[Air-l] Web-based Surveys

[John B. White]

I find cold-fusion works wonderfully for a middleware solution.  The back end
can be almost any database product, so long as the server has the appropriate
drivers.  SPSS and SAS can both import tab delimited, ascii text, or in the case
of dbf or mdb files, directly query the datatabels themselves to bring the data
over analysis.

Using this method requires the researcher or a programer to understand HTML
forms, submission, and SQL.  Once you get those down, Cold-Fusion is a fairly
easy to learn product with its tag based format.  Homesite is the editor of
choice (even above Dreamweaver) although you can use other editors.  I find this
particularly useful when i want to use open ended questions.  You can capture
rich data in a memo field (in MS Access or other format) and supplement that
with more objective, Likert questions and other traditional survey instruments.

--JW

Ben Davidson wrote:

> Hi Lon,
>
> You ask about the practicalitites of designing online surveys with backend
> db facilities.  I've just spent a few weeks teaching myself asp/sql code
> (with substantial help from another listmember here!) to do just that.
>
> I'd be interested to hear more about the software you mention, but also
> skeptical as to its versatility.  It makes me think of Dreamweaver, which is
> an excellent tool for building websites, but the amount of times I have to
> go into the code and sort out problems leaves me thinking it would be
> impossible to rely on it alone.  I imagine the same applies to the tool
> you're aiming to use, and that it is likely to be useful if you are
> designing lots of web-surveys with back-end db. to speed up the process, but
> will not substitute for learning the code.
>
> You can see the results of my labours here:
> http://www.online-supervision.net/RegisterInterest.asp
>
> Ben
> (Available for hire!)
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Berquist at uts.cc.utexas.edu>
> To: <air-l at aoir.org>
> Sent: Friday, June 28, 2002 4:42 PM
> Subject: [Air-l] Web-based Surveys
>
> > A few months ago, there was some discussion about online
> surveys--particularly
> > regarding methodology and design.  My question is more practical--can
> anyone
> > recommend software to design a web-displayed survey that will easily
> capture
> > data into a backend database? I've looked at SPSS Data Entry (TM), but
> would
> > like to receive recommendations from others who have completed web-based
> > surveys and are pleased with the software they have worked with.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Lon Berquist
> > Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute
> > The University of Texas at Austin
> >
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> > Air-l at aoir.org
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> >
>
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