Last year over 700 Keene State students worked 17,000 hours in the community.  Mary McEntee, Coordinator of the Community Service office, captures all that information.

Mary McEntee

Until recently students reported their hours by printing out a form from the website, completing it and handing it in monthly. Then student workers keyed in the information. The process was slow and labor intensive.

This month, Community Service switched to an online form they created using Google docs. Students now fill out the form whenever they want and the data they enter is automatically entered into a spreadsheet. “This way students can complete the form anytime, 24-7,” said Mary. “They can submit a from each time they volunteer so they won’t forget.” In the first two weeks of use there have been over 800 entries logging over 15,500 service hours.

“I expect we will get an even better response now that students don’t have to look for a printer and carry their form to the office. Plus, there is no delay. We see the data as soon as it’s entered. ”

Creating the form was simple according to Mary. “CELT led us through the process and it was done in a half hour.  I would not have known who to ask to help me with this task but Judy Brophy followed up on an unrelated question and we got together.”

“It’s important to be able to accurately report this very positive data to the community,” said Mary, “and now we can do it more quickly and easily.”

For more information see Using Google Forms to Gather Survey Data.