LimeSurvey
LimeSurvey is a free software useful to create forms or surveys, from simple to sophisticated ones.
The Legal Team of Wikimedia Foundation in 2022 recommended against using Google Forms.[citation needed] Wikimedia Foundation has a LimeSurvey instance available to staff members.[1]
Features
Some key features of LimeSurvey:
- full data ownership
- support to encrypt answers at database level (e.g. to encrypt name, surname, email, etc.)
- ability to translate questions in multiple languages[2]
- support for different question types[3]
- support for custom configurations and dependencies between questions
- backup and restore
- ability to export answers in multiple open formats (to process them with your favorite tools)[4]
- ability to edit an already-started survey without losing answers (but please design a good questionnaire from the beginning)[5]
- e-mail notifications (to monitor survey adoption)
Quick start guide
For details about how to use LimeSurvey, see the official quick start guide.
The guide is available in multiple languages. You can contribute to translations in CC BY-SA.
Note: the part about "Create an account" is not relevant to staff members. If you are a staff member, see the page "Surveys" on internal officewiki for access.
The official URL of the Wikimedia Foundation LimeSurvey is: https://wikimediafoundation.limesurvey.net/
Providers
There are numerous LimeSurvey hosting providers.
| Manager | Provider | Type | Domain | Tracking | Volunteers can add survey | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wikimedia IT | Wikimedia IT | self-hosted | wikimedia.it | No | Yes: contact WMIT | |
| Wikimedia CH | Wikimedia CH | self-hosted | wikimedia.ch | No | No; try contacting WMCH | |
| Wikimedia Foundation | LimeSurvey GmbH | as a service | limesurvey.net | No | No; try contacting WMF[6] | |
| Wikimedia Small Projects | Wikimedia Small Projects | self-hosted | survey.wikisp.org | No | Yes: Fill a task in Phabricator | |
| Wikimedia Argentina | LimeSurvey GmbH | as a service | https://encuestas.wikimedia.org.ar/ | No | No; try contacting WMAR | |
| Wikimedistas de Uruguay | LimeSurvey GmbH | as a service | - | No | No; try contacting WDU | |
| Wikimedia Colombia | Wikimedia Colombia | self-hosted | https://wikimediacolombia.org/encuestas | No | No; try contacting WMCO | |
| Wikimedistas del Perú | Wikimedistas del Perú | self-hosted | https://survey.wikimedia.org.pe/ | No | No; try contacting WDP | |
| Wikimedia Portugal | Wikimedia Portugal | self-hosted | https://wikimedia.pt/lime/ | No | No; try contacting WMPT | |
If your organization uses the software LimeSurvey, please also keep that information updated here:
- FLOSS-Exchange/Matrix - page about organizations and software in use
Help
Here are some human beings who can help you with this tool:
Feel free to add yourself in this category to provide help!
Ethical values
Features apart, LimeSurvey can also be appreciated for some ethical values dear to Wikimedia projects (think about MediaWiki):
| Client FLOSS | Server FLOSS | No third-parties | Risk of data leak by mistake[7] | Provided by WMF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LimeSurvey | Yes[8][9] | Yes[10] | Yes[11] | No[12] | Yes [1] |
| Google Forms | No[13][9] | No[14] | No[14] | Yes[1] | No |
| Qualtrics | No[13][9] | No[14] | No[14] | (please add this info) | Yes |
Note
- ↑ a b Google Forms has an option that, if set by mistake, can publicly display all personal and sensitive information to all survey participants (such as first name, last name, nickname, email, sexual identification, etc.). This already happened in an official survey from Wikimedia Foundation on Google Forms in 2022.
- ↑ Translating LimeSurvey
- ↑ Question types in LimeSurvey
- ↑ Export responses in LimeSurvey
- ↑ How-to update or add questions to a live LimeSurvey
- ↑ At the moment, there is not a way to request setting up a community survey on https://wikimediafoundation.limesurvey.net/ but the Wikimedia Foundation Global Data and Insights team looks forward to exploring options to make this available in the future.
- ↑ Some solutions are designed to in no way allow the ability to show all survey data to the public.
- ↑ This solution works without proprietary JavaScript executed on your computer.
- ↑ a b c https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/javascript-trap.html
- ↑ The server of this application is free software.
- ↑ This solution allows you to exclude any third party company.
- ↑ LimeSurvey has an option to show aggregate statistics; it does not support exposing specific responses in the open. This avoids many issues caused by human mistake.
- ↑ a b This solution requires some proprietary JavaScript to be executed on your computer or device.
- ↑ a b c d In this solution it is not possible to manage everything on your server (on-premise) or it is not possible to do it using only free software.