High-Resolution Course Feedback vs Qualtrics

High-Resolution Course Feedback (HRCF) is a free web service that gives instructors weekly anonymous student feedback about class mood. Each week it randomly selects students to provide feedback, with the aim of gathering representative responses while reducing survey fatigue. Students receive survey requests in their inboxes through unique links. Four default questions ask what students liked, what remains confusing, what the teaching team should know, and for a course experience rating on a five-point scale. Instructors can add questions for topics they want to address that week. Surveys open Monday at noon PT, reminders go out Thursday at noon PT, and the instructor digest arrives Sunday at 4pm PT. The digest includes participation rates, responses grouped by question with visualizations, and a graph showing class mood over time. HRCF says it does not track which student submitted which feedback. To get started, users create an account with an institutional email, submit a course survey form, and send a school profile page and generated course ID for review. A roster, custom questions, and admin list can be prepared while approval is pending.

Qualtrics provides survey tools and an experience-management platform called XM Data & AI, which combines experience data with human context to support decisions and outcomes. Its free Qualtrics Surveys account is for one user and allows three active surveys, 30 questions per survey and 500 total responses. It includes skip, display and branch logic. The Strategic Research plan costs $420.00 per month, billed as $5,040 annually, for 1,000 responses shared across users; it also supports unlimited users and surveys, and includes 23 question types. A 30-day Strategic Research trial provides access to most premium features, with some restrictions; without an upgrade, it downgrades to the free account. Paid plans include more than 20 guided research solutions and advanced analysis such as crosstabs, statistical tools and generative-AI video summaries. Surveys support more than 70 languages, while dashboards support 24. Data exports include CSV, TSV, Excel and SPSS, among other formats. Qualtrics offers API access. Its Strategic Research Custom plan is for enterprise organizations needing higher response volumes, with pricing based on interactions and 5,000 or more responses.