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The questions and answers below focus on common problems that respondents may have when accessing a GAO web survey. If you have questions about the survey itself, please contact the GAO staff listed in on the survey home page or in the email message that was sent to you announcing the survey.

1. I can't read all of the information on the screen, why?

You may need to use the scroll wheel on your mouse or the scroll bar on the right side of the screen to read all the information on a page.

2. How do I move from screen to screen in the survey?

You may move from screen to screen using

3. How long should it take me to complete the questionnaire?

GAO tests each survey before deploying it, including measuring how long it takes each test respondent to complete the survey. Generally, this time estimate will be provided in the email message to you announcing the survey, on the survey home web page, or within the instructions inside the survey itself. If no estimate has been provided, you may email the GAO staff listed on the project home page and ask for an estimate.

4. Why are many of the questions filled out as "no answer"?

Most multiple choice questions are initially filled in as "no answer" due to the nature of web based questionnaires. For answers where the survey allows only one response, at least one button must be marked. "No Answer" gives you an opportunity decline to answer a question.

5. What does "no answer" mean?

If you do not want to answer a question, leave the "no answer" option filled in. We will interpret this as missing data.

6. How do I exit the questionnaire so that I can come back later and complete it?

You may exit the questionnaire at any time by pressing the Exit button at the bottom of the page. You may log in again later to enter new responses or change any previous responses. Your questionnaire will restart at the last page you edited before pressing the Exit button to log out. You may log in as often as you wish to add or modify your responses until the project expires.

7. When I try to log in I get a page that says that the questionnaire project expired, but I have not finished my questionnaire. What do I do?

Send an email message to the GAO staff listed on your project's home page and explain your situation. They can extend the expiration date for you if that is appropriate.

8. How can I print out the questionnaire?

You may print your responses as you go through each section by pressing the Print button at the bottom of the screen. To obtain a complete copy of your responses, you must print each screen individually.

9. How do I submit my questionnaire?

Generally, a long questionnaire will have a question at the end that asks you to indicate whether or not you are finished responding to the questionnaire. We will not use your responses in our analysis unless you have checked the response to indicate here that you are done. (Also, take care to press the Exit button at the bottom of the page to send this answer to GAO and log out of the questionnaire.)

10. I can't see all of the narrative that I have written for the question that asks you to type in your own responses. What should I do?

In the survey that we have deployed on the web, it is not possible to see all of your written narrative if your writing is longer than the viewing size of the "text box". If you would like to look at all of what you have written, you can highlight the writing and then copy and paste in to your word processor or you can scroll through the box.

11. When I printed a questionnaire page on which had typed a long answer (in a scrolling text box), the printout only had what I can see on the screen. How do I get a hard copy of all of my narrative?

When you print responses that are narratives, the hard copy will only have the information that is visible in the box on your screen. Copy and paste your response into your word processor if you want a printed version. To do this: (1) place your cursor on the beginning of the text you want to copy, (2) right click, (3) select all, (4) right click again, (5) select copy, (6) open the other word processing software program, (7) open a new file, (8) use the paste tool to paste your narrative statement. Finally, print your statement from this other word processing software package.

12. I forgot my password. How can I find out what it is?

Your user name and password were sent to you in an email message. If you can not find this message, please contact the GAO staff listed on the questionnaire home page for help.

13. Answers I entered on one of the questionnaire pages was not there when I logged into the questionnaire again later. What happened?

This occurs if you do not exit the questionnaire by clicking the Exit button, which is located at the bottom of each questionnaire page (or the Submit button if this is a one-page questionnaire). Clicking on this button tells your browser to send your responses to our server and to log out of the questionnaire. Clicking on the "X," or "Close," button located in the top-right corner of the browser window closes the page without sending your responses to our server.

Clicking on the Next and Previous buttons also sends your responses on that page to our server before displaying the next page in the questionnaire.

14. None of the buttons on the questionnaire page, navigation bar, or the menu work when I click on them. What's wrong?

This situation can occur when the questionnaire page is not fully loaded into the browser. Clicking on page items before a page is fully loaded can stop the loading process or disable the programs that automate the buttons. (The chances of this occuring increase if you have a slower, dial-up connection.) Close and restart the browser, log in, and then wait until the status line at the bottom of his browser window indicates that the page is loaded before clicking on the page.

15. I participated in a GAO survey a while ago but did not print a copy of my responses. Since the web site is no longer available, how can I get a copy?

You must send a request for these records to GAO's Chief Quality Officer. See Public Access to GAO Records for more information.




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