An assessment tool

As a facilitator, one should not only consider assessment tools for simple evaluation of the learning materials but also as a mechanism for evaluating the effectiveness of the facilitation and the tools used in the facilitation. Similarly, as a project manager one can gather feedback from the team members anonymously what is working and what could be modified. Instead of waiting till the project closure stage where lessons learned could be conducted to streamline processes further for future projects, a project manager can unleash surveys interim during the execution and control stages to gain invaluable input to take correction action.

While there are a numnber of tools available, such as Zoomerang, SurveyMonkey, Quia, and ProProfs, I would like to focus on HostedSurvey that I used during my doctoral dissertation. This survey tool used a  intuitive user-interface making it easy to create secured surveys. It used a thin client architecture without using any cookies or Active X controls and subsequently cliaming that this survey tools will not promote transfer of virus or cause a computer crash. Secured by HostedSurvey's firewall comprised of the leading industry standards like Cisco PIX, Checkpoint, and NetScreen securing participant's data and aided by encrypted data transfer, the privacy requirements were adequately met by strict dissertation requirements. The tool also promoted where the adminstrator of the survey can send email solicitations specifically to targeted individuals as well as promote anonymous feedback gathering. What was very interesting is that the survey tool also allowed creatinng multiple surveys where they can be linked using simple redirection. This is definitely a tool worth considering for survey administration.