Item: Google Forms
Rating: 9
Author: Kim Grewe

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I work for an online division of a community college as an instructional designer. We often use Google Forms in our work. Our college subscribes to the Google Suite of Apps for educators and so using Google is easy for us. We have a feedback survey embedded in all our online courses called Instructor Feedback that allows us to capture feedback in real-time about what is working in our courses and what is not. When we need people to sign up for events, we use Google Forms. It has a lot of uses in academia for collecting data informally.

Pros and Cons

The graphs and charts that Google Forms outputs based on survey responses is really useful for creating presentations and for parsing the data. I love this automatic feature since I am not one who works with data per se.
Google Forms makes it easy to create really responsive surveys using adaptive technologies (like branching -- based on one answer, respondents may be pushed to different next questions or scenarios.
Google Forms is incredibly easy to edit. Drag and drop feature allows for easy organization.
I also like that all responses are timestamped and can be made anonymous.

Sometimes finding the output -- a Google Sheet with all responses-- is a little difficult. It's also sometimes confusing to figure out how to get back into the Google Form Survey itself.
As always, sharing among an institutional Google account and your personal Google account can be frustrating. You have to make a copy and can't share across the two different accounts very easily.

Return on Investment

Google Forms provides us a vehicle to gauge faculty and student response to our online courses and their features in real time so that we can keep our courses updated for students and faculty who facilitate them.
Since Google is free, provides storage space, and provides Shared Drives (at least in our institutional account), using Google Forms helps us manage our data. We support over 400 courses with thousands of sections so Google Forms helps us manage the data coming out of these courses, mostly student and faculty feedback about what is working and what is not.
We encourage our faculty to use Google Forms to survey their students for prior knowledge, for interest inventories, and the like. It's incredibly nimble and useful for collecting data quickly and presenting results in easy-to-understand charts and graphs.

Alternatives Considered

I have been using Google Forms since it started in 2008. I have never explored other alternatives for creating surveys. I like the intuitive design and the visual output of data in charts and graphs. It's easy to share the survey with others. Google Forms embed seamlessly in online courses. I have never felt the need to explore any other product for creating surveys.

Key Insights

Do you think Google Forms delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Google Forms's feature set?

Yes

Did Google Forms live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Google Forms go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Google Forms again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Google Drive, Canvas, Articulate Rise

Usability

The interface is pretty intuitive. The drag and drop feature allows for easy organization and editing. The visual output of data in the form of charts and graphs can't be beat. It is so easy to incorporate survey results in presentations, courses, websites, or wherever. From the users' end, it's even easier.

Support Rating

I don't often need support when using Google products. If I am having issues, I can usually "Google it" and find the guidance I need through the Google Help Center. The Google Help Center usually provides helpful information and guidance. Not only can you get a quick guide at a glance to help, you can also seek out others in the Google Community who may have had similar issues and are willing to discuss and help.

Likelihood to Recommend

Good Forms is well suited to collect informal survey data, to create sign ups for office hours or for big events. Google Forms can help you stay organized if you are hosting an event where people must register. I like the asynchronous collaborative feature of all the Google products and this feature makes it easy to collaborate with colleagues across institutions in the same system. We collect student and faculty feedback about our online courses using Google Forms.

Google Forms: A Great Free Survey Tool to use in Education

Overall Satisfaction with Google Forms