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ThanhThuyDoan wrote:

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(Write here your question/remark)Please help us help you and fill where relevant:
Your LimeSurvey version: [see right hand bottom of your LimeSurvey admin screen]
Own server or LimeSurvey hosting:
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1. Is it allowed to format the welcome and end screens? I tried to break a long paragraph into shorter paragraphs for my participant but it doesn't work. It will be the same issue for fonts or alignment format. Moreover, in the editor function, the welcome title should be displayed on top but in the view screen, this title is displayed at the bottom of the page. I am not sure of the reason behind.

Short answer: it depends.

Long answer: as you did not answer the standard questions at the beginning, we can only guess which version you use and where it is hosted. Univerisities and bigger organizations often switch on the XSS filter, which prevents scripts and certain styles to be displayed. If that is the case, the filter might filter out all your styles.

But in general: you can style the welcome text and the end text (as well as all other texts as well) either via HTML/CSS directly in the source code mode or via the WYSIWYG-Editor.

2. How to create a question with only ONE comment for the multiple-choice question? My participants got confused, because I only want to get their additional comments for option 'Others', but the designed type of question doesn't allow. It creates a comment for every choice.

Of course the Multi-punch question type allows an "other" option.

It is always recomendable to read through the manual, at least the "question type section": www.limesurvey.org/manual/Question_type_-_Multiple_choice
Use the normal multiple choice question, not the one with comments. You don't want comments. You want an "other" answer. Then in the right configuration bar of the question (for LS6)in the general settings go to "other" and switch it "on".

3. How can I change the default option 'No answers' to 'Prefer not to say' to be more polite?

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

(Write here your question/remark)

Do not display the default option "no answers", switch them off. Then add your own answer option "prefer not to say".

Like Jelo says, there are thousands of survey tools out there and all have their advantages and disadvantages and it is hard to recommend anything, as it really depends on what you are looking for, exactly.

"Easy to use" is also relative, like Joffm says. Limesurvey might not always have the most straight forward approach, but once you get used to it, I personally find it quite easy to use. There are also ways to automate things or make it quicker (by exporting and importing text files for mass adaptations, for example) which many other tools don't have.

Limesurvey is missing some features that I find quite important, e.g. the loops you mentioned, and also answer option relevance for single punch questions. Most things can be achieved with some kind of workarounds, but of course the workaround are not a perfect solution, as they might break with version updates and changes to the themes, etc. Let's see if the next version bring some updates to those missing features, as the last couple of versions seem to have mainly focused on the interface.

On the other hand I find that Limesurvey, for being open source and allowing scripts and plugins (if the super admin doesn't block them), is probably one of the more versatile tools out there, if you are willing to understand how it works.

To my knowledge, Limesurvey is the most complete package overall in the open source world when it comes to surveys (even if it is missing some things). There are a lot of commercial packages out there that might have more functions and/or are more suited to the way you work or want the tool to work, but generally there is a huge price tag on these and most of them do only offer cloud, nothing selfhosted.

Anyway, as you are looking for libraries" and seem to be open for some coding, someone posted about surveyjs a while ago. Maybe that is what you are looking for. But as always, you might find some things that are better suited there or are available, while other things don't work as expected or are not available.

However, I personally would recommend to get a bit deeper in with Limesurvey and Expression Script and you might actually get used to the way Limesurvey works and most probably enjoy it.

If you are willing to install your own instance of Limesurvey, you can also go around the limitations your university has put on their LImesurvey installation (if I remember your situation right from other posts).

So, Limesurvey is for sure not perfect. All three posters here are probably also part of those that most critique the platform and ask for new features and changes.
But at the end, I think it is still the tool to go when it comes to flexibility, especially for more complex surveys. With the complexity interfaces generally get more complicated. And the history of Limesurvey for sure also has an impact. Many open source tools lack a certain focus on UX and Limesurvey for sure is no exception. On the other hand, the extrem diversity of the LS user pool makes things also tricky. A lot of people (especially students), only want to do simple surveys and are often overwhelmed with all the features. On the other hand you have heavy users that wouldn't want all those features hidden under a oversimplified GUI.

