Math Essentials 11 Implementation Workshop 2006

Online Voting: Instructions for Creating On-Line Form

Note:To begin the process of online voting you will need to ensure that you have access to useable web space.

  • The first step to creating an online vote is to log into your website and open a new page in MS FrontPage. Be sure to name the page when you create it.
  • You will now need to insert a form. Select Insert, Form.
  • Click enter a few times to move the submit/reset buttons down.
  • Type the question you wish to have answered. For example, “How many years have you had a drivers license?”
  • You can now insert a Drop-Down Box inside your form. The following screen should appear.

  • Once you have inserted the Drop-Down box double click on the pull-down portion of the form. A new screen should appear titled “Drop-Down Box Properties”.
  • Name the Field for the Drop Down Box (i.e. years_driving)

Drop down form field properties

  • Now chose “Add” to add options to the pull down menu. (These choices will serve as options to the driving question.) In the choice line type Please Select and select the Initial State option and click OK. This will take you back to the Drop-Down Box Properties screen; leave this screen open you are going to use it again.
  • Note: The previous steps will place the words “Please Select” before the options. You can include other directions if necessary.

  • Now that you have added directions to the drop-down menu you will need to add options for students to choose from. From Drop-Down Box Properties screen chose Add …
  • Now the Add Choice screen should appear. You will now need to type “1 – less than five years” in the choice line, select the Specify Value Box, and type the number 1 in the line below. Note the initial state is not selected. The initial state is for the directions not a choice of votes.
  • Note: Assigning numbers or simple text to your choices makesit is easy to sort in an Excel file when your data is complied.
  • Once you have typed the question click ok and repeat the process the next choice “More than 5 years but less than 10”. You should assign this choice a value of 2.
  • Repeat the process once more for a final choice of “More than 10 years”. Assign this choice a value of three. Click OK once you have completed adding your choices.

  • Now right-click within the form (not on the drop down menu) and choose Form Properties. This screen allows you to choose the location you want the results of the voting to be sent to.

  • Note: If you select E-mail address the results will also be sent to an e-mail account one result at a time. Depending on the application of on-line voting this may make compiling the results more difficult and time consuming.
  • By selecting the File Name option all results will be saved in a file on you web space in CSV format. I recommend choosing this option.
  • You have now created an on-line vote, save your results.

Accessing Your Data

  • Once you have posted your on-line survey and people have voted you will need to analyze the results. To do this you will first need to open the file that you had your data sent to. If you use the default settings the data will be sent to a file in the private folder of your web site titled form_results.csv
  • Access your web site, File, Edit with Front Page; go to folder view; open private folder.
  • Open the file that contains the results of your data. The results in this MS Excel file will be listed by numbers. These numbers will correspond with the numbers you assigned the choices in the drop-down menu.
  • Do a File, save as. Save to My Documents or Desktop as an Excel Workbook. Close the online version. Open your saved file.
  • You may now sort your data. You may wish to label the choicesbefore sorting the data. For example, the data below represents results of voting on the driving question. I have labeled three cells that correspond to the options in my drop-down menu.
  • In the cell across from the vote options you can use a formula to count the number of results in each category.

Countif Window (Function selection)


  • To count the data you will use a formula called countif. This formula is set up to count the occurrences of a specified number in selected cells.
  • To create the formula you will use what Excel refers to as a Range and Criteria. The range is simply the cell you wish to sort through and the criteria are the desired outcomes. For example, the Range in the screen to the right would be A1: A12 and instead of typing the range you can use your mouse to highlight it. The criteria for the “less than 5 years” option would be 1 because this is the value we assigned this option.
  • So, in the cell right of the “less than 5 years” option, type =countif(A1:A12, 1)
  • This formula will count the number of 1’s that occur in the specified cells.
  • You can repeat this process for the other options by simply changing the criteria.
  • Once you have organized your data you can use it to create multiple visual representations such as a bar graph, pie chart, etc.