2011 Sakai Multi-Institutional Survey Initiative

MISI, or the Multi-Institutional Survey Initiative, is an endeavor among Sakai institutions to ask similar questions of instructors and students across Sakai implementations. Through this initiative, we hope to be build on the successful 2010 effort and the 2009 effort to compare and contrast similarities and differences between institutions as well as provide feedback to improve Sakai development in the future.

In order to accurately compare institutions, it is important to use the same survey question as much as possible. To that end, the participating institutions have been working hard to arrive at a set of shared "core" survey items that will be used across institutions.

Participation is voluntary. Each institution is responsible for obtaining human subjects approval (IRB) to conduct research, if required. Furthermore, institutions are encouraged, but not required or mandated to use the "core" set of survey questions or share them with the initiative. To limit variability, participating institutions are encouraged to administer their surveys online between April-June 2011.

As of January 2011, Michigan has had to limit its leadership in this initiative. We are still planning to collect data using the 2010 MISI core survey items, but Michigan staff cannot currently commit the funds required to pay staff time to collect and combine all of the various data sets. At this time, interested institutions are encouraged to collect data using the 2010 MISI items, and those data sets can be shared in a shared repository.

Therefore, the 2011 MISI will consist of three general steps:

A) Each participating institution will collect survey data using the MISI "core" survey items from 2010 as much as possible.

Survey instruments for the "core" survey items are available here:
Instructor "Core" Survey Items
Student "Core" Survey Items

B) Each participating institution will upload their data to a shared repository.

C) Depending on interest, individual institutions can combine / download / share pieces of some or all of the participating institutional data as they see fit.

If you are planning to collect data under these conditions, please add your name, institution, and contact information in the table below. Thank you!

Institution	Contact Name(s)	Email Address
University of Michigan	Steven Lonn	slonn@umich.edu
Rice University	Angela Rabuck	adehart@rice.edu
Danubius University of Galati	Severin Bumbaru	severin.bumbaru@univ-danubius.ro
Virginia Tech	John Moore	jmoore1@vt.edu

MISI FAQ

Q: Who Can Participate in MISI?

A: Any institution running Sakai 2.4 or higher in pilot or production. All levels, languages, and locations are invited to participate.

Q: Who Conducts the Survey?
A: Your institution will run its own online survey. In the past, institutions have used commercial applications (e.g., SurveyMonkey), home-grown systems, and self-coded surveys.

Q: Who Decides What Items Are On the Survey?
A: The collective group of participating institutions will decide on the items via email, conference calls, and Confluence wiki. Ultimately, each institution can decide to opt in/out of each "core" survey item, but are strongly encouraged to participate in order to maximize data collection.

Q: When Will Meetings Begin?
A: No meetings are scheduled for MISI 2011

Q: How is Survey Data Shared?
A: Anonymized data (not aggregated) is uploaded to a shared Sakai site. Each institution is (currently) responsible for combining any data of interest for its own analysis. Institutions are encouraged to share back any combined data.

Q: When Should the Survey Be Administered?
A: In order to minimize variability, each participating institution is asked to administer their survey for 2-4 weeks in March, April, or May 2011.

Q: Where Can I Find Information About the 2010 MISI?
A: On this Confluence page