USER GUIDE

This user guide is for registered users of the Futures Consciousness Profile Database. It outlines the functions available through the User Dashboard.

In the platform, registered users can form own test groups to collect futures consciousness data from a group of respondents. In addition to the basic FC test, users have also the possibility to configure own additional questions. The results gathered within a research group are automatically compiled into a summary report within the platform. The data can also be requested from the administrators in .csv format and analysed using third party software. The test takers can receive their own personal FC profiles that can be used for educational purposes. In addition, the test takers will get an access to an info sheet describing the five dimensions of Futures Consciousness and few exercises for practice.

 

1. GENERAL

1.1 Password

If you have lost your password, or your password does not work for some reason, you can get a new password through here. Please let us know if you have odd problems regularly with your password by sending us an email at fcprofile@utu.fi.

If you have recently registered as a user, you should wait for an email confirmation that your account has been activated first. The password cannot be changed before an account has been activated.

1.2 Dashboard Overview

In the User Dashboard you can create and manage new survey groups, configure and manage custom survey question sets, carry out surveys to your selected group of respondents and edit your user profile. This guide will outline the main functions available to you.

1.3 Test languages

Currently the test is available in the following languages:

  • For adults: English, Finnish, French, German
  • For teenagers: English, Dutch, Italian, Turkish

It should be noted, however, that even if the test is translated to another language, some of the functions of the database are only available in English (e.g. the entry page to the test, the result page, etc.). In some cases, the test coordinator may have to guide users in the process of taking the test.

1.4 Translating the FC test into a new language

If you are interested in translating the scale into a new language, you are very welcome to do so! However, that may not be as easy you may think. An official translation of a psychometric scale needs to be done in the following way:

  1. Translation from original language (= some of the currently available languages) to a new language by a native speaker of that new language
  2. Reverse translation back from the new language to the original language by (preferably) a native speaker of the original language or professional translator. This person should not have seen the test before.
  3. Comparison between the two translations and discussion among translators to resolve discrepancies and questions in between the original and reverse translated version. The research team members from the Futures Consciousness database can also be consulted to ensure the translations respect the original meanings.
  4. Validating the new translation with a test audience (ca. 300 respondents) and statistical analysis of the results

New, validated translations can be added to this database. The process of technically adding a new translation to the database does not take long. It should be noted, however, that even if the test can be translated into a new language, some of the functions of the database will always be only available in English (e.g. the entry page to the test, the result page, etc.).

Together with a translation of the Futures Consiousness test into a new language, we also would like to include a translation of the info sheet describing the five dimensions that test users receive together with their results at the end of the test.

2. MY SURVEYS

This is where you make and manage test groups and assign them the surveys you want them to respond to.

2.1 Create a new test group

When creating a test group you will be asked a series of specific questions. Completing them carefully allows for later comparisons with other data gathered in the database.

2.1.1 Group Key

Assign your group of participants a group key they will use when they enter the test. There are no specific requirements for the group key, but we recommend you to choose a key that:

      • Will be easily remembered or understood by your participants.
      • Is not easily spelled wrong.
      • Is original enough that there will be no other group with the same name.
      • Is not very long, we recommend max 15 characters.
      • Includes a year or a month you are carrying out the test; this allows you to use the same test name again later with a changing number.

If the programme claims “submission failed”, once you have filled the form, it means your group key was already taken. Please try another group key.

2.1.2 Select Question Set

With this function you select the language you want to use in the Futures Consciousness test (FC test). Some special question sets (e.g. the ones for teenagers) may include some extra questions in addition to the test. Unless you are sure to choose something else, select the basic FC test set in your required language.

2.1.3 Country of implementation

Select the country where you will be carrying out the survey. If there will be participants from several countries, please choose “international”. That will be first on the drop down menu.

