Forms from Tiddlers

[dickon]

Hi. following on from my intro about the TiddlyManual project the
other day (novel manualization of psychiatry/psychotherapy
interventions), I have two more specific and technical questions.

First, I'd like to be able to make forms out of a tiddler so that the
user can type information straight in without having to switch to the
edit mode (whcih would scare the most technophobic therapists!) - I am
sure this can be done, but I can't work it out - sorry.

Then, I'd like to be able to sort out a simple algorithm to "score" a
particular questionnaire called the SDQ (Strengths and difficulties
Questionnaire - http://www.sdqinfo.com/questionnaires/english/c3.pdf).
This is a very simple and mercifully short questionnaire that is
surprisingly valid at highlighting clinical vulnerability in children,
and has been tried out on zillions of children worldwide; it also
seems to pick up clinically-useful CHANGE over time (helping us
measure whether we are doing any good or not).

The Q's are divided into a number of sub-sets that address specific
symptom areas (Emotional symptoms, Conduct problems, Hyperactivity,
Peer problems, and Pro-social features) and each Question is scored
Not, Somewhat or Certainly true... so it is a question of assigning
certain scores to certain tick-boxes (see the scoring system here:
http://www.sdqinfo.com/ScoreSheets/e2.pdf) , and also assigning
certain sets of tick-boxes to the different symptom areas. Ideally
I'd generate a score at the end that consists of sub-scores within
each of the symptom areas mentioned above.

I can make the boxes (see http://burningchrome.com:8090/bags/IMP/tiddlers.wiki
and search SDQ to see where I've got to...), but getting into the
further details required to generate a score defeats me!

Best wishes,

Dickon Bevington

[Mark S.]

Following some help from Eric Shulman, I wrote myself a routine that
collects information from an HTML form, runs it through a format
string, and places it somewhere inside of an existing tiddler.

This kind of routine could probably be modified to create a brand new
tiddler with questionnaire results. I haven't posted it anywhere
(except once somewhere in this forum) but I could again if there is
interest.

You would have to rewrite your quiz as a real HTML form, though. You
use checkboxes throughout, but radio buttons would be more
appropriate. As it is, someone could be simultaneously Nervous and
Certainly Not Nervous. You know, I've had days like that.

In order to be useful for later processing, you would want to think
about how the results are organized. I'm guessing that putting each
answer into a slice would be most appropriate

q1: 1 <answer is 1 to 3>
q2: 3
...

In any event, the final results need to be in some format that TW can
easily grab. There are also sections, data fields and the <data>
plugin, but to me this seems most easy to edit any mistakes.

And of course, each questionnaire would be tagged as "SDQResults" (or
something).

Then you could write, or have written a routine in a tiddler that
would process each tiddler, and apply whatever process you want
(sorry, I didn't look at your PDF).

Just some thoughts,

-- Mark

On Apr 15, 4:11 pm, dickon <dickon.beving...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi.  following on from my intro about the TiddlyManual project the
> other day (novel manualization of psychiatry/psychotherapy
> interventions), I have two more specific and technical questions.
>
> First, I'd like to be able to make forms out of a tiddler so that the
> user can type information straight in without having to switch to the
> edit mode (whcih would scare the most technophobic therapists!) - I am
> sure this can be done, but I can't work it out - sorry.
>
> Then, I'd like to be able to sort out a simple algorithm to "score" a
> particular questionnaire called the SDQ (Strengths and difficulties

> Questionnaire -http://www.sdqinfo.com/questionnaires/english/c3.pdf).

