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Research Database

Wed, 2008-01-09 10:55 — Anonymous

Summary

  1. An online database to store and manipulate data for social science research
  2. Each installation supports multiple surveys
  3. Web-based interface for respondents to take surveys online
  4. Configure this system for the current 3 questionnaires
  5. Enter existing data collected into the system
  6. Provide documentation and training on how to configure the system for new questionnaires and for updating current questionnaires
  7. Provide consulting, maintenance and quality control during all stages on the contract

Customisable

  • The web interface is fully customisable to match your organisation's logos, styles and colours.
  • Each survey can be made available and responses can be collected in multiple languages.
  • The system is pre-configured with standard languages, states, countries and regions but these can be adjusted.

Reports

  • Each response can be viewed
  • Survey overview report summarising answers with pie and bar charts as appropriate
  • Question overview report showing visual summaries as well as a range of statistical summaries.
    • All answers are also shown with a coding if set

Survey structure

  • Each survey consistents of many questions.
  • Each question can contains sub-questions up to 4 levels deep.
  • Sub-questions can be displayed indented or as tables.

Search

  • Within the answer texts
    • Limit by country, region or date range

Natural-language

  • Every answer is analysed and indexed for fast-searching.
  • The most common words and phrases are shown for each survey, question and individual response.

Approach and Methods

Data Compatibility

  1. The system provide a power search facility – allowing for a free-text search of all responses given, for all or specific questionnaires.
  2. The system can provide statistics on answers on particular questions or groups of questions.
    1. Statistics include graphing options (histogram, area, pie, etc.)




    1. Graphics and charts can be copied and pasted into Microsoft Word and Outlook for sharing data.
  1. The system supports the output of all or selected data in the following formats:
    1. CSV (suitable for loading into Microsoft Excel and SPSS)
    2. XML (suitable for a wide range of data processing techniques)
    3. HTML (suitable for copying and pasting into Microsoft Word, the IDEA web site, sharing with partners and the media)

Statistical Reports and Processing

  1. It is our understanding that the primary focus of the web site is to provide a central location to collect and store the relevant survey reports.
  2. Participating researchers are already familiar with industry standard statistical tools such as Excel and SPSS which provide an almost limitless range of features and statistical reports.
  3. While the online system will be able to generate reports giving information such as distributions, frequency, means, medians etc., advanced analysis is better performed on the local computer. This removes the need for complicated and expensive server-side programming, and for researchers to have to learn how to use an entirely new system. Instead, they simply load the lastest data into their favourite program and perform the analysis locally.

Web-based Access

  1. The entire system is available via web access, including the ability to:
    • create new questionnaires
    • add, remove and update questions (including subquestions and questions with responses displayed in a grid format)
    • specify appropriate responses to answers
    • view answers to particular questions or groups of questions
    • view answers from particular countries
    • view answers from particular respondents
    • search questions and answers for particular words and phrases
  2. For security the system is separated into several access levels:
    1. Respondents, who can:
      • View available questionnaires
      • Answer and save questions
    2. Outside researchers, who can additionally:
      • Browse responses to particular questions
      • Search data
      • Export/download data
    3. Internal research, who can additionally:
      • Edit questionnaires
      • Edit questions and appropriate answers
      • Create accounts for respondents and researchers
  3. Each section requires a username and password for access.
  4. The web application is compatible with XHTML 4.0 and uses the cascading stylesheet (CSS) 2.0 standard. This means that the pages are fully compatible with Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera and Apple's Safari web browsers, and is operating system independent.

Direct Database Access

  1. All data recorded by the system is also available for direct database querying and manipulation via a SQL database interface (the industry standard package called phpMyAdmin)
  2. Both IDEA staff and outside consultants can be provided with security privileges to access and manipulate this data directly.

Platform and requirements

  1. The system will be developed using Java web application technology, with data storage being performed under the Java Data Objects (JDO) standard which supports a wide range of databases including the open-source MySQL database as well as Microsoft’s SQL Server.
  2. Both MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server are capable of storing and indexing many hundreds of megabytes without performance issues. This would allows for tens of thousands of questionnaire responses.
  3. The web application will be built with the Jakarta Struts standard which allows for abstraction between web layout and logic. This ensures flexibility in changing the layout of the web site, as well as ease in performing testing on all components.

Hosting

  1. The platform being used for development is able to run on both Windows and Linux systems. Although IDEA has existing Windows servers available, it is recommended that the application be hosted on Transmachina’s Linux server. Not only will this reduce the setup, license and maintenance costs (the environment is already configured), but it will also mitigate potential future problems with hardware and server upgrades at IDEA.
  2. The nature of web applications means that cross-linking can be performed independent of physical location. Therefore, there will be no problem linking from IDEA’s web site, and any future Political parties reference sites.

Due to the comprehensive nature of the questionnaires, the responses are recorded on a question-by-question basis. This means that respondents can return to the site at a later date and continue the survey from where they left off.

