An Anonymous survey is open to the public, i.e. no CSNS account is required, and the system does not keep any information about the people who took the survey.

A Recorded survey requires the users to log in CSNS to take the survey. The system only records whether a user has taken a survey or not, but does not link a survey response to a particular user. A Recored survey prevents a user from taking the survey multiple times to influence the results, and at the same time it still preserve anonymity so users can share their honest opinions.

A Named survey requires the users to log in CSNS to take the survey. The system records the identity of the user for each survey response. Named surveys may not be suitable for collecting opinions, but they can be useful for things like voting, class pre-registration, and so on.