Introduction
BoardOnTrack has introduced a new Survey Builder as part of the CEO evaluation. Any evaluation created after March 31, 2022, will use Survey Builder. Evaluations created before that date will use the old evaluation survey.
This article will introduce you to Survey Builder and its components, show you how to customize the standard BoardOnTrack CEO Evaluation Survey, and give you tips on creating a new survey.
To be clear BoardOnTrack's industry-best-practice survey has not changed in this release - we recommend you use it, in fact - but now you can customize it much more than before. You can even start from scratch with a blank survey.
How Surveys Work in BoardOnTrack
During the CEO evaluation process, you will:
- Select and configure your survey in steps 1.2 and 1.3 (magenta box below)
- Have the person being evaluated and others take the evaluation survey in steps 2 and 3 (orange box)
- And review the report in step 4. (green box)
This article will show you how to set up your survey, and you'll be able to preview the survey as it will look when it is taken before you launch it.
Considerations When Building or Customizing Surveys
Survey Builder is very flexible, so it should be used carefully. Please reach out to your Governance Coach with questions or if you want to discuss your ideas for a new or edited survey.
We have several recommendations as you consider your CEO evaluation.
Change only what is necessary
If you are evaluating a charter school or CMO CEO, please remember that the standard BoardOnTrack survey represents the best practice for CEO evaluations and has been used successfully many hundreds of times through the years. If you want to, by all means, add critical questions specific to your institution and tweak the language to what your team is used to. When you're customizing, always ask yourself why you are doing the extra work and make sure it will be worth it.
Run a Test Evaluation for New Surveys or Significant Customizations
Survey Builder is meant to be simple, and if you're making minor customizations to the BoardOnTrack standard survey, those will be easy as you set up your evaluation. If you are making major changes to the survey or using a new survey, consider running a test before launching the official version. Again, talk to your Governance Coach if you're not sure how to proceed here.
Surveys Always Exist in the Context of an Evaluation
You need to start an evaluation in BoardOnTrack to customize a survey or create a new one. A good rule of thumb is to create an evaluation with TEST in the name and which evaluates yourself as you experiment. When you create later evaluations, you'll be able to copy the survey from any previous evaluation, including your tests.
Develop New Surveys Outside BoardOnTrack
The BoardOnTrack survey builder exists so you can customize existing surveys and enter new surveys you have developed. It is not the right tool for developing new surveys. You should do that in a document or spreadsheet, get agreement from your stakeholders, and only then make your changes in BoardOnTrack.
Use Preview Mode
When you are editing a survey, use Preview Mode to review the survey as it will look to those taking it. You can also see in the above image that BoardOnTrack is saving your changes as you type while you customize a survey.
We expect to add a report preview mode very soon as well.
Components and Tools
This section explains the building blocks of a survey, called components, and the tools Survey Builder provides to manipulate those components.
Components
Surveys in BoardOnTrack are built from five components. They are:
- Section Headers. Use section headers to group questions on related topics together. All questions in a section will be on the same page as users take the survey.
- Title and Description. Use a title and description to create a subsection within a section or to give specific instructions about the following questions.
- Multiple Choice Question. This is a block containing a single multiple-choice question.
- Radio Choice Grid. This is a block of several questions all using the same multiple-choice answers. Most surveys make extensive use of this component.
- Rich Text Area. This is a block where users can type free text.
Editing Tools
When you are editing a survey, you will edit one component at a time, and the bottom of that component will look like this (with one exception). There is also one tool at the top of each component (not shown below)
Here's what each tool does:
Toggles the view of that component from the editor to what it looks like when taking a survey.
Makes a copy of the component just below the current one. This is especially valuable for Radio Choice Grids where you will want to use the same answer choices throughout your survey.
Deletes the component. You will be asked to confirm your deletion because the action cannot be undone. Note that deleting a section will also delete all components in that section.
The Required Tool shown below allows you to set whether an answer is required for this question (or for every question in a grid).
The blue plus sign, shown below after it has been pressed, allows you to add a new component.
This tool appears only on section header components and opens a dialog box that allows you to reorder the sections within your survey.
This icon appears at the top of each component and allows you to drag the component to a new location within the survey.
Editing an existing component
Editing an existing component is very easy. Simply click on it, and remember you can click the toggle tool to easily switch from editing it to viewing it as it will look to those taking the survey.
Using Each Component
Section Headers
Section Headers have two functions. They provide a title and description for a group of questions, AND they define pages for your survey. All questions within a section will be on one page.
Title and Description
Title and Description components are similar to section headers in that they provide only a title and a description (i.e. no questions), but they do not create a new page in your survey.
Multiple Choice Question
The Multiple Choice Question component includes a single question with an unlimited (virtually) number of radio button choices. Respondents will choose one answer, of course. We recommend using this component sparingly because too many individual questions make for a busy survey. The BoardOnTrack standard survey, for instance, uses it only once, asking respondents how often they interact with the CEO.
Radio Choice Grid
The Radio Choice Grid component should form the bulk of your surveys. It includes:
- A title for defining the topic of the related questions. Demonstrates Integrity in the example below
- A set of responses. Users will choose one response for each question. These are the column headers (I Don't Know and Strongly Disagree through Strongly Agree) in the example below.
- A set of questions which will be displayed together.
The image above is how a radio choice grid looks as the survey is being taken. Below is the same component being edited. The red asterisk above, by the way, indicates to the respondent that the questions in this grid are required. You can see the required option is turned on below.
Important Considerations For Radio Choice Grids
First, ratings should generally represent a continuum that improves from top to bottom in edit view. I Don't Know should always be at the top (left-most as surveys are being taken). That arrangement will make the values improve from left to right for respondents taking the survey and in the report.
Second, make sure you use consistent column values throughout your survey. BoardOnTrack will summarize your answers at the top of the report, and the report will be much easier to read with as few different Radio Choice Grid answer sets as possible.
Rich Text Area
The Rich Text Area component gives users the opportunity to write commentary as part of the survey. The BoardOnTrack standard survey uses this component to allow respondents to provide context and justification for their grid answers as well as to ask some broader questions in the final section.
Keep in mind that in the report, BoardOnTrack will anonymize all rich text area comments except the CEO's, identifying respondents only by their role (CEO, Board Member, Staff).
BoardOnTrack also recommends encouraging respondents to be brief and structured in these sections. Keep in mind that evaluators have to read every word of every comment submitted.
Please let us know through chat or contact your Governance Coach if you have any questions.
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