Summary

  1. An online database to store and manipulate data for social science research
  2. Each installation supports multiple surveys
  3. Web-based interface for respondents to take surveys online
  4. Configure this system for the current 3 questionnaires
  5. Enter existing data collected into the system
  6. Provide documentation and training on how to configure the system for new questionnaires and for updating current questionnaires
  7. Provide consulting, maintenance and quality control during all stages on the contract

Customisable

  • The web interface is fully customisable to match your organisation's logos, styles and colours.
  • Each survey can be made available and responses can be collected in multiple languages.
  • The system is pre-configured with standard languages, states, countries and regions but these can be adjusted.

Reports

  • Each response can be viewed
  • Survey overview report summarising answers with pie and bar charts as appropriate
  • Question overview report showing visual summaries as well as a range of statistical summaries.
    • All answers are also shown with a coding if set

Survey structure

  • Each survey consistents of many questions.
  • Each question can contains sub-questions up to 4 levels deep.
  • Sub-questions can be displayed indented or as tables.

Search

  • Within the answer texts
    • Limit by country, region or date range

Natural-language

  • Every answer is analysed and indexed for fast-searching.
  • The most common words and phrases are shown for each survey, question and individual response.

Approach and Methods

Data Compatibility

  1. The system provide a power search facility – allowing for a free-text search of all responses given, for all or specific questionnaires.
  2. The system can provide statistics on answers on particular questions or groups of questions.
    1. Statistics include graphing options (histogram, area, pie, etc.)




    1. Graphics and charts can be copied and pasted into Microsoft Word and Outlook for sharing data.
  1. The system supports the output of all or selected data in the following formats:
    1. CSV (suitable for loading into Microsoft Excel and SPSS)
    2. XML (suitable for a wide range of data processing techniques)
    3. HTML (suitable for copying and pasting into Microsoft Word, the IDEA web site, sharing with partners and the media)

Statistical Reports and Processing

  1. It is our understanding that the primary focus of the web site is to provide a central location to collect and store the relevant survey reports.
  2. Participating researchers are already familiar with industry standard statistical tools such as Excel and SPSS which provide an almost limitless range of features and statistical reports.
  3. While the online system will be able to generate reports giving information such as distributions, frequency, means, medians etc., advanced analysis is better performed on the local computer. This removes the need for complicated and expensive server-side programming, and for researchers to have to learn how to use an entirely new system. Instead, they simply load the lastest data into their favourite program and perform the analysis locally.

Web-based Access

  1. The entire system is available via web access, including the ability to:
    • create new questionnaires
    • add, remove and update questions (including subquestions and questions with responses displayed in a grid format)
    • specify appropriate responses to answers
    • view answers to particular questions or groups of questions
    • view answers from particular countries
    • view answers from particular respondents
    • search questions and answers for particular words and phrases
  2. For security the system is separated into several access levels:
    1. Respondents, who can:
      • View available questionnaires
      • Answer and save questions
    2. Outside researchers, who can additionally:
      • Browse responses to particular questions
      • Search data
      • Export/download data
    3. Internal research, who can additionally:
      • Edit questionnaires
      • Edit questions and appropriate answers
      • Create accounts for respondents and researchers
  3. Each section requires a username and password for access.
  4. The web application is compatible with XHTML 4.0 and uses the cascading stylesheet (CSS) 2.0 standard. This means that the pages are fully compatible with Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla, Opera and Apple's Safari web browsers, and is operating system independent.

Direct Database Access

  1. All data recorded by the system is also available for direct database querying and manipulation via a SQL database interface (the industry standard package called phpMyAdmin)
  2. Both IDEA staff and outside consultants can be provided with security privileges to access and manipulate this data directly.

Platform and requirements

  1. The system will be developed using Java web application technology, with data storage being performed under the Java Data Objects (JDO) standard which supports a wide range of databases including the open-source MySQL database as well as Microsoft’s SQL Server.
  2. Both MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server are capable of storing and indexing many hundreds of megabytes without performance issues. This would allows for tens of thousands of questionnaire responses.
  3. The web application will be built with the Jakarta Struts standard which allows for abstraction between web layout and logic. This ensures flexibility in changing the layout of the web site, as well as ease in performing testing on all components.

Hosting

  1. The platform being used for development is able to run on both Windows and Linux systems. Although IDEA has existing Windows servers available, it is recommended that the application be hosted on Transmachina’s Linux server. Not only will this reduce the setup, license and maintenance costs (the environment is already configured), but it will also mitigate potential future problems with hardware and server upgrades at IDEA.
  2. The nature of web applications means that cross-linking can be performed independent of physical location. Therefore, there will be no problem linking from IDEA’s web site, and any future Political parties reference sites.

Due to the comprehensive nature of the questionnaires, the responses are recorded on a question-by-question basis. This means that respondents can return to the site at a later date and continue the survey from where they left off.