And sometimes I see students that want to do really complex surveys, but then are surprises that this doesn't work out of the box (and I am not talking about you here). What they often don't realize is, that the things they want to do, even in commercial packages most probably would also need an experienced survey programmer, who would spend quite some time on developing their survey. But they get discouraged when things can't just be clicked together in an hour for their bachelor or master thesis. I don't think they will find any tool that is right for them, because they all need some time to get deep into them, if you want to do complex surveys. Of course, some tools solve things different/better than others for certain functions/approaches. But in those cases of very complex survey designs vs. little experience / or little willingness to put some time and effort into it, there is probably no tool that can fix this. In those cases I recommend to contract an experienced survey programmer with the respective tools. But of course, no one has the budget for this.

But with the help of the forum (and especially people like Joffm or Tpartner) a lot of people managed to put some fairly complex surveys on the way, once they accepted that they might not get a solution within 1h. 

The least thing you'd mention is the LS version you are using.

LimeSurvey Community Edition Version 6.13.2

You did not answer the questions that appeared at the beginning. You removed them.

I don't know which questions you are referring to -- I am not aware of having removed any of your questions (perhaps by accident, I don't know how this would be possible).

Why do you first export and import into SPSS to get the data in STATA?
Why don't directly export to STATA?

This is a misunderstanding, I did export the questionnaire data from LimeSurvey into SPSS format, but I did not import the exported SPSS data (.sav) with SPSS. I did not directly export from LimeSurvey into a Stata format file (the only option is .xml, not .dta) because the last time I tried (with an older LimeSurvey version about 3 years ago) the resulting data in Stata were not in the form I need them (the exact problems I don't remember). As far as I know I tried all ways to export data from LimeSurvey (into Stata (.xml) directly, into CSV files, into Excel, into R (data file), and into SPSS (.sav) using different methods) but only one method resulted in satisfactory data with missing values, labels, and paradata, format of multiple response question, etc.

I am exporting the questionnaire data from LS into SPSS format via "Responses" -> "Export Responses" -> Export format SPSS, export language English, Range (first to last record), Full answers (convert Y to 1 and N to 2). The more direct way via "Responses" -> "Export responses to SPSS" does not export paradata (e.g. time at all pages) and results in unsatisfactory formatting of multipe reponse questions, missing values, and answers to "other" fields.

But now I see that you did not talk about an open question, but probably about the "other" option of a single punch question.
Meaning: your first variable "vroptptpother" seems to be a "numeric" question,
but the other one "vroptbtp_other" seems to be an "other" option.
Therefore it is really advisable to send a lss export.

I don't know what "a single punch question" is (I am not a LS expert and I did not program the LS questionnaire myself but simply try to do the data cleaning of data collected with LS qustionnaires). I notice that there are two kinds of open field questions, (1) as a follow-up question that seems to contain data sometimes in string and sometimes in numeric format (also depending on the way .sav data are imported by SPSS, PSPP, or Stata), and (2) as open field questions set up in LS in a different way (I don't know how this has been done). In variant (1) note that the values of the filtering question contains either the number 1 (if the respondent did choose "no" with empty content of the follow-up question) or the string "-oth-" if the respondent did choose "yes", whereas in variant (2) the filtering question contains the numbers 0 (if the respondent did choose "no") or 1 (if the respondent did choose "yes").

I don't know what you mean by "Therefore it is really advisable to send a lss export." Do you ask to send (attach) the .lss export file here (at my post to the forum)?

But the problem of exporting from LimeSurvey and importing to Stata (or the issues with different ways the data appear in Stata as a consequence of the method of exporting questionnaire data from LS) is not my issue here -- I am explaining this only because you asked.

I already wrote: "Survey logic file".
Then just search for (CTRL-F)  "num_value"

I don't know what a "Survey logic file" is -- how can I obtain this from LS?

You see in the syntax file the RENAME command at the end.

I don't know to what syntax file you are referring. I did to show you any syntax file and I don't get a (SPSS?) syntax file when exporting questionnaire data from LS.

Or export the survey as *.txt, open in Excel (OpenOffice) and have a look at the columns "max_num_value_n" and "min_num_value_n"

Thanks a lot, this solves it!
 

Hi, that you get the variable name in SPSS is obvious.
You see in the syntax file the RENAME command at the end.
But that's not relevant.

I am searching for a way to determine quickly (easily) the LimeSurvey open field questions

I already wrote: "Survey logic file".
Then just search for (CTRL-F)  "num_value"

Or export the survey as *.txt, open in Excel (OpenOffice) and have a look at the columns "max_num_value_n" and "min_num_value_n"

But now I see that you did not talk about an open question, but probably about the "other" option of a single punch question.
Meaning: your first variable "vroptptpother" seems to be a "numeric" question,
but the other one "vroptbtp_other" seems to be an "other" option.
Therefore it is really advisable to send a lss export.

