[DDI-users] Follow up on representing modules

Bart Orriens bart.orriens at gmail.com
Fri Aug 7 17:30:45 EDT 2009


Hi Dan,

first of all thanks for your response!

leaving this part out makes sense, and I'll follow with interest any
developments in that area. For now I will take your advice. Regarding
that, if i understood you correctly I can do something like this for
my questions that appear on the same screen:

<sequence id=myid>
<r:Description> my explanation here </r:Description>
.... (my question constructs here referencing the different questions/other
complex control constructs)
</sequence>

Is this what you meant? (just to ensure that I stay spec compliant)

For the module representation (which is for grouping a set of related
questions independent of how they will appear eventually in the survey),
would my previous idea work for that, being:

<QuestionItem>
 <SubQuestions>
    <QuestionReference>...</QuestionReference>
 </SubQuestions>
</QuestionItem>

That would allow me to reuse question item definitions across groups
of questions; and also to then refer to modules as questions
(which is possible in our survey software, so we can easily
include groups of questions by referring to them by the name
of the module). Or is this type of reuse through referencing from
question item definitions not allowed (yet)?

Thanks for any further ideas you might have,
Bart


Hi Bart,
>
> The instrument documentation group for DDI 3 thought about presentation
> and put it out of scope for the current version (3.0) for a couple of
> reasons. First, it was very system specific, and second it is something
> that could be added on top of the current basic routing information in a
> subsequent version.
>
> However, there are still several ways to document groups of questions or
> "screens" using the current version and the forthcoming DDI v3.1.
>
> In DDI 3.1, grouping questions can be accomplished by placing them all
> into a sequence and using the "Type" element on sequence to specify user
> defined type grouping. Also in 3.1 there will be a r:Description field
> of type StructuredStringType that can be used to describe the groupings.
>
> For example, sub instruments in our software are defined using a
> "Colectica:SubInstrument" Type and a r:Description saying they are part
> of a unique sub instrument set.
>
> For your use case, you could create a sequence and document that all of
> the questions are asked at the same time, on the same screen, or on the
> same piece of paper using a Sequence and the r:Description and Type
> elements.
>
> Hope this helps, cheers!
> Dan
>
>
>
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