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Qualtrics Survey

Note

This XBlock is part of the xblocks-extra collection.

An XBlock to ease linking to Qualtrics surveys.

The tool makes it easy for instructors to link to a Qualtrics survey from within their course.

Installation

System Administrator

To install the XBlock on your platform, you will need to install the package collection it belongs to. Add the following to your platform's requirements.txt file:

xblocks-extra

You may also need to ensure this is in your INSTALLED_APPS:

qualtricssurvey

Course Staff

To enable the XBlock in your course, access your Advanced Module List:

Settings -> Advanced Settings -> Advanced Module List

and add the following:

qualtricssurvey

Use

Course Staff

To add a Qualtrics Survey link to your course:

  • go to a unit in Studio
  • select "Qualtrics Survey" from the Advanced Components menu

You can now edit and preview the new component.

Using the Studio editor, you can edit the following fields:

  • display name
  • survey id
  • university
  • link text
  • extra parameters
  • message

Configuration

Operators can configure system-wide defaults via XBLOCK_SETTINGS in the Django settings:

XBLOCK_SETTINGS["QualtricsSurvey"] = {
    "DEFAULT_UNIVERSITY": "stanforduniversity",
    "USER_QUERY_PARAMS": {
        "edxuid": "user_id",
        "email": "email",
    },
}
DEFAULT_UNIVERSITY
The default Qualtrics subdomain for your institution. Used when the per-instance university field is left blank.
USER_QUERY_PARAMS

A mapping of URL parameter names to user attributes. The key is the query parameter name that appears in the survey URL, and the value is the user attribute to resolve. Supported attributes:

  • user_id - platform user ID (with fallback to anonymous ID)
  • anonymous_id - course-specific anonymous user ID
  • email - primary email address
  • username - platform username

These values come from the XBlock user service. edx-platform only provides them for authenticated users, so any attribute that cannot be resolved (for example, for an anonymous visitor) is left out of the URL.

If USER_QUERY_PARAMS is not configured, no user parameters are sent by default. To start sending user data to Qualtrics, operators must explicitly configure this setting. Existing blocks that already store a legacy param_name value continue to use that value as a fallback.

Privacy

Values sent through USER_QUERY_PARAMS become part of the survey URL. Query strings are recorded in web server and proxy logs, kept in browser history, and may be forwarded in Referer headers. Before mapping email, username, or user_id, confirm that sending that data to Qualtrics is acceptable under your institution's privacy policy. anonymous_id is the least identifying option.

Upgrading

Version 2.0 changed two defaults. Blocks that never set these fields in Studio relied on the old defaults will behave differently after upgrading.

param_name default changed from "a" to ""

Blocks that never set this field used to send ?a=<anonymous id>. They now send no user parameters. The field is no longer editable in Studio; blocks that explicitly saved a value keep using it. To restore the old behaviour platform-wide, configure:

XBLOCK_SETTINGS["QualtricsSurvey"] = {
    "USER_QUERY_PARAMS": {"a": "anonymous_id"},
}
your_university default changed from "stanforduniversity" to ""

Blocks that never set this field now render a link without a subdomain unless DEFAULT_UNIVERSITY is configured. To restore the old behaviour platform-wide, configure:

XBLOCK_SETTINGS["QualtricsSurvey"] = {
    "DEFAULT_UNIVERSITY": "stanforduniversity",
}

Participants

Students click on a link within the unit and this takes them to the survey.