> This is a very simple and mercifully short questionnaire that is
> surprisingly valid at highlighting clinical vulnerability in children,
> and has been tried out on zillions of children worldwide; it also
> seems to pick up clinically-useful CHANGE over time (helping us
> measure whether we are doing any good or not).
>
> The Q's are divided into a number of sub-sets that address specific
> symptom areas (Emotional symptoms, Conduct problems, Hyperactivity,
> Peer problems, and Pro-social features) and each Question is scored
> Not, Somewhat or Certainly true... so it is a question of assigning
> certain scores to certain tick-boxes (see the scoring system here:http://www.sdqinfo.com/ScoreSheets/e2.pdf) , and also assigning
> certain sets of tick-boxes to the different symptom areas.  Ideally
> I'd generate a score at the end that consists of sub-scores within
> each of the symptom areas mentioned above.
>

> I can make the boxes (seehttp://burningchrome.com:8090/bags/IMP/tiddlers.wiki

[dickon]

Thankyou Mark. My HTML is definitely not up to this job, but at least
I have some pointers of where to head. Entirely see your point about
being both Nervous and Not nervous - both from an existential and a
programming perspective!

Best,

Dickon

[Alex Hough]

Hi Dickton

I am working on two quesionaires, the most complete and most simple is
on the web [1]
Its work in development.

The second is more 'in development but more complex. The order of the
questions depends on previous answers. I am working with a proper IT
professional using an method which focuses on user involovement. I can
show you this one as well in due course, but there is some bugs in the
system at the moment.

Best Wishes
Alex
[1] http://r.a.hough.googlepages.com/TFI.html
ps. coincidentally I am working in mental health. another of my TW
projects is on a NHS creativity in mental health project.



http://r.a.hough.googlepages.com/TFI.html

2009/4/16 dickon <dickon.b...@googlemail.com>:

--
t: 0161 442 2202
m: 0781 372 50 17
skype: alexhough
delicious: alexhough

[dickon]

That is great, Alex. The Likert scale is exactly the kind of thing I
would need to use. Your questionnaire is very thought-provoking too,
and I like the way it generates instant feedback with traffic-light
gradings!

Thanks,

Dickon

On Apr 17, 10:59 am, Alex Hough <r.a.ho...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi Dickton
>
> I am working on two quesionaires, the most complete and most simple is
> on the web [1]
> Its work in development.
>
> The second is more 'in development but more complex. The order of the
> questions depends on previous answers. I am working with a proper IT
> professional using an method which focuses on user involovement. I can
> show you this one as well in due course, but there is some bugs in the
> system at the moment.
>
> Best Wishes
> Alex
> [1]http://r.a.hough.googlepages.com/TFI.html
> ps. coincidentally I am working in mental health. another of my TW
> projects is on a NHS creativity in mental health project.
>
> http://r.a.hough.googlepages.com/TFI.html
>

> 2009/4/16 dickon <dickon.beving...@googlemail.com>:

[Alex Hough]

Dickton,

I make no claim for the questions on the questionnaire. That credit
goes to Tudor Rickards [1]. The questions are part of his "Team Factor
Inventory" for creative teams, documented in Handbook for Creative
Team Leaders [2] The TW is a work in progress for the teaching of
creativity and creative leadership, and helping creativity and
creative leadership in organisations.

Credit for the TW plugings: Eric and Udo for the story plugin and Udo
for the forms and for each tiddler.

You are welcome to change the questions and adapt the TW for your own use.

If anyone has any ideas / suggestions on how to make the questionnaire
[3] more user friendly and appear more attractive, I would be very
interested to read them.

Finally, thanks for the compliment on a my TW! It's sometimes heavy
going being a TiddlyAdvocate in a 'real' world where the mention of a
tiddler raises eyebrows.

Alex

[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tudor_Rickards
[2]Rickards, T. & Moger, S., 1999. Handbook for Creative Team Leaders,
Gower Publishing Company.
Amazon.com Link. Available at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/0566080516
[Accessed January 8, 2009].
[3] ttp://r.a.hough.googlepages.com/TFI.html

2009/4/17 dickon <dickon.b...@googlemail.com>:

[dickon]

Thanks, Alex. If I can get my head around the script I will try to
adapt your Likert scales, but I doubt I have the skills. I can feel
some more late nights ahead. The final point in your comment is
particularly relevant and interesting to me - about the APPLIED side
of TW's as opposed to (or //alongside//, rather) the technical
developments that mostly leave me scratching my head at present
(though I have high hopes...)

