myFolio Student Survey Implementation FAQ
1. Where do we begin when implementing Student Surveys?
2. What makes surveys successful?
5. How are student passwords assigned? Do students choose?
6. How do you determine which classes are setup to receive surveys?
7. How do you create a student survey form? How many surveys do you need? Can you create your own questions or are you limited to the myFolio question bank?
8. How do you prepare students to provide thoughtful, reflective survey data?
9. Who can see the survey data (visibility)?
10. Once surveys have been submitted, how do teachers view their report data?
11. How do Supervisors/Supervisor Chain view survey report data
12. Who is responsible for setting up Student Surveys in myFolio? The myFolio Admin? A School Data Admin?
1. Where do we begin when implementing Student Surveys?
First consider why you want to gather student surveys at your school, involving all necessary voices/perspectives. This sense of purpose will help drive your decision- making process.
Once you’ve evaluated your purpose, how you plan to use surveys, and what you hope you and your teachers will get out of it, then consider who will be gathering surveys. Will it be teachers of Lower School Students? Middle School Students? Upper School Students? What about Peers, Supervisors, and Athletics (coaches)?
Think about the various populations who should be gathering surveys. Once you have an initial plan, contact Folio Support at support@foliocollaborative.org to make arrangements for your training program.
2. What makes survey successful?
We recommend using a pilot group before implementing large scale surveys. Using a small volume the first time will allow time for reflection on your process and data. Also, you may want to consider turning off “Visibility” the first year.
In myFolio, you can enable or disable settings which allow the employee’s Supervisor and/or their Supervisor Chain to view the employee’s Survey Report Data. Schools who have successfully used Student Surveys have found that enabling only the employee to see the data in the first year is helpful.
3. How do you notify Students that a survey is available? Do you recommend that students complete their survey in class or at home?
FolioCollaborative recommends that you manually “activate” your survey requests once you are ready to collect them and to have teachers notify students that a survey is available. Some schools conduct survey sessions during a certain class period, and instruct the students at that time that they will be completing surveys that day.
This ensures that the students that are assigned to a given class are the ones giving surveys for that class, not someone from home.
Your scheduling logistics may differ based on whether each student has their own device or if you have to schedule lab time for your classes to submit their surveys.
There are 3 ways to activate one or more survey(s).
1. All sections in a Marking Period from the Marking Period Manager. If Per-Section Sending is set to “On”:
2. By the Folio Admin for individual Sections from the View/Manage Current Sections page.
3. By the teacher for their sections from the View Teaching Assignments page.
4. How do Students access Student Surveys in Folio? What instructions does the school provide the student for accessing survey forms?
Students login to Folio using the same Sign In page as the employees.
Schools need to provide the students with their site’s Folio URL, the student’s login email, and a password. Upon login, they are presented with a Student Dashboard which lists all of their classes for the requested survey period.
The Folio Admin determines which classes they will submit a survey for by importing that data into your Folio Site. You will learn about this process during the training.
5. How are student passwords assigned? Do students choose?
Each school’s approach varies. Passwords need to be 6 characters in length and can be numbers or letters. You could randomly generate a 5 letter word and add a number to the end. Some schools elect to use the student’s school web password. If that value is only 5 characters, they may add a character at the beginning or the end of the password to meet Folio’s Password Requirements.
6. How do you determine which classes are setup to receive surveys?
A school is able to collect survey data at any given time. The appropriate data— courses, sections, rosters, and teaching assignments—must be imported.
7. How do you create a student survey form? How many surveys do you need? Can you create your own questions or are you limited to the Folio question bank?
Survey forms are created from the Survey Manager page reached by clicking Manage, then Surveys. The form consists of Adjectives, Questions, and an optional Narrative Prompt.
Adjectives are universal to your school. The set you select appears on every Survey form in Folio (Student, Supervisor, and Peer) and should reflect your school’s culture. You may create your own adjective/definition pairs or chose from the Global Adjective Bank.
Questions can be customized per survey form (Student, Supervisor, or Peer). You may have a different set of questions for your Lower School Survey Form than you do for your Middle/Upper School Survey Form. This is accomplished by creating a new Relationship. For example Upper School Teacher, Upper School Student, Upper School Class which creates a new survey form called “Upper School Teacher.”.
Reports allow you to generate group comparisons across your organization, within groups that an employee belongs to. When evaluating the results of your survey data, you may use filters on the Cumulative Report to compare how different groups measure on adjectives and role-specific questions.
The Narrative Prompt can be enabled or disabled. If enabled, you may enter a prompt with help text to clarify the Narrative being requested.
