Create a Survey in Google Docs

It's been a while since I've been in Google Docs, and Tim Sinnott, our computer teacher showed me a new app today. Aside from the usual text document, spreadsheet, etc. You can now create simple forms.

Open Google Docs>New. Click on Form.



This will open a blank template where you can add questions in different formats: Text, multiple choice, checkboxes, or scale (e.g. rate from 1-5). You can also make specific questions required.

Save and publish, and you generate a URL to share/invite. As with other Google apps, you can add people as just viewers or as editors/collaborators. Better yet, as people take the survey/quiz, the results are shared to a spreadsheet in your Google Docs folder, from which you can analyze data, create charts, etc.

This would be a great tool for students analyzing survey results in science or math (or any other class). Teachers could use it as a class evaluation tool.

The one drawback so far is that we can't see any way to password-protect the form. It's open to anyone who can find it, which could skew results. It's also impossible to tell who is answering, so it couldn't be used as an online quiz for class.

Privacy Revolution

I confess: I'm a Law and Order addict. Fortunately, with cable TV, it's easy to feed that addiction! I was watching an episode last night that started a rant my poor SO had to endure. After searching a vanished murder suspect's apartment with a warrant, Briscoe and Green found several library books. They visited the library, talked to a few librarians, and found out not only what other books the patron had checked out, but recent sites she had searched online.

I, of course, started shrieking about First Amendment rights and Hollywood's obvious oblivion to how a well-trained librarian would actually respond to such a request!

With FISA, the Patriot Act and library gag orders an all-too-present phenomenon in today's libraries, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom has launched a new online survey that will only take you a few minutes to complete. Entitled Privacy: Is It Time For a Revolution? the survey examines attitudes towards corporate and governmental privacy issues.

One can only marvel at the ironic timing--with Congress due to pass the FISA bill today, granting immunity to telecoms.