I have been playing with the content of my TiddlyWiki manual for a
long time now, but certainly would not claim any specific competencies
(at all!) in the programming side of things; rather, it is the
APPLICATION of this elegantly different writing format that fascinates
me, and what it can bring to real life tasks, like running a team who
are trying to do a complex set of tasks better, and in a more joined-
up way.

I am fascinated in the way that TW works not just as an *analytical*
tool (splitting a complex area up into branches/tags, much as a 'mind
map' can do on paper) but that simultaneously it works as an
*integrative* tool (linking distant branches/twigs) so that I
sometimes envisage the web of information in a TW as being 3-
dimensional: Tags spreading out over the surface of a sphere, Links
diving through the core to their targets, though of course this is too
simple in reality.

Hence I am very interested in rather abstract notions such as "What,
precisely (semantically and pragmatically, that is), is a link, and a
tag?" and "what does non-linearity offer to the reader and writer that
more conventional linear text forms lack? - and what do we risk losing
by not having a linear statement of an argument?" Clearly this is a
Both-And rather than an Either-Or situation. No doubt others have
thought long and hard about these questions already, and I would be
most interested if there are any pointers to where I can connect up
with this conversation.

There is a seminal paper (1959) in the field of psychoanalysis by a
British analyst called Wilfred Bion titled "Attacks on Linking", and
to summarise this very complex and dense piece of writing, he is
saying that unconscious processes (which might be construed as having
a "vested interest" in remaining unconscious) "conspire" to keep apart
material that could and probably "should" be linked in the mind
("Don't bore me with the facts, I like my story the way it is!"). I
think this goes for a great deal of the different schools of
psychology and psychotherapy, as well as the neurosciences, which
until recently have ploughed surprisingly separate furrows, without
paying very much attention to links that are (or almost certainly
should be) present. A generous understanding of this is that
researchers have been focussed on their own skills and areas of
interests, and that the branches of the "tree of knowledge" have
extended out so quickly over the past 100years that common fruits on
separate twigs have been easily overlooked, not least because the
technology to suggest, explore and make links between, say, cognitive-
behavioural theories and those of psychoanalysis, have been lacking.
On the other hand, most of us would also recognise that (mainly
unconscious) things like envy, empire-building and straightforward
protectionism (academic and economic) have played their part, too.

This is very much the theoretical position that IMP (Integrative
Multimodal Practice - the therapeutic stance that we are manualizing
in TW) tries to take - that paying more conscious attention to the
links between theories and practical applications is very powerful in
terms of providing a better integrated (and thereby *integrative* for
the poor client and family) service. In IMP we do that via two
significant routes; firstly by training keyworkers in the basics of a
whole range of evidence-based interventions (that have traditionally
been "owned" by different professional groups), and secondly by using
TW as the manualization allowing/promoting/sustaining this linking,
and encouraging local team edits to the manual to create a marriage of
"top-down" expert material with "bottom-up" local expertise.

To get back to the point of TiddlyWiki (given that this is the TW
group!) there seem to be features embedded within TW that suit it
quite uniquely for the job:

- its self-contained-ness, so that there can be clear editorial
control over content, rather than a free-for-all.
- the ease of basic editing so that non-experts can adopt it ...even
technophobes (perhaps a little way to go to fully realise this!)
- the lack of expensive additional (desk- or server-bound) software
that any health service would baulk at paying for/maintaining.
- the size of a tiddler; by which I mean that a tiddler is "bite-
sized" rather than a full essay, and this makes the document
approachable from a user's perspective.

I have strayed from the original topic of Forms, and have changed the
title to reflect this.

