Basic procedure to create an online survey using SoSci Survey proceeds as follows:

1. The survey's head develops questions and the questionnaire.

2. The survey's head registers autonomously on https://www.SoSci Survey.de/.

• RWTH e-mail address

3. After having registrated successfully, the questionnaire can be created.

• Create a survey project (user account -> projects -> create new survey project)
• Check the conditions for complimentary use
  • Research in the context of a course of studies or a job at an university, or respectively
  • In the context of/as an employee of a state institution or a public corporation

4. Create text modules and questions in a survey project

5. Create a questionnaire

6. Determine the settings of the questionnaire

• Layout, imprint, logo
• Data protection
  • a contract which is valid for a commercial survey only has been agreed with SoSci and can be found here: https://software.itc.rwth-aachen.de/sw/Lizenzvertraege/SoSciSurvey/
  • If additional agreements are required for your online survey, each RWTH institution can additionally conclude its own AVV.contract with SoSci.
• Access restrictions

7. The function „Pretest“ from the SoSci Survey is used to create a link to the Pretest. This Pretest of the questionnaire has to be examined and validated by the data protection commissioner beforehand.

If employees are questioned by the Pretest, the Pretest hast to be submitted to the staff council(s).

• The link to the pretest is to be submitted to the data protection officer
• Depending on the target group (within the RWTH) of the employee survey, the statement oft the data protection officer and the link to the Pretest have to be submitted
  • to the staff council in case of the group "Technical and Administrative Employees"
  • to the staff council for academic staff in case of the group "Academic, Medical, and Artistic Staff"
  • or to both of them

Please contact for this purpose the department 8.0 (personal@zhv.rwth-aachen.de).

The template for the staff councils must contain the following information (as the technical templated has been cancelled):

• The survey will be realised with the help of SoSci Survey.
• Who has access to the survey data and SoSci Survey?
• What kind of questions will be asked? The content of the survey.
• Who will get the data for evaluation after the survey has been completed? Where and for how long will the data be saved?

8. If the survey is approved, the process can be continued. In case of a rejection or given adjustments, these have to be changed accordingly. If questions about personal data are a necessary part of the survey, a contract about contract data processing has to be concluded before the start of the survey. For this purpose, please contact SoSci Survey.

9. As soon as all open issues have been dealt with, the survey period can be determined and the survey can be published.

10. Sending the survey to a fixed group of participants (mailing list) should not be done via an import of the e-mails. but has to be done via your own e-mail address (Outlook together with the mailing list in Word) (see also access restrictions).

11. The survey has been started and sent.

12. he results can be exported for statistical evaluation by the survey's head. For this, a csv-file for Excel as well as other formats are possible. We would recommend an additional copy of the csv-file so that you use one file for working with it/for the evaluation and one additional file for the maintenance of raw data.

13. Should the link be opened after the survey is completed, retrieving and completing the questionnaire is no longer possible. If the survey project is being archived, the link can no longer be opened. In the process of archiving, the questionnaire itself will be archived. However, the collected data will be deleted. Due to this reason it is absolutely necessary to save an additional copy of the data (see point 9).

For more information see:

• SoSci Survey User Manual
• Example of a secret vote survey (German only)