Using Qualtrics at Carleton

Carleton has a Core XM License, allowing the use of Qualtrics, aka XM, a powerful survey platform.  The company Qualtrics (aka "XM") also has >42 additional products to which we do not have access.  

To learn how to setup a survey in Qualtrics, see their support page (link opens in a new tab)

Please be aware that there are some finicky technical details necessary to ensure that your survey is not flagged as spam, and that provides the legitimacy of a carleton.edu domain. 

Qualtrics Survey Email: Best Practices to avoid Phishing-reports & Spam filtering 

FYI: As of early February 2025, all of the surveys from our "domain" will automatically go out with the beginning of the URL that looks like this:
https://research.carleton.edu/<your specific survey>

• When you are ready to distribute your survey via email, go to the Distributions tab in Survey Project (located near the top of the Survey page).
  • On the menu that appears on the left-hand side of the Distributions page, click the Emails button.
  • A Compose Email button will appear on the right-hand side of the page. Click this button to open the email editor.

• Before you distribute your email, you need to change a few things:

  1. From Address: Change the email-like address in the From Address bar to text that relates to your project.
     • Do NOT use an actual account name at carleton.edu in the From Address because Google will likely flag your message as an impersonation attempt and your recipients should then avoid the survey.  
     • DO use a project name or department that is associated with your survey e.g.:  ITS@research.carleton.edu or CAMS100-evaluation@research.carleton.edu, etc.
      
  2. From Name: Change the name and in From Name to a legitimate name and address at Carleton. (This person's address will receive any replies to the email survey invitation.) 
      
  3. Survey Fatigue is real and it affects all survey response rates. For many of you, you'll need to select the appropriate Brand Administrator to approve your distribution of your survey:
      
  • Ian Turnage-Butterbaugh iturnage@carleton.edu (all administrative/assessments use)
  • Paula Lackie plackie@carleton.edu (students, and all academic/research use) 

Here's a link to the Qualtrics support on this topic.  Below is step 7 in their instructions.  The things you should edit for your surveys are:

1. in From Address: ITS
2. in From Name: Paula Lackie (set this to the responsible party for your survey)
3. in Reply-To Email: plackie@carleton.edu (set this to that person's email address)
    
4. see Qualtrics instructions for how to use mailing lists to customize your message for each recipient.

Other Qualtrics Questions

Qualtrics has a robust Help System, accessible for logged-in users via the question mark in the top right corner of the page. However, this Help System is not always accessible or easy to use.