FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

SurveyCircle is a research platform based on the principle of mutual support. It helps people find participants for their online surveys and online experiments outside their own circle of friends. In addition, SurveyCircle gives everyone a chance to experience and support current online research projects by participating in them.

Main functionalities for Survey Managers:

• Find participants for online surveys and online experiments

Main functionalities for Research Enthusiasts:

• Experience and support current research projects by participating in online studies
• Support research projects of friends: Collect points for them and help them attract even more participants

SurveyCircle is based on a well-known social principle: on mutual support. The more you support other users of SurveyCircle (by participating in their studies), the more support you get back (by others participating in your study). For this to work, we have developed a special social incentive system for SurveyCircle. It ensures that mutual support not only works theoretically, but also in practice. Say: If you take part in other studies, you should in fact also win participants for your own study.

And this is how it works:

For each study you participate in, you get points. They will be credited to you as soon as you have redeemed the Survey Code, which is displayed on the last page of each study. How many points you get from participating in a study depends on the placement of the study in the Survey Ranking. The better the placement of the study you participated in, the more points you get.

The higher your score, the higher your study will be in the Survey Ranking – and the more likely it is that other SurveyCircle users will participate (because participation in better ranked studies will earn more points than participating in studies with poorer placement).

There are several options how you can improve the position of your survey:

• Take part in studies from the Survey Ranking, redeem the corresponding Survey Codes and collect points.
• Ask friends and family to log in as your Supporters and take part in surveys. Points collected by your Supporters go straight to your account as a Survey Manager. Note: The Supporter feature should be used by people who want to collect points for you just once or sporadically. No registration required.
  
  Supporters can use a limited set of features:
  
  – Participating in surveys
  – Redeeming Survey Codes (points go directly to the supported Survey Manager's account)
  – Share and recommend surveys
• Ask friends and family to sign up as Research Enthusiasts, to take part in surveys and to send you the points they have gathered (available under "My Points"). Note: Your family and friends should sign up as Research Enthusiasts if they intend to support you on a more regular basis, i.e. more than once and more than just sporadically.
  
  Research Enthusiasts have access to all features:
  
  – Participating in surveys
  – Redeeming Survey Codes (points can be sent to any Survey Manager)
  – Share and recommend surveys
  – Get notified about new studies (optional)
  – Share and recommend studies
  – Search for keywords
  – Bookmark interesting studies

Yes, this is possible and highly recommended. You may use free time in the run-up time to your research project to earn points and, thus, start with a good position in the Survey Ranking when your survey goes online. Your points do not expire so you can start collecting points as early as you wish.

Generally, everyone can support you, if they share their country of residence with you. There are two ways others – e.g. friends and family – can collect points for you, thus improving your position in the Survey Ranking:

• Your friends and family can log in as your Supporters and take part in surveys. Points collected by your Supporters go straight to your account as a Survey Manager. Note: The Supporter feature should be used by people who want to collect points for you just once or sporadically. No registration required.
  
  Supporters can use a limited set of features:
  
  – Participating in surveys
  – Redeeming Survey Codes (points go directly to the supported Survey Manager's account)
  – Share and recommend surveys
• Your friends and family can sign up as Research Enthusiasts, take part in surveys and send you the points they have gathered (available under "My Points"). Note: Your family and friends should sign up as Research Enthusiasts if they intend to support you on a more regular basis, i.e. more than once and more than just sporadically.
  
  Research Enthusiasts have access to all features:
  
  – Participating in surveys
  – Redeeming Survey Codes (points can be sent to any Survey Manager)
  – Share and recommend surveys
  – Get notified about new studies (optional)
  – Share and recommend studies
  – Search for keywords
  – Bookmark interesting studies

No. SurveyCircle's approach is one of mutual support, not of paid participation, so we cannot guarantee that you will reach a certain number of respondents. How many people you reach by using SurveyCircle heavily depends on you and your willingness to help other users of SurveyCircle with their research.

Other factors that can positively influence your own success include the quality of your survey, a correct indication of the processing time, and possibly your promise to raffle coupons or to make a donation to a good cause.

You will not likely achieve a representative sample by using SurveyCircle. Yet you might get a more representative sample using the heterogeneous group of SurveyCircle users than by only recruiting from your own circle of friends or on social networks.

If you need a very large sample that is representative of the whole population, you should turn to a market research company.

Yes, this is possible. Your survey will automatically be published in all countries that belong to the region of your country of residence ("primary region").