2.1.4 Participants awareness of futures thinking

Please select a description suitable for your test group members’ awareness of future thinking:

      • Novice: people who are not familiar with future thinking, are not educated about it, nor are working in this field.
      • Educated: people who have participated in some course or classes on future thinking and are familiar with some basic concepts.
      • Advanced: people who have studied or work in the futures field or are otherwise well familiar with the field.
      • Mixed: group includes people with different levels of awareness of future thinking.

If you are uncertain of the level of you awareness amongst your group, choose “mixed”.

2.1.5 Participant background

Please select the most appropriate description of the participants background, whether they are students, general public, corporate representatives, etc. Please note there are options also for Mix of the above, Other and Do not know.

2.1.6 Purpose of testing

Please select whether the purpose of your testing is educational, research, business or other.

2.1.7 Show personal results to participants

Check this box if you want the test takers to see their own results. You can see how the results page would look like in here.
PLEASE NOTE: The respondents should be able to see their personal profiles only when they have an opportunity to discuss their results with an educator and/or they participate in a course or a lecture that will explain what the results mean. When using the test in research set-ups or pre-post testing, it usually is not advisable to have the results visible to the test takers.

Once you have filled the form, press SEND. If the programme says “submission failed” please try another group key. If the message “submission made” remains on your screen, click your mouse in another place on your screen and the message should go away.

2.2 Release your test for participants to respond

Once you created a new test group, it should show up in the “My Surveys” menu. Its status should say “DRAFT”. When you click on the “DRAFT” a new window opens with a headline “Test Group information”. Here you can

  • Edit test group information if needed
  • Add your own questions to the survey, by clicking “edit questions”. Please see “Configuring custom survey questions” below for more information.
  • Publish the survey for participants to respond by clicking “Ready”. Please note, that after pressing “Ready” the survey is released and cannot be changed or edited anymore. When a survey is released, it shows “OPEN” as its status in the menu.

2.3 Preview your survey

In a case you have no additional questions to the survey, the system will not show any preview of the FC test survey. You can see how the test looks like in here: futures consciousness survey questions.

2.4 Invite participants to take the test

Once you have created your survey, you will need to invite the respondents to take the test by giving them this address: https://fctest.utu.fi and the groupkey. The groupkey is the same for the whole group and it was assigned when you created a new survey.

2.5 Manage and review your surveys in the My Surveys menu

  • The number of respondents are shown in the menu. The system cannot identify which respondents have responded and which not.
  • You can order your test groups by clicking on the headlines in the menu: by Name, Owner, Test type, State or Number of respondents.
  • If you have many surveys, you can use the filter function on the upper right hand corner to filter groups by name, test type or status.
  • Please note: In some older surveys, the “Date created” and “Date closed” may be the same date. This is due to the feature of closing date being added to the system quite recently and hence the closing date of the old surveys has not been recorded.

2.6 Conduct pre-post test

Pre-post test can be used in a research that involves testing participants with a set interval of time between the first and second test, typically with some intervention or participative workshop staged in the interim.

If you want to carry out pre/post test, we recommend to create two different surveys, one to test the participants before and another one to make the test afterwards. To both of these surveys you should add a question where the respondents will fill a code that you can use to connect pre and post responses by a same person. This code should be created in a way that only they can do it and it does not allow personal recognition. It is important that the participants will be able to fill in exactly the same code the second time they fill in the survey.

For example, ask for two last letters of their first name, birthday date in two digits and the number of letters in their last name. So, for John Smith born 12 March the code would be hn125 (see examples here). If you have access to the names of the participants taking the test, the code can be made more anonymous by asking, for example, the two last letters of the name of their mother (or other parental figure), their birthday date in two digits and the last two numbers of their postal code.

Do remember to close the first survey before opening the second one so your respondents will not accidentally fill in the first survey twice.

PLEASE NOTE: If you decide to use a personal identifier that will enable yourself to identify the responses of individual participants, do remember to agree this with them beforehand.

2.7 Results from the test

2.7.1 Results from the group

A summary report of the aggregated results for the whole group open when clicking the name of the survey in the Dashboard view.

