Many Community-based organisations and Social justice organisations rely on free and open-source tools to support their work. Tools like Google Forms are readily available and easy to use for collecting public data. A Google form can be shared on websites and social media for access by anyone who wishes to submit information. However, the open-access nature of Google Forms often attracts spam submissions that can compromise data quality and waste resources. To minimise the likelihood of spam submissions, we recommend that CBOs and SJOs implement the following simple settings on their Google Forms:
- Require users to sign in to their Google account to fill out and submit the form. This can be achieved by enabling any of the following settings:
“General access > Responder view” is set to “Restricted”
To access this setting, simply click on the hamburger menu at the top right section of the form and change the responder access to “Restricted.” This will force users to sign in to their Google accounts to request access from the owner of the form.
The form has a file upload question.
Adding a question that requires users to upload a file forces them to sign in to their Google account and upload the file to their drive first which may reduce spam submissions.
“Collect email addresses” is set to “Verified”
Note: This setting will capture the users’ Gmail/Google email address. CBOs and SJOs should ensure that they implement measures to protect the email addresses collected from unathosied access and misuse.
“Allow response editing” is enabled.
“Limit to 1 response” is enabled.
“Send responders a copy of their response” is enabled.
Forcing users to sign in to their Google accounts ensures that only preauthorised people are allowed to fill out and submit the form, therefore reducing spam submissions. However, there’s the risk of wasting time since every user must be granted access manually via email. It may also reduce the number of form responses by restricting participation from those who are unable to access their Google accounts at the time of form submission.