Best,

Dickon

On Apr 18, 9:13 am, Alex Hough <r.a.ho...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Dickton,
>
> I make no claim for the questions on the questionnaire. That credit
> goes to Tudor Rickards [1]. The questions are part of his "Team Factor
> Inventory" for creative teams, documented in Handbook for Creative
> Team Leaders [2]  The  TW is a work in progress for the teaching of
> creativity and creative leadership, and helping creativity and
> creative leadership in organisations.
>
> Credit for the TW plugings: Eric and Udo for the story plugin and Udo
> for the forms and for each tiddler.
>
> You are welcome to change the questions and adapt the TW for your own use.
>
> If anyone has any ideas / suggestions on how to make the questionnaire
> [3] more user friendly and appear more attractive, I would be very
> interested to read them.
>
> Finally, thanks for the compliment on a my TW! It's sometimes heavy
> going being a TiddlyAdvocate in a 'real' world where the mention of a
> tiddler raises eyebrows.
>
> Alex
>
> [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tudor_Rickards
> [2]Rickards, T. & Moger, S., 1999. Handbook for Creative Team Leaders,
> Gower Publishing Company.
>  Amazon.com Link. Available at:http://www.amazon.com/dp/0566080516
> [Accessed January 8, 2009].
> [3] ttp://r.a.hough.googlepages.com/TFI.html
>

> 2009/4/17 dickon <dickon.beving...@googlemail.com>:

[Alex Hough]

> I can feel some more late nights ahead.

-------------------------------------------------------

I only have rare opportunities to help out in the TiddlyVerse - I am
usually the recipient of Eric's, FND's and others' kind help
I put your questions into the my questionnaire TW [1] - I hope they
might be of some help to you or anyone else.

Psychology, Linking, Tags and TiddlyWiki
-------------------------------------------------------

Interesting to be made aware of Wilfred Bion. I'll have a look at his stuff.


Alex

[1] http://r.a.hough.googlepages.com/StrengthsandDifficultiesQuestionnai.html

[dickon]

You star, thankyou! This is amazing and so quick! Even like this it
is a huge advance on what I had and would have taken me months. I
will study the code and try to work out what you, Eric, and others
have done. It might not be so great a jump to get from here to
allocating a score to each item according to whether it is not true,
somewhat true or certainly true? I am blown away by how quickly you
did that. Thanks again, Alex.

Best,

Dickon

On 18 Apr, 17:49, Alex Hough <r.a.ho...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> > I can feel some more late nights ahead.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> I only have rare opportunities to help out in the TiddlyVerse - I am
> usually the recipient of Eric's, FND's and others' kind help
> I put your questions into the my questionnaire TW [1] - I hope they
> might be of some help to you or anyone else.
>
> Psychology, Linking, Tags and TiddlyWiki
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> Interesting to be made aware of Wilfred Bion. I'll have a look at his stuff.
>
> Alex
>

> [1]http://r.a.hough.googlepages.com/StrengthsandDifficultiesQuestionnai....

> ...
>
> read more »

[Alex Hough]

I've just used plugins and help to build my capacity.
I guess it has taken me months to kind of solve how to do the
questions, but once i found the plugins, understood how they worked,
messed about with questionnaires I can duplicate them quite quickly. I
am still not sure this way is the right way to go.

Saq has a method whcih works with TiddlyWeb which uses another way to
generate the forms. This might be better in the long run so that
multiple questionnaries can be colleceted togtrher.

It might not be so great a jump to get from here to
> allocating a score to each item according to whether it is not true,
> somewhat true or certainly true?

It has scores: 1= not true , 2= somewhat true , 3 = certainly true.
These scores are captured in the tiddler with the help of DataTiddler
The for each tiddler plugin sorts the questions into not true etc.
using the numbers.

To change the scores to 1 -5 lickert scale, you would have to add the
tiddler 'lickertTemplate' to your questions, rather than lickertSD
which is the one for the strenghts and difficulties.

Erics story plugin makes it possible to open a collection of tiddlers
- a "story"- after closing all the other open tiddlers. In the
questionnare are two stories, the questions and the traffic lights
To make a story you make a tiddler and tag it "story". then add
[[links to other tiddlers]] in that tiddlers to all the tiddlers you
want including in the story
You then make a button with the macro thus:

<<story [[name of tiddler tagged with 'story']] [[text to display on
the button]] [[tooltip]]>>



Alex
Re:I am blown away by how quickly you did that.  Thanks again, Alex.
I'm inspired by the help I have got here from Eric, FND etc. Its an
enormous pleasure to be able to do something of value in the
TiddlyWiki realm. Must be some kind of psychology behind that, some
group theory, the way the TW community has grown (and been
nurtured?)?

