1. Introduction

The Culture Counts evaluation platform used by the Impact & Insight Toolkit allows you to distribute your surveys in three different ways:

• Online delivery– A URL is generated which you email out to those that you wish to complete your survey; this requires email addresses and permission to contact.
• Interview delivery– A URL is generated, formatted for intercept interview delivery. Multiple responses can be taken on one device. Interview delivery can be used online or offline.
• Display delivery– A URL is generated; the survey is formatted similarly to the one for interview delivery, except that it is designed to be completed autonomously by the respondent.

Conducting surveys in-person using the interview delivery approach can be a great way to reach a diverse mix of attendees or participants, providing them with the opportunity to give their valuable feedback (You can read our Interviewer guidance for more information).

However, you might not always have access to the internet in the places where you do your interviews.  Our offline survey feature allows surveys to be completed on a portable device without an active internet connection.

2. How do I use the offline survey feature?

1. On your survey’s ‘Configure’ page ensure that the ‘Interviewer’ option is ticked. This creates a survey link specifically for interviewing.
2. In the ‘Advanced’ section tick the ‘Survey tools’ box under ‘Options for interviewer delivery’.

3. Navigate to your survey’s ‘Summary’ page where you would find the different survey links. You should see a link for ‘Interview’.

4. In a place where you still have an internet connection, copy and paste this link into your portable device’s browser and it will take you straight to the survey. Once you have loaded the page, you then need to ‘Add to Home Screen’. For most browsers, the way to do this is to click on the options button (three dots) then click the ‘Add to Home Screen’ option. What this does is create a bookmark on your portable device’s home screen which will take you back to the survey and allow you to collect data whether or not you have an internet connection.
5. When you are no longer in a place with internet, click the bookmark that will have been saved to your home screen (it will look like any other app). Once the page is loaded, you will see a purple box on the top left of the screen indicating that offline mode is being used. If you are using the survey with an internet connection this box will not appear.
6. You are now ready to start collecting responses offline.

7. Tools Menu: Once the survey has been loaded on the portable device, a ‘Tools’ button that appears as a cog icon will be visible at the top left of the screen. Clicking this opens a menu for the interviewer that shows:

• The number of survey responses collected so far, across all devices.
• Options to:
  • Start a new survey response: This will save the current survey response, up to where the respondent has completed it.
  • Reset survey response: This will wipe the current survey response.
  • Sync responses: Once connected to the internet the responses collected offline can be synced by clicking here. This section also shows you how many responses have been collected offline and currently stored on the device you are using.
• Jump to another survey in the same Evaluation by selecting the relevant survey in the Change Survey section.

8. Once a survey has been completed, click the ‘take another survey’ button and a new survey will load for the next participant.

3. I’ve collected my responses, what happens next?

Once you’ve collected your responses, you can upload them to the platform by moving back to a place with an internet connection and pressing the ‘sync responses’ button.

4. Paper surveys – alternatives to online or offline data collection

We tend to encourage online or offline data collection wherever possible as:

• It is less resource-heavy than paper surveys meaning there is no need for manual data entry
• Timestamp data is collected, meaning that you can analyse your data to explore how views and experiences change over time
• The data is of a higher validity

However, there may be occasions where paper surveys may be a better option:

• When you do not have access to the email addresses of attendees
• When you have no portable devices (computer tablets, mobile phones) to collect offline or online data.
• When your audience is unlikely to respond well to the use of technology – perhaps due to age, disability or language difficulties
• When the use of online methods does not feel appropriate given the setting, nature or content of the event you are evaluating

Please do not hesitate to get in touch with any questions.