Dear all,

We have imported a survey to the latest LimeSurvey Version from Version 2.50+ Build 16050. The base language is French, and we also translated it in English in the latest version. The plan is to translate it to some other languages too.

We want to prefill some answers in the questionnaire for some respondents, with data that we already have for each respondent, so these answers will vary for each respondent (i.e. we want in each question to prefill different answers for each respondent). This will probably concern some respondents in two of the languages that will be used. Then, we want to have the possibility to send each partially prefilled questionnaire to the right respondent, in order for him/her to complete it and then submit it completely anonymized.
The rest of the respondents (which are going to be the majority), we want to have the answers blank to fill them on their own. In addition, we want each respondent to have the possibility to save and resume the survey later.

I would appreciate it if someone could write to me an example of how this can be possible, as I am a completely new user of LimeSurvey.

Thank you very much in advance,

Vasilia

Hi, Vasilia,

We want to prefill some answers in the questionnaire for some respondents, with data that we already have for each respondent, so these answers will vary for each respondent (i.e. we want in each question to prefill different answers for each respondent).

You can use token attributes.
Depending on the question type you have to use an equation to set the prefilled or you might be able to use the default answer options.
in a question (H0) of type "multiple short text" you can use:
{H0_SQ001=TOKEN_ATTRIBUTE_1}
{H0_SQ002=TOKEN_ATTRIBUTE_2}
...

This will probably concern some respondents in two of the languages that will be used.

If you want to prefill by token attribute in more than one language for one respondent you have to create attributes for each language (attr1_en, attr1_sp, attr1_fr, att2_en,...) and set the equation accordingly.
www.limesurvey.org/manual/Survey_participants#Manage_attributes

Then, we want to have the possibility to send each partially prefilled questionnaire to the right respondent, in order for him/her to complete it

This is the standard.

and then submit it completely anonymized.

And this is not possible. Obviously you cannot use data of the token table, but on the other side set it as "anonymous -> no connection to the token table".
Anonymyzed responses: This option allows you to determine whether responses to your survey are matched up with information from your survey's token table, or kept "anonymous". If you decide to enable it, your survey is set to anonymize responses - there will be no way to connect answers and participants;
And of course data are not anonymized if you prefill by some respondent data you know already.

Best regards
Joffm

I sometimes feel like there is a general misconception about what "anonymous" means. There are many similar requests, that reveal this misconception.

holch wrote: I sometimes feel like there is a general misconception about what "anonymous" means. There are many similar requests, that reveal this misconception.

?

How you can have information from token if you set anonymous ? If you allow any information : you can‘t say it's anonymous …

How you can have information from token if you set anonymous ? If you allow any information : you can‘t say it's anonymous …

EXACTLY! But this isn't just a Limesurvey thing. It is a general misunderstanding about anonymous. If you have data that can/shall be connected with a specific person, how can it be anonymous? We get a lot of similar requests here, which is why I have a feeling that there is a bigger need out there to explain the general public what anonymity means and requires. If people would understand it, those questions wouldn't come up.

Dear all,

Thank you very much for your help!

I would also like to ask the following regarding the issues I mentioned in my first post:

a) If we don't use tokens and set anonymized responses to "ON" can we ensure anonymity if we also enable "Participant may save and resume later" (i.e., Participant may save and resume later: ON)? Our survey is long and we want the participants to have the option of completing the survey later, ensuring anonymity.

b) Furthermore, to ensure anonymity should we always have the following features disabled (OFF)?:

In notification and data:

-Date stamp
-Save IP address
-Save referrer URL
-Save timings
-Enable assessment mode

In addition, in "Survey participant settings" can we ensure anonymity having the "Send confirmation emails" to "ON"?

c) Finally, regarding the issue of the prefilled answers I found that:
In the bottom of the data entry page there is the option: “Save for further completion by survey user”. The LimeSurvey manual refers that “This option is used in the case in which you wish to prefill some of the question answers for your respondent and then allow him or her to fill out the rest of the survey”. Can this option be used for an anonymized survey?

Once again, I would like to thank you very much for your help.

Best regards,

Vasilia

a) If we don't use tokens and set anonymized responses to "ON" can we ensure anonymity if we also enable "Participant may save and resume later" (i.e., Participant may save and resume later: ON)? Our survey is long and we want the participants to have the option of completing the survey later, ensuring anonymity.

Yes, and even if you use tokens.
I am sure you tried it before, but to explain:
In case the respondent decides to "save and resume later", he is asked to select a username and a password of his choice, not connected to something like the token in the participants table, or other things. And of course these values are not stored in the answer table.

If the respondents fears to forget his credentials he selected he may enter his email address where these credentials are sent to.

In the bottom of the data entry page there is the option: “Save for further completion by survey user”.

Do you talk about this option where you have the ability to enter paper-pencil questionnaires?
Or what do you mean by "data enty page"?

Joffm

holch wrote: EXACTLY! But this isn't just a Limesurvey thing. It is a general misunderstanding about anonymous. …

Sorry, misunderstanding your post .
You think we must add some better sentence on the survey settings ? And in activate windows ?

For @Agreri :
b: Yes, it's need to deactivate Save IP address and Save referrer URL (i think this muts be forced to FALSE when anonymous is ON). For the other : you can leave it (if you need it: if you don't need it : deactivate). In general i just let Date stamp to ON and assesement whan i want it only.

c: You can save yourself the survey, and send the link to your user : but here : it's not anonymous

PS : a precision about a : the related infoirmation was deleted when response is submitted.

Dear all,

Thank you very much for your help and the clarifications!

As I understood, we cannot have both prefilled and anonymized responses.

I will discuss it with my partners. If they decide to use a non-anonymized survey with some prefilled responses I might write to you again for further clarifications regarding token attributes.

Best regards,

Vasilia

What you can always do is that you guarantee to analyze data anonymously, not taking into account the connection with any person.

But you need to make it clear, that there is a connection between the respondent and the responses at some point, because otherwise the pre-filling won't work, because you don't know who to give which pre-filled questionnaire.

So as you say, you either accept that the survey is not (technically) anonymous (you can still analyze results anonymously, or you can't pre-fill.

Dear Holch,

Thank you very much for your reply. Apologies for not sending on time but I' ve just seen your message. We decides to have different surveys for countries that want to pre-fill and send tokens and then merge the results (it will be the exact same survey with the same codes, e.t.c.). These separated surveys will be not anonymized. The data will be analyzed anonymously, and the participants will have a clear information about the process.

I have one more question to ask. One country wants to send 1500 tokens. I tested and generated 10 tokens by creating ten dummy participants. I did that with two ways: a) I gave the same email for all dummy participants and b) I didn't use an email. For the second option how do i create a link to give to the participants? In the first option tokens are automatically send to participants using invitation emails. But in case we want to send them by post in a paper, how do we create the links that contain the tokens in order the participants to be able to enter/complete the survey?

Furthermore, with this link can the particicipant enter multiple times to finish the survey or we have to pre-set the number of times like in the simple token generation? Will the responses be there or he will have to start over the survey?

Lastly, as save and resume later option is not used for not anonymous surveys with tokens, how will the respondents understand that they can close the survey and enter again from the link to complete it. Can we create a button or should we give them written instructions?

Thank you very much for your help!

Best regards,

Vasilia

1) Copy the link you see in the emails and change the token value.

2) In Participant settings, set Token based response persistence to on. The respondent can return to the survey as many times as they like using the original survey URL (even on a different device). Answers will be preserved and they will resume where they left off.

3) Ignore the "Save and resume" feature if using token response persistence. You may want to customize your template/theme to hide that button.