also provides many platforms to export the data as well as making it very accessible to share the results with others.


Sources:
Get Started With Survey123 for ArcGIS - https://learn.arcgis.com/en/projects/get-started-with-survey123/lessons/create-a-survey.htm