Microsoft Forms—a new formative assessment and survey tool in Office 365 Education
Today, we are pleased to announce the availability of Microsoft Forms for our Office 365 Education customers. Forms is the result of direct feedback from educators that they want to have a quizzing function with Office 365 Education. Educators told us they need an easy way to assess student progress on an ongoing basis. They also told us they want an assessment solution that will save them time, help differentiate instruction for all students and provide quiz takers with real-time personalized feedback.
We designed Forms to be super easy so that anyone could confidently create a form and easily see results as they come in. Forms lets anyone with an Office 365 Education account create and/or respond to quizzes. What makes Forms unique and so valuable for educators is the automatic grading and in-quiz feedback functionality. Automatic grading does exactly what the name implies and greatly reduces the time spent grading. In-quiz feedback is a feature that lets quiz authors personalize messages depending how a student answers a question. For example, if a student answers a question incorrectly they may get a message, such as: “The answer is incorrect. I suggest you review chapter four as this will be on the final.”
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How Forms works
When an instructor wants to assess how well the students understand a given topic, they can quickly author a quiz directly from their desktop or mobile web browser. The instructor simply determines the questions they would like to ask and then chooses an answer type, such as multiple choice, text or a rating. The Forms authors can then send a link or QR code to quiz takers or embed the quiz into a web page, blog or Learning Management System (LMS), and recipients can complete the quiz on phones, tablets or PCs. And with the real-time feedback in Forms, the instructor can very quickly see where the class may need additional instruction or could advance more rapidly. Forms responses can also be exported to Microsoft Excel for richer analyses.
Forms is a great quizzing platform because quiz question types are unique. Quiz authors can also indicate the correct answer(s) while authoring quiz questions and they can enter feedback for each answer.
Quizzes aren’t the only scenario where Forms can be used. Because it is so flexible and easy to customize, Forms can be used to create surveys, requisitions, assessments and so much more. For example, a school teacher may want to get feedback from a student’s parents on their child’s study habits.
Forms is available to Office 365 Education customers today. If you are an existing Office 365 for Education customer, you can locate the tile for Forms in My Apps on the Office 365 App Launcher. New customers will see the Forms tile appear directly within the App Launcher and need not take any additional actions to use Forms right away. Anyone with an Office 365 school ID can go to forms.office.com today to create their first form and provide feedback on Forms.
Frequently asked questions
Q. Will Forms be available in all markets and languages?
A. Yes, Forms will be available in all of the Office 365 Education customer markets and languages.
Q. When will Forms be available to customers outside of Office 365 Education?
A. We are exploring possibilities but do not have any details to share at this time.
Q. My school already has Office 365; does that mean we’re getting Forms?
A. That depends. Forms is only available to those schools that subscribe to Office 365 Education or Office Education E5. In some instances, schools opt for another Office 365 subscription type that does not offer Forms at this time.
Q. Can I embed Forms into a web page?
A. Yes. Forms can be easily embedded into web pages via the embed code provided in the Send tab in the upper-right hand corner of the Forms page.
Q. How do I get started with and learn more about Forms?
A. Create a form or quiz with questions, define settings, share your form and check the results—in a few easy steps:
- Sign in and create a new survey form or quiz form.
- Adjust settings for your form.
- Share your form with others.
- Check your form results.
Also see Copy a form and Delete a form for more information.
Q. Is there a Forms mobile app?
A: No. Forms are available through desktop and mobile browsers, and users can both create and complete forms within the browser. This ensures that the widest number of people can reply to your Form without having to download and use a separate app.
Q: Who can reply to the Forms I create?
A: Anyone can reply to forms, including those within your school as well as external users. When you create a form, you can choose to either limit its availability to within your school (i.e., all those with your school ID) or you can choose to allow anyone with a link (no sign-in required) to access it. External uses might be things like collecting homework habit surveys from parents.
Q. What are the browser requirements for Forms?
A: Forms is optimized for Internet Explorer 10+, Edge, Firefox (latest version), Chrome (latest version) and for Android (latest version) and iOS (latest version) web browsers.
Q. Is Forms HIPAA and BAA compliant?
A. Yes, data in Forms follows the standard Office 365 Compliance Framework and belongs to Compliance Category C as outlined in the framework.
Q. Are FERPA and BAA protections in place?
A. Yes, Forms meets FERPA and BAA protection standards.
Q. Where (geographically) is the data stored?
A. Forms data is stored on servers located in the United States.
Q. Can Forms be disabled?
A. Yes. Administrators can turn off Forms by visiting the User Management tab in your school’s Office 365 Admin Center and then follow these easy steps:
- Select All users and click Edit.
- Go to Step 3, Licenses.
- Uncheck Microsoft Forms for different SKU.