Survey and Questionnaire System {GSYS-5}

Overview

In any institution the question of quality often arises. The quality of a course or a lecturer, the quality of study material, or even the quality of the student registration process, may come into question. Although the ITS system cannot hope to answer all questions about quality that may arise, the Survey and Questionnaire System has been developed to go at least some way in assisting institutions with investigating quality issues.

In broad terms, the Survey and Questionnaire System was designed to allow users to capture questionnaire information on the ITS system, to link information about the respondents (already kept elsewhere on the ITS system) to the questionnaire responses, and to make all information available to the user for further analysis.

Not much analysis is done on the system, since it was felt that customized software could be used more effectively to for instance, do a statistical analysis.

The Survey and Questionnaire System does, however, allow the user to extract data into a flat file (ASCII text file) in order to read the data into specialized software for quantitative analysis.

Terminology used in the Survey and Questionnaire System

The Survey and Questionnaire System is intended to support assessments that are done by questionnaire. Therefore, the system starts with an Assessment Project that concentrates on the investigation of a specific aspect and is identified uniquely by its Assessment Code. The assessment may have more than one Questionnaire code linked to it, with each questionnaire code identifying the questionnaire aimed at one or more groups of respondents. (A respondent is the person completing on the questionnaire.) A questionnaire consists of a number of Questions. The respondent answers each of the questions (or gives a Response to the question), and his/her responses are stored on the ITS system. The questions are grouped into a questionnaire or question set and the word “question” is often used in the system to refer to both a question from the questionnaire, as well as to the whole questionnaire’s questions.

The data stored on the ITS system consists only of an Assessment code, a Questionnaire code, a Person Type (Student, Personnel, Other, Anonymous, and so on), a Person Number (if the person type is not anonymous) and the Questions and Responses. Any other information about the respondent must be obtained by linking to other ITS subsystems.

Linking with other ITS Systems

The ITS systems are designed to eliminate entering of duplicate information in different sub-systems. This causes the systems to be integrated with and inter-dependent upon one another. This will, of course, have implications for the Survey and Questionnaire System.
Students are registered in the Student Administration System and information about the biographic details qualification and subject registrations are kept in this system. Information about Student respondents can be accessed via this sub-system for use in the Survey and Questionnaire System.
Personnel members are defined in the Personnel Management System. These could be personnel members who are employed full-time by the institution, or personnel members who are employed on a part-time basis e.g. examiners, etc. Similarly, if information is required about Personnel respondents for the Survey and Questionnaire System, the information can be obtained from the Personnel sub-system.
Other persons are defined in the General System, but note that not much information is kept on them. Also note that questionnaires can also be completed anonymously. Responses will in this case be stored per reference number.
Questionnaires can be deployed through the Student- or Personnel Web Systems, or as a separate URL.

Implementation and operation

This system links to the Student System, the Personnel System, General System and the Web Systems. Students are registered at the institution in option {SREGAR-1} and biographical records of the student are kept in option {SREGB-1}. Personnel information can be accessed via the various options in menu {PBOP}. So-called Other users are defined in option {GOPS-3}. The Quality Assessment Sub-system can use the information captured in these options to obtain background information about questionnaire respondents.

Answering of Question Sets

This part of the system has been designed for use by respondents, i.e. people replying (or responding) to question sets. The intention is that the question set is made available to the respondent through an URL on the Web.
A Question Set may be deployed as an option in the standard ITS iEnabler Systems, or as a link from another web page.
The Assessment Type should always be “WS” – Web Survey.

Deploying a question set from the standard ITS iEnabler options

A question set may be deployed as a business function in the standard way.

The menu instruction to be entered in {USERS-1b3} is as follows:

w12pkg.surveystart?x_numtype=<Person Type>&x_assc=<Assessment Code>

Where:

<Person Type> is P for Personnel or S for Students

<Assessment Code> is the Assessment Code as defined in {QMNCS-2b1}.

If the Assessment Code is not specified (&x_assc=<Assessment Code> is left out of the instruction), a list Question Sets applicable to the Person Type {QMNCS-2b3}, for all Assessments with Start Date before the System Date and with no End Date or the End Date after the System Date {QMNCS-2b2} with Assessment Type “WS” – Web Survey will be presented.
The end user may select the appropriate Question Set and it will be presented for completion

If the Person Type is not specified (&x_numtype=<Person_Type> is left out of the instruction), only Question Sets for Person Type “N” – Anonymous will be available, and the answers, completed by the end user, will be saved with an internally generated reference number and not the Personnel- or Student Number. This is to ensure that the respondent stays anonymous.

Deploying a question set from a link on a web page

If the respondent is a Student or a Personnel Member (A Student- Or Personnel Number Exists) the URL should be as follows:

http://<Application_Server>/<plsql_cartridge>/<DAD>/w12pkg.surveystart?&x_numtype=<Person Type>&x_unum=<Person Number>&x_assc=<Assessment Code>

Where:

<Application_Server> is the URL link to the Application Server
<plsql_cartridge> is the PLSQL Cartridge, usually “pls”
<DAD> is the Database Access Descriptor.

If the respondent should be anonymous, the URL should be as follows:

http://<Application_Server>/<plsql_cartridge>/<DAD>/w12pkg.surveystart?x_assc=<Assessment Type Code>&x_numtype=<Person Type>

Where:

<Application_Server> is the URL link to the Application Server
<plsql_cartridge> is the PLSQL Cartridge, usually “pls”
<DAD> is the Database Access Descriptor
<Assessment Type Code> is the Assessment Type Code {QMNCS-2b1}
<Person Type> is the Type {QMNCS-2b3}. In this case it should always be N.

The Question Set Code linked to the Assessment for the Person Type in {QMNCS 2b3} will be presented, provided that it is linked to the Assessment Type Code as in the URL.
The respondent number for each response will be the number supplied as <Person Number> in the URL, except for anonymous respondents.
If a respondent, who completed questions in a question set and who saved the answers on a previous occasion, uses the same URL a second or third time, the following will happen:

For known respondents, the previously saved answers will be presented again with the question set.
For anonymous respondents, a screen with a prompt for a reference number and a list of Surveys (The Assessment Description as in {QMNCS-2b1}) will appear.

When the respondent chooses one of the items in the list of surveys without entering a reference number, a new response sheet to the question set code linked to the Assessment in {QMNCS-2b3} for Type N will be presented.
When the respondent chooses one of the items in the list of survey’s after entering a reference number, the response sheet with the answers for the reference number to the question set code linked to the Assessment in {QMNCS-2b3} for Type N, will be presented. The response can now be amended and re-submitted.

History of Changes

Date	System Version	By Whom	Job	Description
05-Jan-2007	v01.0.0.0	Frans	t107522	New Format
03-Oct-2008	v01.0.0.0	Magda van der Westhuizen	t152511	Update manual: Language Editing: Juliet Gillies.