[Air-l] Any opinions about Opinio web survey software

[Ulf-Dietrich Reips]

Hi Rowin, all,

At 15:01 Uhr +0100 5.7.2006, Rowin Young wrote:
>I would also be very interested in seeing the 
>results of your research and am looking forward 
>to them being announced. 
>
I'll be happy to send them.

>I also wondered how many (if any) of the tools 
>you've looked at use the IMS Question and Test 
>Interoperability specification 
>(http://www.imsglobal.org/question/index.html), 
>an open standard mainly being used in 
>eassessment but which can also be used for 
>surveys.
>
We are aware of the IMS standards (and have used 
an earlier version in our own e-learning 
development, see e.g. 
http://www.methpsy.unizh.ch/mesosworld/archive/standards/STD-QTI.html 
and 
http://www.methpsy.unizh.ch/mesosworld/archive/leitfaden/ulf/assessmentgen.html 
), but the IMS has a number of impracticalities 
and inconsistencies. In particular, none of the 
research on Web survey and Web experiment 
methodology has found its way into the standards 
(e.g., certain types of errors happen more easily 
with some response types or rendering types than 
others, so it is better to offer the latter in a 
tool). Also, the psychology and reality of Web 
surveying is not appropriately reflected in the 
standards. For example, the frequency of how 
often a question type is needed in creating Web 
surveys ought to be reflected in a tool's 
usability and selection of question types, but 
the standards are indifferent in this respect. 
Furthermore, response-type and rendering may 
theoretically ideal to be handled independently 
(as aimed for in the standards), but this is not 
the psychological reality for responders to and 
creators of questionnaires. They experience and 
prefer to handle both as a conglomerate. We can 
discuss further details off-list, if you like.
However, we will consider the IMS in terms of the 
total picture of question types, layout types and 
response options etc. available in tools.

Best --u
-- 
PD Dr. Ulf-Dietrich Reips
                   
	    President, Society for Computers in Psychology (http://scip.ws)
	    Editor, International Journal of 
Internet Science (http://www.ijis.net)
                     Universität Zürich
	    Psychologisches Institut		 
                     Rämistr. 62
	    8001 Zürich, Switzerland

iScience portal (http://psych-iscience.unizh.ch/)