In a "numeric" question (restricted or not) I always get a numeric variable in SPSS.
I will check what happens if it is an "other" option.

1. I wonder where SPSS is to store this restriction?
2. Anyway; this is not contained in the syntax file.


And something nearly forgotten.
You did not answer the questions that appeared at the beginning. You removed them.
The least thing you'd mention is the LS version you are using.
 

And a last thing.
Why do you first export and import into SPSS to get the data in STATA?
Why don't directly export to STATA?

Joffm

First of all, no need to post more than once. As a new user your post needs to go through a moderation process and only shows up when approved by a moderator.

Now to your question: Multipunch questions have a fixed assessment value of "1" for each box that is marked. That is why you don't see the assessment value field. That might be inconvenient, but remember, the assessment function is really old and basically depricated. Since there is expression manager, we mostly create our own more flexible assessment via that function. Gives you a lot more flexibility and also allows you to save the values to the database, while the assessment function did not save the values.

As far as I remember you started this thread with something like "How to store and display previous results of a test".
And the topic was "pdfReport HowTo"
But now this seems to be something quite different.
Nothing about pdfReport, nothing about the results of the test.
Please "New topic - new thread"

Oh!, my fault, sorry about that, just seemed to me that open new threads for different questions related to the same projecto would be worst that maintain all related stuff in this one. I'll follow your instructions next time.

So you want to let the participant choose a test and when he opens the survey the next time this already completed test isn't available anymore.

No exactly, all I need is the participant to see only the "allowed" test for him, I would use an extra attribute on the participants list with the lower test he can take, example: if you have '3' in the attribute you can take test number 3 and 4 and 5 and so on but you can't access test s1 and 2.

As bootstrap buttons are "single punch" questions, - and these question types do not support conditions it's a bvit tricky.

I can use any other option, I choose this kind of question as it liked to me but any other one that do the job will be fine.

Send the lxss export of your survey.( only the relevant questions)

I'll do when more elaborated, first I want to try, test and play with ExpressionScript to learn more about it.

And:You need me to create that translated to spanish?What makes you think this?
Denis only showed the link to the plugin. and offered help.

Denis wrote "Else : when you want : you can send me offer to create README.md and manual and tips on extensions.sondages.pro/ " and I understood "send me offer to" like he would like me to do something (something that I would kindly do) for him.
So sorry, was like the movie... Lost in translation... forget it.

Paris

Hi,
As far as I remember you started this thread with something like "How to store and display previous results of a test".
And the topic was "pdfReport HowTo"
But now this seems to be something quite different.
Nothing about pdfReport, nothing about the results of the test.
Please "New topic - new thread"

So you want to let the participant choose a test and when he opens the survey the next time this already completed test isn't available anymore.

This you also do with the already mentioned plugin.
As bootstrap buttons are "single punch" questions, - and these question types do not support conditions it's a bvit tricky.

Send the lxss export of your survey.( only the relevant questions)

And:

You need me to create that translated to spanish?

What makes you think this?
Denis only showed the link to the plugin. and offered help.

Joffm
 

@holch already mentioned the main options.

1. A following question "Which one?"

2. A question of type "multiple with comments" where you hide the not needed comment  fields
 
Restrict the number of answers to 1.
In my understanding of language "mainly" always indicates single punch.

3. Another option would be this
 
In my opinion an open question is not really useful. You will get many, many different ways of naming and spelling. (und jedes Fitzelfach kommt dann)
It is better to limit yourself to 5-6 subjects, the main fields of study - and "Other"

But make sure that you are allowed to use javascript. Reading "hosted by my university" I doubt. Many admins do not allow this.

The screenshots are taken from my "Tutorial 2: Mehrfachennungen,... (in the German part). And right at the beginning you find a small test to find out, if javascript is possible.

Joffm

Wieder einmal unnötigerweise viel Englisch. Muss das denn sein?

I am also confused by this question, just like Joffm.

The question asks people to "rank" up to 5 options (out of 6 total options???) and the question type is a multipunch question.

How can you rank via a multipunch question? You can chose up to 5 that are important, but I wouldn't call this a "ranking".

I don't know how Conformit does it, but I expect also some kind of scripting.

