GESIS AppKit FAQs

The GESIS AppKit offers you a comprehensive data collection infrastructure for survey data. It includes an interactive dashboard for study design and participant management as well as the GESIS SMART app for Android and iOS devices, which your study participants can install via the Google Playstore or the Appstore.

The GESIS AppKit enables the implementation of various mobile survey designs. A central feature is the option to create complex time-based playout plans. The GESIS AppKit thus supports the implementation of intensive longitudinal studies in the sense of Ambulatory Assessment, Experience Sampling or Ecological Momentary Assessments. It is also suitable for intervention studies.

The basic features of the GESIS AppKit are free of charge for non-commercial academic research. Additional GESIS services such as individual consultations or archiving of data are offered to the community at self-cost prices. The GESIS AppKit can also be extended to meet your specific research requirements as part of research collaborations or as a fee-based service.

Do you have requests for additional functions? Please let us know! If you have available funds for the further development of the GESIS AppKit and are interested in a research cooperation, please do not hesitate to contact us. In addition, we are always happy to receive a note on Gitlab or alternatively by e-mail if something is unclear when using the GESIS AppKit or incorrectly described in the manual.

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If you use the GESIS AppKit, we appreciate your acknowledgment of our work by citing the research software in the following form:
Wieland, M., Simon, L., Kohne, J., Rahnke-Otto, L. (2024). GESIS AppKit - Documentation & User Manual. Available at gesiscss.github.io/AppKit_Documentation/. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14056168.

When using the service for the first time, you must register via the login page. To do this, click on the text field “Don't have an account yet? Register here!”. If you belong to the authorized user group, you will receive an activation link within 1-3 working days, which you can use to set your personal password and then log in.

Once you have successfully registered, you can sign in at the login page with your email address and password.

Simply click “Forgot your password?” at the login page and enter the email address of your user account. We will then send you a link to reset your password shortly.

After registering, you will usually receive an activation email from the GESIS AppKit service team within 1-3 working days. Please also check your spam folder if you do not find the message in your inbox. If you have not received an activation email after more than 3 working days, do not hesitate to contact us by email.

The activation link valid for 48 hours. If the error message appears that your activation link is no longer valid, reset your password on the login page. You will then automatically be sent a link to create a password.

After successful login you can create your study by clicking the button "Create project". The user manual contains all the important information and step-by-step instructions to make it as easy as possible for you to get started with the GESIS AppKit.

You can create an unlimited number of projects and surveys in your GESIS AppKit account. If you are planning particularly extensive studies (number of participants > 500 or  survey period > 2 weeks) as well as intensive use of storage-intensive features such as photo upload, please contact us in advance via email to clarify capacity utilization and special requirements (which may be subject to a fee).

You can choose both the project color and an individual study logo under the 'Layout' tab. Although you can choose any color here, we recommend that you do not use very bright colors. The logo will be displayed to participants in the app at the top of the start screen, the tile image of the app will not change.

Not only the questionnaires, but also most in-app texts, such as welcome and information texts (see 'In-App Texts' tab), can be customized.

You can include items with different scales as well as a combination of several types in your questionnaires. You can use Likert scales with customizable value ranges, single and multiple-choice questions, number questions, free text fields and photo upload prompts.

The “Continue-Stop” question type enables simple dichotomous branching. Formulate the text accordingly, for example as a yes-no question. Further filters are currently not supported.

Yes, automated ID forwarding in the “external study” item type allows surveys with the GESIS AppKit for instance to be integrated into designs that are carried out with other tools.

Once you have created items, you can publish them either individually or as a container bundled with various playout plans.

In the 'Send' tab, you can specify when which questionnaire should be sent to which group of participants. You can select 'Push now', 'When participant signs into app' or 'At specific moment(s) in time'. With the latter option, you can also specify when a questionnaire should be sent for the first time and whether it should be sent at a (quasi-)randomized or fixed interval.

You can save the participants' answers as a .csv file at any time using the 'Export' tab. The 'Overview' tab also shows you which participants have already logged in via a dashboard.

