Qualtrics Support for the “Repurposing Recovered Organic Materials as Alternate Raw Materials for Brick Production” Project

Jeff (Xingyong) Wang

Background

The project, “Repurposing Recovered Organic Materials as Alternate Raw Materials for Brick Production”, was initiated by Dr. Alireza Aghajani Shahrivar, Project Officer at the School of Engineering, Design, and Built Environment at Western Sydney Un iversity. The goal of this research project is to develop a sustainable process that repurposes composted municipal organic waste, such as food waste, for use in brick production. This innovative approach aims to reduce municipal waste sent to landfills, decrease greenhouse gas emissions, and reduce the energy required for brick manufacturing.

With a composting plant located in Eastern Creek and nearby brick kilns at Horsley Park, Sydney, the project holds the potential for immediate, real-world implementation. Once proven, this process could be adopted across Australia and globally, creating a significant environmental impact by diverting organic waste from landfills and reducing carbon emissions.

Challenge

The challenge was to design an effective survey to collect feedback from stakeholders, including government representatives, industry professionals, and community participants, to assess the feasibility of the new brick production technology. The complexity of the survey included questions about environmental impacts, economic viability, and potential challenges to scaling the technology.

Dr. Aghajani Shahrivar also faced the challenge of ensuring the anonymity, integrity, and completeness of the data throughout the survey process, given the need for dynamic question flows and respondent segmentation. This required a robust, reliable tool capable of managing the complex survey logic, including skip logic and branching.

Dr. Aghajani Shahrivar selected Qualtrics as the survey tool, but he was not fully familiar with its features and capabilities. As a result, some aspects of the survey did not perform as expected, and he encountered challenges in configuring certain elements. These issues necessitated external support to ensure the survey functioned correctly and met the research requirements.

Solution

To address these challenges, Dr. Jeff (Xingyong) Wang, Intersect’s Digital Research Analyst for Western Sydney University, provided comprehensive support in setting up and optimising the Qualtrics survey. This included:

Survey Design: Tailoring survey questions to align with the research objectives, ensuring proper presentation of the Participant Information Sheet, and linking follow-up surveys while maintaining the anonymity of the primary survey data.

Customisation: Configuring question types, incorporating branches into survey flow, adding quotas, and setting up customised survey messages.

Testing: Conducting multiple rounds of testing to identify potential issues and refine the survey for accuracy, functionality, and user experience.

By designing a well-structured survey and guiding the researcher through the process of survey deployment and data collection, Dr. Jeff Wang helped ensure that the survey data would be reliable, complete, and actionable for their research analysis.

“Jeff’s expertise and guidance in setting up the Qualtrics survey were invaluable to our project. His quick response and readiness to address the challenges ensured that the survey was well-designed and functioned smoothly, allowing us to collect high-quality data critical to advancing our research objectives. We greatly appreciate his generosity, friendliness and always ready to help attitude.” — Dr. Alireza Aghajani Shahrivar

Outcome

The survey was successfully deployed and generated valuable feedback from stakeholders, directly supporting the research objectives. Its user-friendly design and logical flow ensured a high response rate and completion rate, enabling the researcher to proceed with their analysis of the feasibility of using composted organic materials in brick production.

The comprehensive support in survey setup and deployment helped streamline the process, allowing the researcher to dedicate more time on the analytical aspects of the project.

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