Survey Audience, Anonymity and Class-Only Surveys
Audience decides who is asked (parents, students, staff, everyone); anonymous surveys never store who answered; evaluation surveys can be limited to one class.
For School administrators, HR managers, Directors and proprietors. Updated 2026-10-09.
Overview
Who answers sets the audience: Parents and guardians, Students, Staff, or Everyone. Staff means teachers, employees, accountants, admins, directors, HR managers, transport managers, health staff and bookstore managers. A person only sees surveys that match their user type or are set to Everyone.
For Course evaluation and Lecturer or teacher evaluation surveys you can also set "Only this class (optional)"; the survey then goes only to active students of that class, or to parents with a child actively enrolled in that class. The response-rate denominator (people asked) uses the same rule.
Anonymity is chosen when creating the survey and locked after the first answer. In an Anonymous survey, the response stores no person and only a day-level date, so answers cannot be tied back to anyone; the respondent is shown only a private hash to stop double answering.
In a Named survey, the respondent name and exact submit time are stored and appear in the CSV export, and respondents are told "Your name is kept with your answers". Each person can answer a survey once, and answers cannot be changed after sending.
Before you start
- A draft or new survey in the builder
Steps
- In the survey editor choose Who answers
- For an evaluation kind, optionally pick Only this class to narrow the audience
- Choose Anonymity: Anonymous (names are never stored) or Named
- Save and open the survey
Common problems
A parent says they cannot see a survey
Check Who answers includes Parents (or Everyone), the survey is Open and within its dates, and, if it is class-only, that the parent has a child with an Active enrollment in that class. Parents also need to open My Surveys.
Can I switch a survey from anonymous to named after people answered?
No. Anonymity, audience and kind are locked once the first answer arrives. Duplicate the survey and change it on the copy.
Response rate looks low for a class survey
The rate is responses divided by people eligible for that class only, so it reflects the class, not the whole school.