I'm starting a research program that requires compiling precise ocean fishing locations (lat-lon) and site characteristics from a broad array of sport and commercial fishermen. I did something similar 20 years ago using paper questionnaires which worked, but the front and back end work was tedious, and hey, it's 2023.
My basic requirements:
- Easily distributed (e.g., a URL that can be shared and forwarded broadly)
- Response formatting is controlled (e.g., requires standardized lat-lon formats, pull-down menu responses, etc.)
- Respondents can submit multiple locations per submission
- Respondents can make multiple submissions (i.e., if they think of more locations after their original submission)
- Respondents can't see others' responses (i.e., if this is a spreadsheet, each time a user accesses it, they are presented with a blank template)
- Supports multiple users responding simultaneously (I don't expect massive web traffic, but in case 2 potential respondents access the tool at the same time, it needs to be able to handle that)
I tried Google Forms (readily distributed via URL and supports back-end compilation of all responses into a single Google Sheet.) But it doesn't support the embedding of spreadsheets or fillable tables so if respondents wish to provide multiple fishing locations (which is pretty essential to the project), they must submit a separate response for each location. I've already been told this is a no-go by some potential respondents.
If there isn't anything readily available that doesn't require advanced coding skills, I'm thinking the easiest solution might be to just upload an Excel spreadsheet template to a webpage with the column headers and formatting that I need and just ask that folks download it, fill it out, and email it back to me. More clunky than what I want and the 2-step process will probably reduce my response rate, but pretty simple.