Using Google Spreadsheets to collect info via forms
Sometimes you just don’t know about a new technology until you see it in action. In February, Google announced a new feature in Google Spreadsheet which allowed you share a spreadsheet by creating a form into which data could be entered into the spreadsheet. This didn’t hit my radar until very recently when a conference I’m speaking at in the fall decided to collect their speaker information using this method.
Since then I’ve been thinking about all the email forms we have on the library website and how ineffective they are. Most of them have lots of data that gets transmitted via email and then has to be rekeyed for statistical or other purposes. Could Google Docs help with this? Maybe, but I need to do some experimentation. The key issue for me isn’t necessarily: “can we collect the data”? Its “can we get the data back out in an easy efficient programmatic way?” I hit on the Google Spreadsheets Data API but need to spend some time researching stuff.
All of this makes me wonder if I need to push for my institution to get serious about Google Apps for Education. Otherwise, we will be using “personal” accounts to make this happen.
My slides on using Google Docs for Surveys might be of your interest.
Can you give an example of how a library miight implement this tool. I’m not clear why anyone should be interested in this technology. What are you supposed to use it for?
Well, one way it could be used is to collect comments in a concerted fashion without having to know how to create a web form that dumps into a spreadsheet via a programming language. So you’d create a spreadsheet with the commenter’s name, email, comment, date submitted, etc. You could then use the Share tab to create a form that would allow people to enter data into the spreadsheet. User never see the spreadsheet itself. Staff could then view the comments and add info to them, like B Smith answered this one on 6/15/2007. Basically you can collect data in a way which then allows it to be manipulated. Lots of our current web forms don’t currently allow this because we just haven’t had the time to rewrite them. And since spreadsheets are easy to create, way easier than a web-based form with programming to submit it, this would allow librarians to easily create their own forms to collect data.