Posted 20 May 2016 (Updated 16 November 2017)
Blog by Issa Coultas

Benefits of Customization

Using the Mind Garden Transform™ system for online surveys provides the full assessment and scoring of your chosen instrument. Some of the instruments include a few demographic questions requesting e.g. participant age, gender, etc. These features meet the needs for many customers’ research, developmental, or personal work. However, many customers need additional features for their survey. With this in mind, we offer Customization services for online Forms and Reports.

Form Customization

A Custom Form encompasses every aspect of what participants will see when they take your online survey. This includes text (instructions, introduction, conclusion, etc.) and survey questions (instrument questions, demographic questions, etc.). You can add and customize several features with a Custom Form:

Add Informed Consent
Researchers and students are often required to have informed consent from all participants in their study. To add Informed Consent, provide us with the exact wording of your informed consent document and the consent question for your participants. Transform uses skip logic so participants who give consent are allowed to continue the survey, while participants who do not give consent are directed out of the survey.

Add Text
You may add any text to your Custom Form. Some commonly customized text includes adding an introduction and conclusion to the survey. We recommend that you use the original survey instructions to retain the reliability and validity of the instrument.

Add Demographics*
We can add demographic questions to your Custom Form. Commonly added demographics include:

• Gender
• Age
• Ethnicity
• Education
• Job Title or Position
• Amount of time at current job position
• Organization affiliations (e.g., American Psychological Association)
• Location (e.g., rural, urban, suburban)
• Salary/Income

Add Other Instruments*
To add a second Mind Garden instrument to your Custom Form, simply let us know which instrument(s) you want to combine. Pricing per assessment will change depending on how many Mind Garden instruments you use in one survey. If you want to add an instrument not published by Mind Garden, you must (1) provide the full assessment (instructions, questions, and response format), (2) provide evidence that you have permission to use the instrument, and (3) provide accurate copyright information for the instrument. We can also provide scoring for your added instrument(s).

Add an Image
Add an image to appear at the top of every survey page on Mind Garden assessments. The image must be in .png, .jpg, or .gif format and be 198x209 pixels in size.

*For added questions, you have some format choices.

1. Choose whether each question is mandatory or optional. A mandatory question requires a response in order to continue or complete the survey.

2. Choose the response type for each question. Response types include:

Multiple choice (e.g., yes/no, A/B/C/D)

Drop-down menu

Checkbox

Number field (e.g., “What is your age?” “23”)

Open response text field (e.g., “Describe your average work day”)

Ordering Your Custom Form

To order a custom form, send an email to info@mindgarden.com with:

• The name of the survey you will customize (e.g., MLQ-360, MBI-HSS)
• The exact text and features you wish to add. These materials must be in a text-editable format (no scans).

Pricing for Custom Forms

The minimum price for survey customization is $200. Total price is based on the quantity and type of content you wish to add. View the Pricing section on our Customization page for a full price list.

The purchase of a Custom Form does not include licenses for the survey. To use your Custom Form, you must purchase licenses for the original product.

Timeline for Completion of Custom Forms

We will provide you with a preview link to your custom survey within 8 business days of receiving your payment (custom work can be expedited to 2-3 business days for an additional $100 rush fee). Use the link to preview your survey and contact us with approval or any necessary edits, which may take 1-2 business days. Two editing sessions are included with your customization purchase; you may be charged for additional editing sessions. Once the preview is approved, you will be given a Live Test: you can take your custom survey and see how the data will appear in your data download. If no changes are needed, your survey is ready to launch.

Report Customization

Reports offer automated scoring and interpretation in an easy-to-read PDF document. Many Mind Garden products are available with both Individual and Group Report output.

If you are using a Custom Form, a standard Individual or Group Report will only display information from the original Mind Garden instrument used. Any demographics or other questions added to your survey will not be included in the standard report. However, a Custom Report can be created to display this custom information. Report customizations available:

Add Text
You may add any text to your Custom Report. Customized text frequently includes adding to the Report introduction and adding your own development exercises.

Add Display Data from Other Scales
If you added another assessment to your online survey, you can customize the Report to display those scores in a bar graph or list those scores in a table. You can also customize the report to display the score from each item, by each new scale.

Add Breakouts
In Group Reports, we can filter or "breakout" survey scale scores by any demographic question. For instance, you could divide your group data by participants in top management vs. middle management. The report would show the average scores for your group as a whole, followed by a breakdown of average scores from the top management subgroup and average scores from the middle management subgroup. Any breakout you want to use must be a mandatory question on your Custom Form.

Add Demographics
If you added demographic questions to your Custom Form, you can have that data displayed in your Custom Report. Demographics are usually displayed at the end of the Report. In Individual Reports, the demographic question will be listed by the participant’s response. In Group Reports, the number of participants who chose each response will be counted and reported. E.g., for the question: “What is your employment status?” with response options of Full-Time, Part-Time, and Unemployed, the listing in the Group Report would be: “Number of Participants Working Full-Time: 156,” “Number Participants Working Part-Time: 45,” “Number of Participants Unemployed: 17”; whereas in an Individual Report it would be: “What is your employment status? Full-Time”.

If you customized a multi-rater instrument, only participant (not rater) demographics can be displayed in Individual and Group Reports.

Add Open Response Display
If you added a question with an open response format, you can customize your Individual Report to display the full text of the participant’s response. If you customized a multi-rater instrument, open responses from your raters can be included in the Individual Report. Displaying open responses is unavailable in Group Reports.

Add Score Sorting
Mind Garden Reports have the ability to sort all item scores by the highest or by the lowest score. Some Reports already have a feature where the 10 highest scored items and the 10 lowest scored items are highlighted to help identify strengths and weaknesses. To find out if a Report has this feature, view the sample report provided on the product pages. You can add this feature to your Custom Report for a Mind Garden product or for any assessments you added to your Custom Form (scoring must be available).

Add an Image
Add an image to appear on the cover page of your Custom Report. The image must be in .png, .jpg, or .gif format. Mind Garden prefers 400x400 pixels in size.

Ordering Your Custom Report

To order a Custom Report, send an email to info@mindgarden.com with:

• The name of your custom survey
• What type of report you will customize (Group Report or Individual Report)
• The exact features you wish to add.

Pricing for Custom Reports

The minimum price for Group Report customization is $400. Total price is based on the type and quantity of features you wish to add. View the Pricing section on our Customization page for a full price list.

Timeline for Completion of Custom Reports

We will provide you with a preview Custom Report in PDF format within 8 business days of receiving your Custom Report payment (custom work can be expedited to 2-3 business days for an additional $100 rush fee). Preview your report and contact us with approval or any necessary edits, which may take 1-2 business days. Two editing sessions are included with your Custom Report purchase; you may be charged for additional editing sessions. Once the report preview is approved, we will enable the report for your campaign and it will be release as selected in your campaign setup.

Glossary of Terms
View our full list of terms here.

Form
The term "form" is most often used to distinguish the self-rating from the other-rating versions of an assessment (e.g. Self Form vs. Rater Form).

Forms can also be distinguished:

• by age group (e.g. FFWEL Adult Form or FFWEL Teen Form)
• by other target population descriptions (e.g. CSEI School Form or POIS Manager Form)
• to describe the mindset used while completing the assessment (e.g. FES Real Form vs. FES Ideal Form)
• if you use our customization services (your project will be called your "Custom Form") to distinguish your customization from the original assessment