For instance, if your country of residence is the United Kingdom, Region 2 (e.g. USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, India, South Africa) is your primary region. In this region, the position of your survey in the Survey Ranking depends on your score, therefore the more active you are, the higher your ranking. To earn points, you are able to participate in all of the surveys listed in your regions' Survey Ranking.

When your primary region is Region 2 but you want to attract additional respondents from other regions, you can unlock your survey for one additional region ("secondary region"). Note that in the secondary region your survey will be listed as “noncompetitive” in the lower parts of the ranking. If you choose e.g. Region 1 as secondary region (Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein), that means that your survey will appear behind all of the surveys from Region 1. If you choose Region 3 as secondary region (The Netherlands, Belgium), that means that your survey will appear behind all of the surveys from Region 3.

As a Survey Manager, you can currently recruit up to 100 participants through SurveyCircle (regardless of the number of surveys). After that, the survey of yours which is online at that time will automatically be removed from the Survey Ranking.

In the future it will be possible to recruit more than 100 participants through SurveyCircle. If you are interested, please let us know!

In the step-by-step process of publishing your survey on SurveyCircle, it is possible to define a preferred group of respondents. Remember, though, that this information cannot guarantee that only people from this group participate in your survey. We do appeal to all respondents to respect the intended circle of respondents.

To recruit as many respondents as possible, you should define your circle of respondents as broadly as possible.

No, the data lodged with us will not be passed on to Survey Managers or other third parties. If you participate in a survey on SurveyCircle, you remain just as anonymous as if you were participating in a survey in the conventional way.

By the way: SurveyCircle does not have access to the answers you give when responding to a survey. Neither will we ever ask for access.

No. Participation in surveys is always voluntary. As a Survey Manager you can publish your survey without taking part in the surveys of others. Of course, by failing to participate in the surveys of others, you omit the chance to collect points to work yourself up the ranking. If it is important for you to find participants on SurveyCircle, you should participate in surveys of others.

Generally yes. The entire SurveyCircle website is available on mobile equipment. And many surveys of our users are already mobile-optimized and can be answered from a smartphone wonderfully. However, some surveys should still be processed on a desktop computer or tablet. It is in the hand of the respective Survey Manager whether or not they mark their study as mobile-optimized.

We do recommend creating surveys that smartphone users can participate in seamlessly.

No, but the SurveyCircle website is mobile-optimized and runs well on smartphones and tablets. So you can use SurveyCircle on the go whenever you want.

Each user account can only be registered under the name of one person. If you want to post a survey as a group project in the Survey Ranking, you must decide who will open the user account; that person will officially become listed as Survey Manager.

This does not mean that only the Survey Manager can collect points: All other group members can also collect points for the joint project as "Research Enthusiasts" – and then send them to the Survey Manager's account via the "Send Points" feature.

Yes. Surveys of companies, start-ups and registered associations are very welcome at SurveyCircle.

No, SurveyCircle only helps you find respondents. The design and drafting of the survey is up to you. Note there are many good suppliers of survey toolkits you can choose from.

SurveyCircle is free to all users. As Survey Manager you can make a voluntary donation to help run the website.

No, SurveyCircle is not a platform to earn money by taking part in surveys. SurveyCircle is based on the principle of mutual assistance among the Survey Managers, their Supporters, and Research Enthusiasts.

We have put together some citation examples for you.

SurveyCircle is based on the principle of mutual, voluntary support, and it works best if everyone adheres to the rules. Should we have reason to believe that a user has violated the rules, we will exclude them from further use of the platform.

• Rule #1: Fill out all questionnaires truthfully and conscientiously (i.e. take your time to fully comprehend questions and possible answers, to read scenario descriptions, to fill in text fields, etc.).
• Rule #2: Participate in studies only when you meet the participation criteria.
• Rule #3: Redeem Survey Codes only if you have earned them in compliance with the rules.
• Rule #4: Redeem Survey Codes directly after completing a study.
• Rule #5: Rate the quality of studies objectively and in a differentiated way.
• Rule #6: Do not share Survey Codes with others.
• Rule #7: Do not use multiple user accounts.
• Rule #8: Do not let anyone use your user account to participate in studies.
• Rule #9: Do not use rule violations by others to your advantage.

SurveyCircle is based on honest mutual support. To protect this basic principle, we use quality assurance systems that enable us to reliably identify rule violations. Those who break the rules and thereby act at the expense of others will be excluded from the platform.

You can find the complete Terms and Conditions here.

