4Real - Online Survey Portal
The goal of the Forreal software development team was to design an online portal – consisting of a website, forum and a unique survey system – to enable a more efficient and effective method for ‘Social Norms’ research among school students.The previous system was based upon paper surveys, and was a very labour-intensive process. This system limited the size of audiences, and created a large amount of work for the client. There was also very little exposure to people who would be interested in taking part in the research.
We developed a system that contains a web portal that provides sources of useful information for both students and teaching staff. Resources can be accessed and downloaded or hard copies ordered, with the client able to charge fees. A discussion forum was also included to help build the online community and provide a way for others interested in the topic to interact. The key component of the portal, however, is the online survey-taking system which was developed from scratch by our team.
The system allows the client to create and edit surveys, which can then be distributed to students. This increases the speed of responses and simultaneously decreases the client’s workload. We have dealt successfully with issues of security and anonymity while keeping the system simple and easy to use.