[dickon]

Thanks again Alex. Will try to look at these two ways of doing
forms. Not sure I am the one to make a decision about which way is
the best way to head with a view to getting as much fucntionality oput
of these questionnaires as possible.

The other function I would really like (as if I can't I am condemned
to export the data each time the questionnaire is completed) is the
capacity to date and save the results so that a score at time A can
then be compared to one done later at Time B.

Best,

Dickon

[alex]

Hi Dickton,

RE: the capacity to date and save the results so that a score at time

A can then be compared to one done later at Time B.

I'm also interested in this: the biggest survey project I have on is
about surveying organisations. I think it could be done by adding date
data to the questions and generate them differently each time the
questionnaire is filled in. Its going to be some time before I start
thinking about this though. I have an 'IT guardian' helping me to
'deliver' using a method called DSDM [1] which makes the easily
distracted 'developer' (me) focus on user interface first. I think
that once I am using TiddlyWeb that I will be ready to add this
functionality. Collecting and saving the data and the project being
fully adopted would require some data storage expert's input. They who
still come from the nations that measure are now consumed by Micosoft
Excel. [2]

Re: Wilfred Bion , unconscious links and neuroscience: *integrative*
tool.

Dickton said:
There is a seminal paper (1959) in the field of psychoanalysis by a
British analyst called Wilfred Bion titled "Attacks on Linking", and
to summarise this very complex and dense piece of writing, he is
saying that unconscious processes (which might be construed as havinga
"vested interest" in remaining unconscious) "conspire" to keep apart

material that could and probably "should" be linked in the mind [3]

"A piece of research about to be published in the Journal of Cognitive
Neuroscience, by Joydeep Bhattacharya at Goldsmiths’ College in London
and Bhavin Sheth at the University of Houston, in Texas, suggests that
although people are not consciously aware of it, their brains have to
be in a certain state for an insight to take place. Moreover, that
state can be detected electrically several seconds in advance of the
“aha!” moment itself." [4]

Continuing the conversation about linking about "abstract notions such

as "What, precisely (semantically and pragmatically, that is), is a
link, and a tag?" and "what does non-linearity offer to the reader and

writer that more conventional linear text forms lack?" [3]

I have been thinking about linking but mostly through the lens of
cybernetics and systems. Ross Ashby, Heinz von Forester, Maturana [5]
I am not thinking too hard about it: perhaps my mind has a
subconscious reason for this, by the conscious reason is that I don't
want to end up blowing a gasket.

Alex


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Systems_Development_Method
[2] http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/whymeasure.html
[3] Bevington, D., Forms from Tiddlers - Applied TW's "Vs." TW
Development - TiddlyWiki | Google Groups. Available at:
http://groups.google.com/group/TiddlyWiki/msg/ad5f40b61088e13d
[Accessed April 22, 2009].
[4] Unconscious thought precedes conscious: Incognito. The Economist.
Available at: http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13489722
[Accessed April 21, 2009].
[5] Von Foerster, H., 1987. Understanding computers and cognition: A
new foundation of design : Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores Norwood,
NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1986, 207 pages, $24.95.
Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 32(3), 311-318.

> ...
>
> read more »

[jnthnlstr]

Alex,

I found that article by Margaret Wheatley about measurement very
enjoyable reading. Thanks for sharing.

http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/whymeasure.html



J.

> ...
>
> read more »

[Måns]

Hi Dickon, Alex and J

Sometimes I get really "manual" or practical (don't know if it's the
right english expressions I'm using?)
When I can't figure how to make a program do things I know it could if
I only had had the skills or knowledge.
Hope I'm not getting too unclear. (English is *not* my first language)
What I wanted to say is that: When I don't know how to make something
on my pc - I might take a scissor, glue and paper to get the job done
(as I did 10 years ago btw..).
I sometimes have been forced to take a screenshot to save a picture of
code I would have lost otherwise -

Your context:
When You have the resulting fET-table which is produced from the
questionaire in your TiddlyWiki - why not *just* copy it in viewmode -
and paste the list to a new tiddler - You could put a newJournal(Here)
button somewhere in the "TrafficLights" - give it a label "create
backup tiddler" (or what ever) - copy the tables (viewmode) and insert
the copied text into the "backupTiddler".
This way you can date the archived results and add notes to them as
well.