I've seen something about ExpressionScript which seems very long winded imo (unless im misunderstanding it's power)?

ExpressionManager/Script is the way to go. Might look intimitating at the beginning, but it isn't all that bad. Your example is actually relatively simple.

Let's assume you have the following scenario:

Q1: What is your age? (OE)
Q2: What is your age? (Single response - hidden via GUI)
[1] 0-17
[2] 18-64
[3] 65+
Q3: Equation type question.

Then you will "loop". You create some if clauses in Limesurvey. I simplified it to 3 answer options (below 18, 18-64 and 65+), for demonstration. Don't want to loop "a thousand" times here.

This is just an example to start from. I have not tested it, also because you did not provide a LSS example of your structure and I am too lazy now to create one. So this might not work straight out of the box, but you will understand how it works.

I highly recommend to have a look at  www.limesurvey.org/manual/Expression_Manager . You don't need to read it all, but it will give you an idea of what you can do with it. It works very similar to many other script languages, a little bit like formulas in excel.

The if clause works like this: if([condition to be met], [if condition is met, what should LS do], [else, if condition is not met, what should limesurvey do?]). 

In your case you need to put addition if clauses in the "else" section, because you have more than 2 age brackets. Something like this: 



So basically you check if the answer in Q1 is smaller than 18, if so you asign the answer "1" to Q2. If not, you continue and check if the number is smaller than 65, if so you can apply code 2, because if it would have been smaller than 18 it would already have been asigned a 1 and the if loop would have finished. So the person must have given a number between 18 and 64. And then "else" the number must be 65 above, because it is not smaller than 18 and not smaller than 65. So it must be bigger than 65.

But actually, not sure why you even need the hidden single punch question. You could just write the answer codes into the equation. OK, to work with it you would need to know what each code means, but I assume you would remember that.

Is there any way to store the response times of individual questions

This is tricky, because when is a question "answered"?

Multipunch questions: When do we consider this question as answered? after the first click? Last click? But how to know when the last click was done?

Singlepunch questions: Here it is easier, because you can only choose one option. But what if someone clicks one answer and then changes the idea?

Open-ended questions: When is the question answered?

In general, if you have more than one question per page, people can always easily go back and change the anwers. So I don't see a good way to measure response time per question if you don't show the questions one per page.

Erstmal würde ich die erste Frage aufsplitten und erstmal nur die Tierarten aufzählen die gehalten werden (finde "Produktion" in diesem Zusammenhang irgendwie unglücklich, auch wenn das unter Bauern offensichtlich durchaus ein gängiger Begriff ist. Aber das ist ein anderes Thema, ich schweife ab).

Das ganze als Multipunch-Frage, sprich mit checkboxes so dass der Teilnehmer mehrere Tierarten ankreuzen kann.

Im Nächsten aufwasch würde ich dann eine Frage anbieten, die nur die ausgewählten Tierarten zeigt und dort dann die Anzahl der Stallungen pro Tierart abfragen. Da stellt sich die Frage mit welchem Fragetyp man das am besten macht.

Vorab solltest du dich aber fragen, wie viele Ställe denn wahrscheinlich sind? Ist die Anzahl endlich, also irgendwo zwischen 1 und 5 oder kann das auch wesentlich grösser werden, z.B. 10+

Denn am Ende musst du ja für jeden Einzelstall ein Kästchen anbieten in das die Anzahl der m² kommt.

Ich würde vermutlich nach der ersten Frage verschiedene Zweige für die verschiedenen Tierarten anbieten (sprich Fragengruppen bilden). Die werden dann angezeigt, wenn die Tierart in der ersten Frage ausgewählt wurden, das macht man via Conditions.

Dann eine Dropdown-Frage mit den optionen 1, 2, 3, 4, ...., x Ställe für Tierart XYZ. Und dann wird eine Frage mit Multiple Numerical Input verwendet ( www.limesurvey.org/manual/Question_types...iple_numerical_input ). Die muss natürlich so viele Unterfragen/subquestions haben wie du in der Dropdown-Frage zur Auswahl anbietest. Die Unterfragen werden dann eben via Conditions angezeigt oder nicht. Sprich, wenn es "nur" zwei Ställe für Kühe gibt, werden halt via Condition ab Stall 3 alle ausgeblendet.

Array filter does not work with single punch questions as a source of the exclusion. So you would have to work around this with multipunch questions set by equation questions.