deakin

Following an extensive market scan, Opinio, from ObjectPlanet was selected. Opino far outweighed its competitors and was the obvious choice for Deakin.

Deakin University has approximately 37,000 students and 3,000 staff across four campuses. In a competitive market it is imperative that Deakin provides a quality service to its students to ensure that the teaching and learning experience is a positive one. Deakin has a strong focus on continuous quality improvement with the use of on-line surveys integral to this process.

In 2005 Deakin developed a survey evaluation framework and began looking for a suitable tool to manage the University's on-line surveys. Following an extensive market scan, Opinio, from ObjectPlanet was selected. Opino far outweighed its competitors and was the obvious choice for Deakin. We were particularly impressed with the professional look and feel of the surveys, the administrator role and the functionality to set various levels of access as well as the degree to which were able to customise and personalise surveys. Other features we were impressed with include the ease of use for developing surveys, the variety of question types, question libraries and the way invitations and reminders are managed.

Opinio is used at Deakin to conduct a large number of corporate surveys of staff and student satisfaction with various support and services. Opinio is also used by senior research staff for high level academic research. This is an area we would expect to see further growth in the future.

We have found the FAQ page on the ObjectPlanet website helpful for minor queries. Although ObjectPlanet is an offshore company we have found them to be responsive and helpful on the few occasions that we have needed further advice.

Overall Opinio is an excellent on-line survey system, with ObjectPlanet providing quality and timely support. I have no hesitation in supplying this testimonial or in recommending Opinio.

- Helen Jacob, Manager, Evaluation and Surveys, Deakin University


dalhousie

With over 250 members conducting hundreds of surveys over a span of more than two years, there is no question that Opinio has rapidly become an extremely popular service at Dalhousie University.

Dalhousie University, located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is one of Canada's top research universities. As the largest post-secondary educational institution in the Maritime Provinces, Dalhousie has approximately 12,000 undergraduate students and more than 3,000 graduate students.

With the advancement in computer technology, members of the campus are looking increasingly to the web for online surveys and for gathering information. In response to the emerging demands, Information Technology Services (ITS) selected Opinio, a survey tool that has on-site hosting capability. Opinio is now available to all Dalhousie faculty, students, and departments to conduct surveys as part of their teaching, research, or administrative activities.

Opinio's service allows its members to be self sufficient. It also makes it possible for members to meet the University's Policy for the Protection of Personal Information from Outside of Canada. With over 250 members conducting hundreds of surveys over a span of more than two years, there is no question that Opinio has rapidly become an extremely popular service at Dalhousie University.

- Poh Chua, Data Management Consultant, Information Technology Services, Dalhousie University


wm

Opinio has been used in a wide variety of ways at W&M. Some examples include psychological surveys, international relations surveys, votes on faculty and student issues, surveys of satisfaction with conferences/presentations and surveys to collect data on new students. It has also been used to teach students how to properly design and deploy surveys. There is no typical user, pretty much every kind of person at W&M has used Opinio: instructional faculty, staff, administrators, undergraduate students, graduate students, etc.

- Mark Eaton, College of William and Mary


stfx

Opinio is used by the StFX Office of Institutional Analysis for most of our internal surveys such the Senior Student Survey, academic departmental reviews, and for ad hoc departmental surveys when departments are looking for quantitative support for accreditation. Not only have we seen an increase in response rate (over paper surveys), the time for survey administration is significantly reduced and the data obtained from Opinio is clean and coded. Consequently the overall administration time of a survey is reduced, allowing more time for analysis and additional projects.

StFX also uses the Student Opinio Option. Faculty are teaching research methods with Opinio as the survey toolset, and students are using it to conduct research for their senior projects and theses. Opinio presents an option that allows StFX to protect the privacy of survey respondents while fully enabling detailed research.

- Gary Doucette, Manager of Management Information Systems, St. Francis Xavier University


lafayette

After reviewing a number of hosted services and open-source products, we selected Opinio because it offered a variety of simple-to-use features at a reasonable cost.

Lafayette College, a selective small liberal arts college in Easton, PA, began using ObjectPlanet's Opinio Enterprise web-based data collection tool in early 2007 to replace a third-party hosted service. After reviewing a number of hosted services and open-source products, we selected Opinio because it offered a variety of simple-to-use features at a reasonable cost. Some of the key features that impressed us were the rather simple question authoring and conditional branching tools; the integration with our email server to send survey invitations and reminders through Opinio; the ability to manage survey author accounts in an enterprise capacity; and the ability to authenticate survey authors via LDAP and, when needed, to limit survey access to those affiliated with Lafayette.

Since deploying Opinio in 2007 we have seen widespread adoption across our campus. Professors and students are using it to collect research data; administrative departments are replacing paper-based forms; student organizations are holding online elections of officers; many departments are using it to survey their constituents to better serve them; and the list could continue. Opinio has proven to be flexible for a variety of needs and uses, while maintaining a mostly intuitive interface for our campus users.

We are pleased we adopted Opinio at Lafayette College and have found its implementation to be a successful one here.

- Jason Alley, Instructional Technologist at Lafayette College


toronto

I appreciate being able to flexibly publish online questionnaires that can be easily sent to anyone around the world that happens to be in front of a computer.

The Centre for Biological Timing & Cognition at the University of Toronto has been a user of Opinio for the past two years. We acquired a 25 seat license to serve a wide array of users, who thus far have been very pleased with the feature set. No doubt, with each upgrade research options will expand thereby better serving our community. The following capture the sentiment of two of these users,

"I have found Opinio to be very useful in the administration of questionnaires that are aimed at collecting feedback and straightforward demographic data. I appreciate being able to flexibly publish online questionnaires that can be easily sent to anyone around the world that happens to be in front of a computer. In this regard,Opinio gives me greatly improved flexibility as a researcher."

"It's a really nice software that is easy to use, and with native SPSS export, it will make things so much easier!"

- Ken Seergobin, Operations Manager, Centre for Biological Timing & Cognition, University of Toronto


buffalo

Faculty and Administrators at Buffalo State College/SUNY use Opinio software in support of sundry activities from small surveys to large, involved projects. Administrators have conducted College-wide surveys, collected information on exiting students by program, and have also used the software as a form to gather information for services. Many faculty have used the software in support of funded research and analysis for local, national and international data collection.

- Melissa J. Miszkiewicz, Director, Academic Computing & Technical Services, Buffalo State College


suepo

We have been extremely satisfied with this stable, secure, flexible and user-friendly solution and would gladly recommend it to others.

SUEPO, the staff union of the European Patent Office, has been using Opinio for a number of years to satisfy all of our surveying needs. Not only do we regularly canvas staff opinion on a wide variety of issues but have also vastly improved our approach to elections, switching from the traditional paper ballot to elections in electronic form powered by Opinio. We have been extremely satisfied with this stable, secure, flexible and user-friendly solution and would gladly recommend it to others. This is especially the case in view of the level of support provided whether it is in responding to bug reports or assisting in the writing of plugins to customize the functionality to our specific needs.

- Ian Catley, Patent Examiner, European Patent Office


Selected Opinio customers:

AGF Applied Materials Amazon.com BC Hydro Cox Communications The Diseny Company The European Parliament GoreTex IBM KBR Lexmark Mayo Foundation Nielsen Nintendo Roche Siemens Sony Stanford University Thales Verizon Wireless