Google Forms is a versatile survey and quiz administration tool that is used to create, distribute, and analyze surveys, quizzes and registration forms in real time.
Google Forms provides quick, cost-free data collection inside Google Workspace. It works smoothly alongside Google Drive, Google Sheets and Gmail, eliminating extra steps, file conversions, and platform switching.
Qualtrics and Microsoft 365 Suite applications (e.g.Outlook, Excel, Forms,Word, PowerPoint etc.) are available for use for faculty, staff, and students for provisioning surveys, classes and research at Ohio State. Use Google Workplace applications only when collaborating with colleagues outside of the university that rely on these services. No one at the university is required to adopt the use of these available Google products.
Key Features and Benefits
- Advanced Analysis & Export: Seamless integration with Google Sheets and statistical packages allows researchers to clean, filter, and analyze quantitative and qualitative data rapidly.
- Conditional Logic/Section Branching- Survey respondents are routed to different sections of a form depending on how they answered a specific question (e.g., if a user selects "Undergraduate," they skip the graduate-specific questions). Surveys or research questionnaires are clean, dynamic and relevant to the specific user taking it.
- Instant Google Sheets Integration & Live Visual Summaries- All incoming data is automatically compiled into real-time summary charts/graphs. Raw responses are pushed straight into a Google Sheet with a single click. Data is instantly ready for filtering, sorting, and statistical analysis the second a participant hits submit.
- Quiz Mode & Automatic Grading- Any form can be instantly converted into an interactive assessment where correct answers and point values are assigned. This feature eliminates manual grading for multiple-choice, checkbox, and dropdown questions. Respondents receive immediate feedback on their scores, and hours of administrative overhead can be saved.
- Real-Time Collaboration-Multiple users can open, edit, and build the same form concurrently, mirroring Google Docs. Groups can co-create surveys, pool questions together, and format forms in real time without version-control chaos or emailing files back and forth.
- Streamlined Data Collection- Efficiently deploy surveys to participant pools across campuses or globally via simple web links, QR codes, or email invitations.
Google Forms can be accessed from the Forms icon in Google Dashboard or through the web browser at www.google.com/forms. Remember, log in using your Ohio State username (lastname.#@osu.edu) and password to use the Ohio State managed account.
Important Information
Providing access to Google tools in addition to our Microsoft tenant allows members of our organization to collaborate with other institutions that may rely on the Google suite of products.
No one at the university is required to adopt the use of these available Google products.
Google Docs and Drive, Colab, Gemini Notebook, Gemini, Meet, Sheets, Docs, Slides, Forms, Vids and Workplace Studio, are collaborative tools designed to enable research in pursuit of the AI fluency initiative. As such, these services are approved for use with Research Data, Research Health Information, and FERPA data. Regulated data including (but not limited to) PCI, ITAR, CUI, and HIPAA are not approved for use with these services.
If you have questions about the sensitivity of data you plan to use with these services, please email the Data Governance Team.