Offline surveys

[Ciaran]

Hi all,

Does anyone know of any freebie software I can use to create offline
surveys? It's for teachers trained in Africa and obviously I don't
want to have to go through 2,000 odd responses to collate them!


Cheers,

Ciaran

[Ciaran]

Ok it's depressing that I'm still doing this. The nearest I can get
is this http://www.qrform.com/

The problem is it's for windows rather than Linux and it's expensive.
Has anyone used anything like this before?

I need a form that I can get volunteers to copy onto each computer,
trainees to fill it out, volunteers to collect them onto a USB, and a
programme to collate all the data.

[Paul O'Rourke]

Hi Ciaran,

The approach I've taken in work is to use [excel] spreadsheets with
vba macros.
You have one relatively simple spreadsheet template with little or no
code in it that's got your q&a's.
To make life easy you put all the questions in one column and get all
the answers to go in another column (one question/answer combo per
row) - make sure that there's less than about 250 rows used in total
Each user writes their answers in the spreadsheet and saves it
somewhere safe with a unique name. So if you've got 50 respondents
then you've got 50 spreadsheet files in one folder.
Next you have a clever workbook / spreadsheet with a big bit of code
in it. You program the workbook to go to a specific folder; open each
spreadsheet one a time; copy a column of about 250 rows; paste-
transpose the copied data into a blank row in a 'results' sheet in the
'clever' workbook.

The spreadsheet that users put answers into can be open office calc,
but my excel vba code only really works with windows and excel. I
suppose it could be ported over to open office relatively easily.

Best thing maybe is to ask you for an example of what your survey is
to look like.

Regards,

Paul

[Ciaran]

Hi Paul

That's a major help, thanks a million. I may have spent the day in a
futile search for something that works on Linux yesterday!

So do you think it's possible to copy the data for Open Office? What
about if the questions are answered from a drop-down menu (I don't
know how to do that yet but working on it!)

I'll post the draft as soon as I get it done. If anyone has ideas in
the meantime that'd be great

Thanks again,

Ciaran

[Wilson]

Hi Ciaran,

When do you need such a software?

Am a volunteer for camara kenya and also a practising php/java/j2me/
j2ee programmer and maybe i can do for you a code for that.


Regards,

Wilson Bandi.

[Paul O'Rourke]

Hi Ciaran,

A drop down box in open office calc is very easy.:
Somewhere on the sheet write a list of answers you want (one
answer in each cell): e.g. dog, cat, fish, bird, rodent
Give your list a name (select the cells with possible answers and
type a name in the name box)
Select the cell where you want the answer to your question to go
access the 'Data' menu
access the 'Validity...' menu
in the criteria tab:
Allow 'Cell Range'
Tick or untick 'Allow Blank Cells'
Tick 'show selection list'
Tick or untick 'sort ascending'
'Source' name of range of cells you named
in the error alert tab:
Tick 'show error message when invalid values are
entered' [otherwise it'll accept any answer - not just the ones in the
list]
'Action' select 'Stop'
You can type in a custom error message - so it doesn't
just go 'Invalid data value'
Click 'ok'
Now when you click on the cell where you want the answer to go
there'll be a dropdown box that you click to give a list you can
select from.
(it's a lot easier to explain with pictures / video /
sample file)

In the validity menu you can put all sorts of limits on allowable
values - so have a look at them.
Once you've set validity for one cell you can copy it to others.

In the questionnaire book I would suggest including two bits of macro
code: one to reset the values to default initial inputs and one to
save a copy of the file with a unique name (I usually suggest some
combination of date and time), but it's not essential - and besides I
think the default security settings don't tend to allow macro code to
run.

By the way this calc / excel approach really only works with questions
that allow only one answer (pick one from the list, yes/no, etc.)
If you want people to be able to pick multiple items from a list (tick
all that apply), this simple method really doesn't work (you could
possibly do something with Base, but it's complicated)

For the moment you could do up your survey in word and we can see
about porting it over to calc.

Over the next couple of days I'll see what I can do with OpenOffice/
Star Basic in calc.

Kind Regards,

Paul.

> > Ciaran- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Eoghan - Camara]

Hi Ciaran,

you can get the jist at http://www.openofficetips.com/blog/archives/forms/index.html

Eoghan.

2009/5/29 Paul O'Rourke <porsy...@yahoo.co.uk>

[Paul O'Rourke]

Hi Ciaran,

I've put together two spreadsheets (one spreadsheet that does the
grabbing of data from files and one stupid sample survey to give some
data for grabbing).

Now how do I get them to you to look at?

Kind Regards,

Paul.

On May 30, 2:51 pm, Eoghan - Camara <eog...@camara.ie> wrote:
> Hi Ciaran,
>

> you can get the jist athttp://www.openofficetips.com/blog/archives/forms/index.html
>
> Eoghan.
>
> 2009/5/29 Paul O'Rourke <porsyst...@yahoo.co.uk>

[Ciaran]

Heya,

Sorry I've been so long in replying, only getting to play round with
it now. That's actually ideal because there's no compatibility or
hardware issues. Massively appreciate it. Can you mail me the
spreadsheets?

I obviously haven't a clue about this stuff but yeah generating
individual file names would be great. If it's a pain we can just get
the trainees to use their own names. I've a draft survey I'm just
turning back to now but I can send it on if it's any use?

The main change I'm making is using all closed questions bar one at
the end because if we've 1,500 teachers being trained then open
questions are totally unmanageable

[Paul O'Rourke]

Hi Ciaran,

Can you check your junk email folders, etc. I've sent an email with
relevant attachments to your gmail account.

If your email blocks them then we'll probably need to see about
uploading here (i'm not sure how to do that).

I've just checked and the file works on windows as well as ubuntu.

Before we go putting code into the survey templates themselves, can
you give me your opinion on how much hassle it is to change security
levels in openoffice? (Personally i thought it was a bit of a pain).

Kind Regards,

Paul.