8. How do you prepare students to provide thoughtful, reflective survey data?
It is best to have a script available for teachers to read to the students prior to sending surveys. Share with students why they are being asked to complete a survey and what role it plays in instruction and teacher goals. Let students know that their individual survey is anonymous, only overall results can be reviewed by the teacher, and whoever else has visibility: Supervisor, Head of School, Folio Admin, etc. Your script will vary based on what you have included in your Survey Form: Adjectives, Questions, and Narrative Prompt.
Please note that anonymity here means that names are not displayed in Folio with the survey forms or results. Folio users (teachers, Supervisors, Folio Admins) cannot view the author of any specific survey comment or rating. However, if any comments were to appear that contained damaging or threatening content, we do have the technical means to identify the individual who submitted that comment. Should a school request that FolioCollaborative use technology to identify an individual who submitted a damaging or threatening comment, we would honor that request.
9. Who can see the survey data (visibility)?
You may enable/disable settings on the Survey Manager page on the Folio Admin tab which determine whether the employee’s Supervisor or their Supervisor chain has authority to view the employee’s Survey Report Data. The Folio Admin can always view Survey Report Data, even when these settings are turned OFF.
In addition, Folio has a “Visibility Count” (in the Survey Manage section of the Folio Admin tab) that needs to be met before survey results are displayed. For example, if the “Visibility Count is set to 5, 5 responses to a given Survey (Teacher, Coach, etc.) need to be submitted before the results are displayed.
10. Once surveys have been submitted, how do teachers view their report data?
A teacher clicks on the Reports Tab at the top of their screen to view their survey report data. Folio has a “Visibility Count” that needs to be met before survey results are displayed. For example, if the “Visibility Count is set to 5, 5 responses to a given Survey (Teacher, Coach, etc.) need to be submitted before the results are displayed.
Once the number of responses meet this count, Cumulative Report data will appear.
Narrative responses do not display until 7 days after they have been submitted (as long as the “Visibility Count” has been met), to protect anonymity.
Reports Filters: The following reports and filters are available for evaluating the data:
Cumulative Report Data
- Gender Filter (Male respondents compared to Female respondents)
- School Year
- Teacher Roles
- Groups to which the teacher is a member
Narrative Report Data
- School Year
- Courses
Group-to-Group
Available to Folio Admin only
Allows Folio Admin to evaluate groups across entire Folio Site
- School Year
- Teacher Roles
- Groups
11. How do Supervisors/Supervisor Chain view survey report data
If visibility has been enabled, the employee’s Supervisor and their Supervisor Chain accesses roll call first, finds the employee, then clicks the student link in the survey column via Roll Call.
Numbers displayed next to the student link will inform you as to the number of surveys returned out of the number of surveys requested.
The student link takes you to the Reports Page for a specific employee, so you may view Cumulative and Narrative Survey Report Data. Peer and Supervisor Survey
Report links are available from this Feedback column as well.
Regardless of the visibility setting, the Folio Admin can always view Survey Report Data.
12. Who is responsible for setting up Student Surveys in Folio? The Folio
Admin? A School Data Admin?
There are many functions and settings required to prepare your Folio Site for Student Surveys. Some are available from the Folio Admin Tab, others are included on the School Tab. Below is a list of function by tab:
Folio Admin functions:
General Settings
- Enable surveys and determine number of responses required before data will be displayed in reports
- Survey Visibility Switches to determine if employee’s Supervisor and Supervisor Chain will be able to view Survey Report Data
Sending Surveys
- Determine if student notifications will be sent by email or manually (FolioCollaborative recommends this be done manually) -
- Determine how long survey requests will remain active (end of term/cycle, anywhere from 1-30 days) -
- Button to Send Supervisor Feedback Requests
Adjectives
- Enter adjectives for your Folio Site and Forms
Survey Forms
- Enter questions and narrative prompt, if enabled, for each desired Survey Form
School Data Admin functions:
Step Function
Marking Period Manager
- Define time periods for collecting surveys
- Determine if surveys will be automatically sent or manually sent by you (FolioCollaborative recommends that Student Surveys be manually sent by each school)
- You manually send survey from this page when ready to collect your student survey data
Relationship Manager
- Define Employee-Student Grouping terms (for example: Teacher/Student/Class; Coach/Player/Team; LS Teacher/LS Student/LS Class)
- This allows you to create specific Student Survey forms for each employee-student grouping you wish to collect surveys
School Data
- Import the following CSV files to load required data for Folio Survey Processing: Employees (if necessary), Courses, Sections, Students, Rosters, Teaching Assignments - This is generally the last step before sending surveys
Please contact support@foliocollaborative.org with any outstanding questions.