Planning for the survey

Decide upon customized, optional, & local questions (due December 1, 2008)

The MISO Survey contains a number of core questions that ask survey respondents about a range of information services that are provided by nearly every merged information services organization. These questions are a fundamental part of the MISO Survey instrument and may not be changed or excluded from the Survey. The MISO Survey Administrator can make exceptions to this practice in the following situations:

• Required questions can be customized if the question as currently worded isn't meaningful to your campus respondents
• Required questions can be excluded from the Survey if your institution doesn't offer the service measured by the question.

The Survey also contains optional questions and customizable questions. Some institutions opt to create their own local questions for inclusion in the Survey. Below is some additional information about optional, customizable, and local questions.

Optional questions
The MISO Survey contains many questions that are optional and may be excluded from your institution’s survey instruments. In general, you may want to include optional questions that will inform future planning or evaluate critical services but exclude other questions that are not as useful for your organization. Be aware that each item on the MISO Survey usually takes about 4 seconds to complete, so think carefully about the time needed to complete the survey as you consider whether to include optional questions. Using the Survey Decisions Spreadsheet provided by the MISO Survey Team, record whether you plan to include each optional question in the survey instrument. We recommend that you seek input from your colleagues about inclusion of optional questions and review the spreadsheet with your management team before finalizing your decisions.

Customizable questions
The MISO Survey contains many questions (some core, some optional) that can be customized so that their intent will be well understood by survey respondents on your campus. For example, questions that ask about the “first point of contact for computer support” can be customized to replace this phrase with the name of your organization’s computer help desk. Using the Survey Decisions Spreadsheet provided by the MISO Survey Team, record your customizations. We recommend that you review them with your management team before finalizing your decisions. Be aware that you must include all of the core questions in your institution’s MISO Survey instruments.

Local questions
Although many institutions choose to administer the MISO Survey with just the core and optional questions, you may decide to create questions that are specific to your institution. These questions may focus on areas of service or topics that are not addressed by the standard MISO Survey instruments. Once you draft your local questions, we recommend that you test them using a focus group to be sure that they will be clearly understood by survey respondents. (A focus group is composed of 5-7 individuals from the target population – faculty, students, or staff – who can tell you whether they understand what your question is asking and suggest other phrasings that may be clearer.) Submit local questions to the MISO Survey Administrator by sending him a separate document containing the text of each local question; a note about whether each question stands alone or should be included as an item in an existing question; and the location for each local question in the Survey instrument. If you have questions about testing or submitting local questions, please contact your MISO Survey Team liaison.

Send the Survey Decisions Spreadsheet and a separate document containing your local questions, if any, to David Consiglio by December 1, 2008.

Inform your MISO Survey Team liaison about the start date for your Spring semester (due December 1, 2008)

The MISO Survey begins at each participating institution on the fourth Thursday of the institution’s Spring semester. The Survey is then open for respondents for 12 days. In order for the MISO Survey Administrator to arrange for the administration of the MISO Survey at your institution, you must inform your liaison about the date on which your Spring semester begins.

In general, the Survey period follows this outline.

Survey period, Week 1
Monday: Letter from your CIO to your campus community
Thursday: Survey invitation emails sent; Survey open for respondents

Survey period, Week 2
Tuesday: 1st email reminder sent
Thursday: Optional informal request for participation sent to students that have not yet responded to the Survey
Friday: 2nd email reminder sent

Survey period, Week 3
Monday: Survey closed

Draft campus messages (due January 2, 2009)
Your campus community will receive four emails about this survey. Some institutions also choose to send an optional informal request for student participation.

• Survey introduction letter (sent using your campus broadcast mail system)
• Invitation to participate
• First reminder
• Second reminder
• Optional informal request for student participation
  

Note that the Survey introduction letter should be sent using your campus broadcast mail system, while the other emails will be sent from Bryn Mawr College by the MISO Survey Administrator. To help you develop these messages to your campus, the MISO Team provides models in the MISO website’s area for Campus Survey Administrators.

Survey introduction letter
The very first message about the MISO survey will be an email from your CIO, or another member of your institution’s senior leadership, to your entire campus community. This email alerts community members that the survey is coming, explains its local value to your institution as well as its national purpose, and asks for campus participation. This first letter is very important since it associates the Survey with a senior member of your campus community.

Invitation to participate
This message invites potential respondents to participate in the Survey and contains the link to the MISO survey hosted at Bryn Mawr College. This email is sent by the MISO Survey Administrator to all faculty, all students selected to participate in the Survey, and all staff. It is personally addressed to each survey participant (“Dear Joe”) and appears to come directly from you. This approach generally produces a better response rate because people believe that you are personally asking for their help.

Be aware that you’ll receive many email responses after this message has been sent. Count the number of “out of office” replies and messages saying that the invitation email is undeliverable – you’ll need to supply this count to the Survey Administrator later. There will also be many emails from people who feel compelled to tell you that they will do the survey, that they have already done the survey, or that they are very busy and will try to do the survey later. Be prepared for an overly full Inbox.

First and second reminders
These reminders are sent to each individual that has not yet completed the survey. They are generated by the survey software, but they appear to come from you and are addressed to each individual recipient. Each person who receives a reminder will feel as if he or she is receiving a personal reminder from you. After each set of reminders has been sent, expect to receive email responses and personal comments as you walk around campus.

Optional informal request for student participation
In 2008, several participating institutions sent an additional information email that asked students to participate in the Survey and emphasized just how important their help would be. This message, sent by the survey software but personalized and appearing to come from the CSA, greatly increased the number of students that responded to the Survey. For the 2009 Survey cycle, we recommend that you send this additional reminder to your student participants.

Send the text of each campus message to David Consiglio by January 2, 2009.

Back to CSA Action Items.

Questions and Comments: survey@brynmawr.edu