[DDI-users] Follow up on representing modules

[Wendy Thomas]

Bart,

That is actually an abuse of the MultiQuestionItem with SubQuestions. The 
use of that is to group questions which have an overarching question and a 
set of subquestions. For example:

MultiquestionItem text
For each of the following candidates please rate them on how likely you 
are to vote for them

Subquestion text
George Bush   (response domain is a 5 pt likely to vote scale)
Bill Clinton   (response domain is a 5 pt likely to vote scale)
Ross Perot   (response domain is a 5 pt likely to vote scale)
Nellie Forbush   (response domain is a 5 pt likely to vote scale)


What you want to do is create Question Groups which should be coming in a 
future (post 3.1) version of DDI. My suggestion in the mean time is to 
create a QuestionScheme for each set of questions. You can then place them 
all in a parent QuestionScheme or easily grab a Scheme and reuse it 
elsewhere.

Wendy



On Fri, 7 Aug 2009, Bart Orriens wrote:

> 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
>>
>>
>>
>

Wendy L. Thomas                          Phone: +1 612.624.4389
Data Access Core Director		 Fax:   +1 612.626.8375
Minnesota Population Center              Email: wlt at pop.umn.edu
University of Minnesota
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225 19th Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55455