To log in to the GESIS Smart App and participate in your study, study participants need an access code. You can assign both general and personal login codes under the tab “Subjects > Access code”. When sending the codes, make sure to use a font with unambiguous characters. Recommended fonts include Fira Code and Source Code Pro.

A general login code allows you to give an anonymous group of people access to your study. If you want to distinguish several anonymous groups (e.g. “CLASS5” and “CLASS10”), you can create multiple general access codes.

Personal login codes give you the opportunity to distribute personalized codes to known study participants. This allows you to link previous participant data, e.g. from a panel study, with the data to be newly collected. Make sure you inform your participants of this link when they give their consent for data protection purposes.

If you have opted for the direct allocation of personal participation codes, you can check your own documentation. If you have opted to use general access codes, there is no way to track the automatic allocation of personal participation codes. You should therefore advise participants not to log out and to keep the code in a safe place if they need to log in again. In principle, participants should remain logged in for the duration of the entire study in order to receive notifications from the app.

You can view all participants as well as their personal participation codes, general access codes and the respective time of registration in the 'Participants > Monitoring' tab.

The GESIS AppKit enables data protection-compliant collection and processing of survey data in accordance with the GDPR. The platform offers technical measures for pseudonymization as well as secure storage and management of data. Further matters are within your responsibility as a researcher.

As a researcher, you are responsible for obtaining informed consent from participants and managing the data you collect in accordance with the legal requirements. This includes, in particular, setting retention periods, ensuring participants' rights (e.g. information, deletion) and handling personal information responsibly. In addition to the general legal provisions, in particular the GESIS AppKit terms and conditions must be complied with.

The collected data is temporarily stored on GESIS servers in Germany. Researchers are required to export and save collected data immediately. GESIS reserves the right to delete survey data at any time. However, researchers will be informed prior to deletion.

The participants' data is transferred in encrypted form from the smartphone to the GESIS server (encryption in transit). Only the researchers responsible for the study have access to the collected data.

The provider stores the collected data of a survey project for a period of 12 months from the date of the survey, unless the customer requests its deletion.

The customer remains the sole owner of the data and content in all cases. He can therefore demand the return of individual or all data or deletion at any time, in particular after termination of the contract, without the provider having a right of retention. Excluded from this are the backup copies that the provider creates for the customer's own security in the event of data loss and retains for a period of 12 months.

If you require a signed version of the Data Processing Agreement pursuant to Art. 28(3) GDPR (DPA), please feel free to contact us via email to discuss an individual solution.

You can download GESIS Smart from the Playstore and from the Appstore.

You need a smartphone with internet access. The app is available for iOS in the App Store and for Android in the Play Store. When uploading each new version, we ensure that the app is compatible with the two latest versions of the operating system.

This app is used in scientific studies by a number of research groups. You can only use the app if you have already been part of such a study by other means. If you have any questions about your code, please contact the person responsible for your study directly using the contact details provided in the consent process.

A common error is the confusion of upper- and lower-case letters. Therefore, please note: The access code consists either of a combination of numbers of any length and only upper-case letters (e.g. GROUP1) or an eight-digit combination of numbers and only lower-case letters (e.g. ya8qicex). Also check whether a space has accidentally been added after the login code and remove it.

Try logging out and logging in again with your personal participation code. Make a note of the code immediately after logging in for the first time and keep it in a safe place. (You can view the code at any time in the app via the 'Your participation code' button at the bottom left). If the problem persists, please get in touch with the contact person for your study and, if possible, attach screenshots to describe the issue.

When you create a new survey in the ‘Send’ tab, please note that you must click ‘Save’ in the bottom left corner. To publish the survey, then click ‘Publish’ in the top right corner. When you return to the ‘Send’ tab, you will see the surveys you have created along with their status (‘Saved’, ‘Published’, ‘Canceled’).

Currently, however, a maximum of 99 surveys are displayed in the overview. One of the next updates will include page navigation (‘Next’ button) so that all surveys will be visible. Until then, we ask that you refrain from creating more than 99 surveys within a single project. Otherwise, it may appear as if existing surveys are disappearing. If this is already the case for you and you would like to view or cancel surveys that exceed the 99 limit and are therefore not visible to you, please contact us via email.