IASystem vs Qualtrics

IASystem is a course evaluation system for colleges and universities assessing teaching and learning. It supports online and paper evaluations, with administrators able to customize forms across an institution, college, or department. Instructors can add course-specific scaled or open-ended questions. Students can access evaluations from Canvas, Blackboard, and other LMS applications through an LTI tool; a web API supports campus integrations such as displaying evaluation links in a student portal. Reports include course summaries, combined summaries, administrative high/low and ratings summaries, survey lists, and data exports. Institution-specific reliability estimates, item-level deciles, and regression analyses help interpret and adjust evaluation results. IASystem uses HTTPS, role-based permissions, and server-side processing for calculations, validations, and reports. Reports and extracts omit student names, IDs, and login information. A one-term pilot license is listed as free. Annual rates are per enrolled student, from $1.59 a year for institutions with 20,000 or more FTE students; enrollment categories list a 5,404 USD one-time setup fee. Paper forms and scanning cost extra, with costs depending on usage.

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.