Support Charges

As of May 1, 2021, support for users of the VPR-supported Central LimeSurvey instance will change. Some support requests for administrative and teaching surveys will be charged a pro-rate of $125 / hour. Please see details below.

Support requests for surveys with MREB or HiREB protocol numbers

No change for research surveys. Support will continue to be provided to researchers free of charge. We will require you to provide the MREB or HiREB protocol number. 

HiREB Exemptions

Please contact surveys@rhpcs.mcmaster.ca to discuss if you have a HiREB exemption. Decisions for these are made on a case by case basis.


Support requests for surveys used by administrative and teaching units
(including student course assignments)

Surveys that are for administrative, teaching / learning will be charged for some support requests at a pro-rate of $125 / hour – please see list below. These jobs can only be undertaken when staff are not fully occupied with regular support work.


The following list is not exhaustive. If your LimeSurvey request falls outside of the above categories, please still contact us and we will let you know up front if you will be charged or not.   

No charge (all surveys including research, administrative, & teaching/learning):

Support requests that encompass the base use of the service:
  • The basic use of the Central LimeSurvey instance
    • Examples: LimeSurvey account, ethics questions, LimeSurvey Hub documentation, and questions specific to the Central LimeSurvey instance (for example: how many responses per survey)
  • Basic features that users need but can’t access given security setting
    • For example: survey group collaboration, inserting code
  • Backend / Technical Issues as a result of our implementing upgrades or security fixes, clean-up of the instances

Charge (for administrative & teaching/learning surveys only)

Support requests that encompass additional functionality
  • Survey formatting and logic
  • Questions about the general functionality of LimeSurvey software (not specific to the Central Instance)
  • Questions where online documentation already exists (generally via the LimeSurvey manual), including importing & exporting surveys/questions/question groups, survey permissions
  • Creating or building code
  • Customization of survey themes or templates
  • Recovering deleted surveys or data due to user error
  • Consulting with clients & providing workshops
  • General troubleshooting
  • Offline surveys

No support

RHPCS is not resourced to provide support for the following:
  • Survey design
  • Survey testing
  • Survey data analysis