Btw - I really like that article by Margaret Wheatly - it's common
sense reinvented in a world full of measures and measurements (ie
judgements and documented prejudice....) !

I like Your questionnaire - and I've even translated into Danish -
questions and all :-)
I'm a teacher at a Danish boardingschool - and we often make surveys
and questionnaires to evaluate the way we run things - ie ask students
questions about how they thrive.
We often discover problems, not with the students asked - but with
other students that they mention - when we ask if they know of anyone
who doesn't feel good or is mocked.
We often know the answer on these questions beforehand - but it is
vital to our work and the options we have - that we know how, and if
the other students experience the problem(s)..

YS Måns Mårtensson

> ...
>
> read more »

[alex]

> Hence I am very interested in rather abstract notions such as "What,
> precisely (semantically and pragmatically, that is), is a link, and a
> tag?"

I came by this on ace_noon's delicious. Hypertext, Joyce, Norbert
Weiner, Borges.... interesting read

http://adactio.com/articles/1132/

[dickon]

Thanks for this suggestion, Mans - about copying and pasting in view
mode - yes - it is a good simple fix - will try this.

I enjoyed the Wheatley article, too!

Dickon

> > > that once I am usingTiddlyWebthat I will be ready to add this
> > > functionality. Collecting andsavingthe data and the project being

> > > > > Saq has a method whcih works withTiddlyWebwhich uses another way to

> ...
>
> read more »

[dickon]

One of the dilemma's in my field is that old chestnut "that which can
be measured may not be valuable, and that which is valuable may not be
measurable."

The notion of measurement as FEEDBACK (as Wheatley) is key - the
measures that we are forced to use in Psychiatry are nearly always
rather crude - and are often proxies for other variables - perhaps
ones that we do not yet know about, and yet they do give a sense of
feedback to the practitioner rand the client "is what we are doing
here actually making a difference that we can value?"

The measures that we use are really only useful once thousnads of
scores have been aggregated and compared to other more-or-less
validated scales, or to a clinician's judgement (which is really just
another form of measurement: I compare a young person to the hundreds
or thousands I havve seen with somewhat similar presentations. One of
the joys of psychiatry is the fuzziness of it - plenty of room for art
alongside the science, but I do thik that if we can get this manual
working we will be able to move things along a bit - at present the
great dilemma is "does what that person says is therapy-X actually
look and work the same as my version of therapy-X?" this is especially
so when we are conducting therapy outside of the relatively controlled
environment of the consulting room

On a bleaker note, we have to justify the money that our interventions
cost, by showing the funders that something that seems valuable is
changing!

All the best,

Dickon

On Apr 25, 4:54 pm, jnthnlstr <jnthnl...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> Alex,
>
> I found that article by Margaret Wheatley about measurement very
> enjoyable reading. Thanks for sharing.
>
> http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/whymeasure.html
>
> J.
>
> On Apr 22, 9:00 am, alex <r.a.ho...@googlemail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi Dickton,
>
> > RE: the capacity to date and save the results so that a score at time
> > A can then be compared to one done later at Time B.
>
> > I'm also interested in this: the biggest survey project I have on is
> > about surveying organisations. I think it could be done by adding date
> > data to the questions and generate them differently each time the
> > questionnaire is filled in. Its going to be some time before I start
> > thinking about this though. I have an 'IT guardian' helping me to
> > 'deliver' using a method called DSDM [1] which makes the easily
> > distracted 'developer' (me) focus on user interface first. I think

> > that once I am usingTiddlyWebthat I will be ready to add this
> > functionality. Collecting andsavingthe data and the project being

> > > > Saq has a method whcih works withTiddlyWebwhich uses another way to

> ...
>
> read more »