- * About: Surveys online via LimeSurvey

Service overview

LimeSurvey is a powerful, robust online survey tool, used to create surveys that can be published for public or private audiences. It is hosted on a McGill server and maintained by IT Services. This service is for surveys targeting faculties, departments, University Advancement (UA) and research.

LimeSurvey supports a large variety of question formats and navigation options, conditional branching, participant management, ability to send out invitations and reminders, and statistical results reports.

This tool is not intended for use as a registration / sign up form.

TIP - Check out these other survey tools:

LimeSurvey is a very powerful, robust and comprehensive survey tool. However, it requires some learning to become comfortable with the interface and features. Depending on your needs, you may find these other options easier and more convenient:

For fast and simple surveys, with limited conditional branching, and security for collecting personal data, see Online Surveys, Quizzes and Forms in Microsoft 365.
Web Management System site managers and administrators can create surveys using WMS webforms, which are highly customizable and include branching and other features.
Instructors can develop quizzes in myCourses that are integrated with the Grade Book. See Quizzes in myCourses and Surveys in myCourses.
Polling @ McGill (formerly Student Response System) is ideal for in-class polling; student responses are submitted via their mobile devices and responses can be optionally displayed in real time.
Zoom contains a polling feature that instructors can use when conducting remote courses over Zoom.
Webex web conferencing contains a polling feature to interact with your online audience.

Who can use this service

The online survey tool is intended for use by McGill faculty and staff for research or administrative purposes. Students working on a thesis or special project may use the tool if they are sponsored by their professor or a McGill staff member. The request for access must be submitted by the sponsor from their McGill email address.

Requests to use the survey tool for a purpose it was not intended for will be denied.

How to request & access

Submit a LimeSurvey request form to request access to LimeSurvey and have a survey created. Please specify the following in your request:

Survey title(if possible)
Purpose of the survey
If anyone else will manage the survey, please include their full name(s) and email(s)

Once you have been granted access, you will receive an email with instructions on how to sign into the LimeSurvey administration site.

Use this link to login to LimeSurvey.

To sign into LimeSurvey version 3 (current version), make sure LDAP is selected and enter your McGill username (@mcgill.ca, @mail.mcgill.ca or @affiliate.mcgill.ca) and password.
To sign into LimeSurvey version 2 (legacy version), - If you need to export an old survey from version 2 and import to version 3, use the LimeSurvey-specific password provided when you created the account. You may use the Forgot Password feature if you have forgotten your LimeSurvey 2 password.

Before creating your survey questions, we strongly recommend attending our instructor-led workshop.

TIP - When planning university-wide surveys:

The Office of Analysis, Planning, and Budget (APB) oversees and conducts surveys of institutional relevance. For questions related to institutional surveys, contact surveys.apb@mcgill.ca.

Cost

There is no cost associated with this service.

Availability

The online survey tool is available 24 x 7, except during scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. Check the home page of the IT Support site for announcements regarding service interruptions.

Requests for the service will be processed during business hours (Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm).

Frequently asked questions

How do I create an "I agree" statement?
The new Data Policy Settings feature allows you to display a confidentiality statement/ consent form that the participant must agree to before continuing to fill out the survey. See the user guide for instructions.

Can I create a bilingual survey?
Yes; you can create surveys in multiple languages, and users can switch between languages directly on the survey page.

Best practices

Type questions directly into the question editor. Copy-pasting text from applications such as Microsoft Word adds code that may affect survey functionality; if you want to copy/paste, switch to the Code view first.
Try to keep the number of conditions to a minimum.
If you are adding images into your questions, format them ahead of time and reduce their size appropriately.
LimeSurvey URLs are notably long. If you are not using tokens, you can either:
- Use a URL shortening service such as goo.gl or bit.ly or the McGill URL shortener
- Include a link on your McGill website.
If you are using tokens, we strongly recommend you verify the output by sending yourself a test email before sending it to a large number of respondents.
After the survey has ended:
- Export the responses in .xls, .csv or .spss format and store them in a secure location.
- Choose whether to expire or deactivate the survey. Expiring a survey prevents further responses and maintains the ability to access the results. Deactivating a survey moves the responses offline and makes them unavailable for access from within the tool.
- Before deactivating your survey, verify that the exported data is complete.

Training & documentation

Instructor-led workshops & consultations

Documentation

Download the LimeSurvey guide for survey administrators:

LimeSurvey guide for version 3 (new surveys; includes how to convert from a previous version)
LimeSurvey guide for version 2 (legacy surveys)

Additional training guides can be found on the LimeSurvey support website:

Support

Request a consultation:

For a one-on-one consultation on the features of LimeSurvey, register for the Lab for LimeSurvey & Office365 Forms administrators (OFT-710)
For a consultation on planning and distributing university-wide surveys, contact surveys.apb@mcgill.ca.

To request a new survey or resolve login issues: contact the IT Service Desk.