See example of summary report here. In the summary report there is a graph showing the average results of the group on each of the dimensions. Below that graph, there is also a bar chart that shows how many respondents have responded from 1 to 5 on each of the dimensions. When looking at this graph, please note that each of the dimensions is measured with 4 questions in the test. This means that the “n” in each of the sections of the bar is four times the actual number of respondents.

The dataset with the survey responses can also be requested from the test site administrators for research purposes. Please contact them through fcprofile@utu.fi. The data will be available in CSV format and does not include graphical information of the profiles. Note: a small sample size may result in excluded data in order to protect respondents anonymity.

2.7.2 Personal profiles of the individuals

The individual test takers will receive their own profiles at the end of the test, if you have selected that option (see point “Show personal results to participants”). The profile page will look like this. At the bottom of the page there is also a link to an info sheet with information about the five dimensions of Futures Consciousness and some exercises to improve it. If you wish your participants to be able to themselves compare their results to results made in the test at an earlier time, remember to ask them to save their personal profiles themselves. The personal profiles of individuals cannot be recovered later from the database.

Do remember to respect the right to privacy of your respondents!
    • Use the results from the aggregate summary report to plan your teaching or educational activity
    • Do not ask your participants to show their personal results to you or anyone else
    • Agree with them beforehand, if you use additional questions to form identifiers that will make it possible for you to recognize their responses
    • In research cases, do not use the CSV file to identify respondents, even if you would be able to do it based on their age, gender or education

2.8 Close your survey

Surveys that are no longer in use can be closed on the My Surveys page by first clicking on the “OPEN” status of the survey and then the “Close” button on the page that opens. We kindly ask you to close all surveys that are no longer in use.

3. ADDING QUESTIONS

Selecting “Question groups” in the side bar menu gets to a section where you can add your own questions to the survey. Please note, these questions need to be added when the survey is still a draft. Once you change the status to “OPEN”, additional survey items cannot be added.

3.1 Configure custom survey questions

Additional questions can be created in the following basic formats: multiple choice, rating scale, likert scale, dropdown and open questions. After you have configured a group of custom questions, you can save it, edit it and use it for multiple surveys. The number of additional questions is limited to 200. However, currently the system does not allow page breaks to the survey setup, so adding numerous question items may not be practical from the respondents’ point of view. For research set-ups including a large set of additional questions we recommend to use other software.

3.1.1 Additional questions / question groups to be used in many surveys

Additional questions to your surveys are easiest to manage through the menu title “Question groups” on the left of the main dashboard. Here you can create question groups that can be added to multiple surveys. Once you have created new questions or question groups, you can preview them in the screen. Please note, that the FC survey set questions will not be shown in this preview. The basic FC test survey looks like this.

3.1.2 Additional questions to a single survey

Questions to a single survey can also be added when editing a draft version of a survey through the My Surveys page. At the bottom of the Test Group information window or on the left hand menu title “Questions” you can create new questions. These questions, however, cannot be used again in other surveys.

Please note that the results of these additional questions will not be shown to the respondents, even if they receive their FC profiles. This data will also not be stored in our database in a format that would allow comparisons with other groups, besides your own. The data will be stored for one year after the group has been closed, during which time you should download it to your own data storage.

PLEASE NOTE: Due to European Union data protection legislation, the additional questions cannot be such that collect personal data like names, social security numbers, location data or specific physical, cultural or social characteristics that allow identifying individuals. If such questions are used, the administrators will be required to remove them.

4. EDIT PROFILE

Selecting “Edit Profile” in the side bar menu you get to a section where you can edit your own profile.

4.1 Edit your profile

PLEASE NOTE: There is unfortunately a bug in this section of the database, and all changes are not currently saved to the database. We are working on fixing this problem. If you need to change your contact information or send us your billing address, please do that by email to fcprofile@utu.fi.

Here you can edit the information submitted during registration. Please keep your contact information updated when you are moving on the projects, so the database administration can get in contact with you if any problems occur.