That depends on the position of the survey in the Survey Ranking. The higher the position in the ranking, the more points you get for participating. The number of points you can earn appears in the column "Reward Points" of the Survey Ranking.

That depends. If you are a Survey Manager, you cannot send points to others. If you have an account as a Research Enthusiast, you can send points to Survey Managers, provided they have the same country of residence as you.

Redeeming Survey Codes is very easy. In this video we show you how it works.

No, unfortunately this is not possible.

You can redeem Survey Codes as long as the corresponding survey is listed in the Survey Ranking and up to 24 hours after it has been de-listed. After this, it is no longer possible to redeem the code. To prevent valuable codes from expiring, we recommend that you always redeem them immediately after participating in a survey.

No, your points do not expire.

How many points you get credited to your account depends upon the position of the survey at the time you redeem the Survey Code. We recommend redeeming Survey Codes immediately after participating. The longer you postpone redeeming Survey Codes, the higher the probability that the credited number of points will differ from the number of points originally displayed.

That's up to you: Either continue after the interruption, or abort the participation by closing the browser window of the study and by clicking on "Participation in Progress" > "Abort Survey".

No, this is not possible. Just take part in surveys of others and points will be raining down on you :-)

No, we do not check your survey before publication. Neither do we change its content and design. You alone are responsible for your survey.

However, your survey must meet certain minimum requirements to be posted on SurveyCircle. You can find these requirements in our Terms and Conditions (§4). By posting your survey you acknowledge that these minimum requirements have been satisfied.

You will get the Survey Code for your survey in Step 2 ("Insert Personal Survey Code") of the survey creation process. You start this process by clicking on "Post a Survey" in your user account. At the end of Step 2, we ask you to insert your personal Survey Code clearly visible on the last page of your questionnaire.

Yes, you may! At present, however, English and German surveys have the best chances of attracting respondents.

No, your email address will not appear in the Survey Ranking. Nor will it be published elsewhere.

You can determine when your survey gets into the Survey Ranking, and, of course, when it is to be removed. For the former, simply click "Publish Survey" in your user account. For removal later on, simply click “Close Survey”.

If you wish, your survey can stay in the Survey Ranking until you reach the maximum number of participants for your user account (now set at 100). However, you must actively extend it every 45 days at the latest via your user account to keep it online.

In the future it will also be possible to recruit more than 100 participants through SurveyCircle. In the future it will be possible to recruit more than 100 participants through SurveyCircle. If you are interested, please let us know!

Once you have reached our (current) limit of 100 participants per user account, the survey of yours which is online at that time will automatically be deactivated and removed from the Survey Ranking.

In the future it will be possible to recruit more than 100 participants through SurveyCircle. If you are interested, please let us know!

No, once you have stopped your survey manually, you cannot reactivate it. So before you close your survey, you ought to be sure that you really want it to end.

If you are signed in, but you do not see a button labeled "Post a Survey" in the menu bar, you have registered as a Research Enthusiast – and not as a Survey Manager. Only when registered as a Survey Manager you can publish surveys in the Survey Ranking. And only then the "Post a Survey" button will appear.

If your score as a Research Enthusiast is 0, you can convert your account to a Survey Manager account at any time (Settings > My Profile > Edit Profile). If your score as a Research Enthusiast is greater than 0 and you want to convert your account into a Survey Manager account, please contact us.

The minimum age for registration with SurveyCircle and use of the “Supporter” feature is 16 years.

Yes, you have to use your real first and last name when registering.

Yes, once you have taken your first survey out of the Survey Ranking, you can publish a second survey there (and so on). Please note: After you have reached SurveyCircle's (current) participant limit of 100 participants per account, you cannot post another survey.

In the future it will also be possible to recruit more than 100 participants through SurveyCircle. As soon as this option is available, you will find more information on the website. Would you like to be informed in advance? Let us know!

No, each person may only create one account.

Yes, that's possible! If your score is 0, you can convert your account into a Survey Manager account on your own (Settings > My Profile > Edit Profile). If your score is greater than 0 and you want to become a Survey Manager, please contact us.

No problem, just click here and follow the instructions afterwards.

To delete your account, sign in with your credentials, click the user icon in the upper right corner and then select "Settings" > "My Profile". There you will find a button to delete your account. Note: The deletion cannot be undone. By deleting your account you forfeit all your accumulated points.

Do you want to delete your account as a Survey Manager because your research project is completed? If so we, however, would appreciate your staying connected to SurveyCircle even after your active time as a Survey Manager is over. If you maintain your account you could continue to support other interesting research projects from time to time.