Saving Time And Money: Web Questionnaires from the "Assembly Line" Moving Saving Time And Money: Web Questionnaires from the "Assembly Line" i n f o r m a t i o n Wolfgang Koller May 2004 © STATISTIK AUSTRIA www.statistik.at May 2004

Austria‘s leading information service provider 900 employees 60 Mio. € budget total quality mgmt data protection objective impartial 300 surveys 420 publications 300 billion data cells in ISIS (data warehouse) May 2004

Federal Statistics Act 2000 . . . Reduction of the respondents‘ burden Data security must be ensured No costs for the respondents Broad access has to be enabled Mandate to provide electronic data reporting options „...the institute is obligated to ensure broad use of this facility.“ May 2004

Software development and maintenance . . . . . . is expensive . . . takes up more time than the traditional production process for paper questionnaires May 2004

One technology alone will not suffice . . . and/or and/or and/or Nnnn ##### +++ -------- May 2004

The Concept “Expensive software experts should only be used where they are really necessary” SVY 1 SVY 2 to the XML production line From hand-crafted questionnaires . . . May 2004

Phases of data collection Further processing Survey preparation, -definition e.g. Survey, Version Periodicity, Observation unit types Questionnaire: content, representation, layout, control flow, validation ST.AT Incoming inspection Resp. specific information Resp.-structure Initialisation data The solution which we then implemented – we called it „e‑Quest” is based on the windows 32 bit platform because it had swiftly become clear that the integrated support for specific economic surveys demanded by the business sector could not be fulfilled as desired by a Web solution. What is e‑Quest? Hitherto we have only been speaking of „questionnaires“. In fact e-Quest implies a complete infrastructure which encompasses all phases of data collection. Lets start with the Survey Preparation  The preparation of a survey begins with the definition of metadata which describe – among other objects – the collector of statistical information (CSI), the survey and its version, the types of observation units, the possible hierarchical rela­tionships between them and the questionnaire types associated with them. Further­more, the questionnaire forms are designed. All this is done by statisticians with the e‑Quest Metadata Manager software. Finally, these „structural metadata”, as they are called, are exported as an XML file, compressed, encrypted and distributed to the respondents. Metadata Now lets have a closer look to the metadata A questionnaire definition in e‑Quest consists of five parts: the logical structure and the properties of the questions, their representation by GUI[1] elements, layout, event-driven flow of control and intra- and inter-questionnaire validation. Respondent specific metadata describe the Respondents (for example, name and address of the observation unit which will automatically be imported into actual questionnaire forms) must be prepared in XML Syntax too This happens outside of the e-Quest system (e.g. at Statistics Austria the respondents of business surveys and their observation units are managed in the business register database on the mainframe computer). Capturing Raw Data The core component of the system, is the e‑Quest Questionnaire Manager, it must be installed on the respondent’s PC, either in stand-alone or in client/server mode. Apart from software updates, a one-time installation is sufficient, even if the respondent is obliged to report for several surveys. By the command „Load Survey” the meta-data are loaded into the system. The application then manages all aspects of questionnaire initialisation and presentation, data management and validation, response data encryption and transmission to the CSI. A wide range of functions are provided, such as immediate or delayed input checks, visibility and activation management (the user only sees those questions that must be filled in) and an event-driven flow of control depending on user interactions with the questionnaires (e.g., implementing the auto­matic calculation of row and column sums in a table). Questionnaire data can be checked for plausibility against standard or freely defined conditions. An extensive help system comprising several levels of information supports the user when he/she answers the questions. An export/import interface to and from a simply structured XML format is also offered. Receiving Response Data The “Receive” subsystem on the CSI side consists of programs to listen for incoming response packages containing the data from one or more questionnaires in a standardized XML format, to backup, decrypt, register, check and forward them to the responsible organizational unit and for their administration. For viewing and correcting the data if necessary, statistical experts use the e‑Quest Questionnaire Manager in an advanced mode Complete questionnaire Respondent May 2004

Survey using e‑Quest/Web [mainframe] ST.AT follow-up processing systems e-Quest Metadata Manager Respondent- specific (meta)data (XML) e-Quest Receive Subsystem Browser optional structural metadata (XML) RDBMS Metadata e-Quest / Web Data Intranet Generator (WSA) SQL Respondent Browser Presentation Business Logic SOAP HTML, JSP JavaScript, Java Web-Services Internet Web- and J2EE-Servers May 2004

Creating a questionnaire with the Metadata Manager B D C May 2004

Well thats all from theory, yesterday we succeeded with the first prototyp and i would like to show you some screenshots from our very first result. Here is the welcome screen where the user logs in with userid and password or as guest May 2004

If the authentication was successful the User gets a list of respondents which he is authorized to report for Here is a hint that a questionnaire is overdue to report May 2004

Here is the selection screen for questionnaires and this is the Questionnaire which is overdue May 2004

May 2004

May 2004

May 2004

May 2004

May 2004

Project implementation with the Web Services Accelerator . . . WSA Model Driven Architecture May 2004

. . . Standardisation . . . General Components Questionnaire Login procedure Security Control flow Classifications Application flow Pattern for: Authentication Select questionnaire Presentation Fill in plausibility Send data Layout Content Behaviour Technical objects . . . Interfaces Existing standards May 2004

Architecture and Security e-Quest/Web DB IBM z/OS Linux (1) Security Domain Presentation Layer SSL DB2-Connect WebSphere Business Logic LDAP Repository Webservices (SOAP) IBM z-Series Respondent Linux (2) Firewall Authentication May 2004

Wir bewegen I n f o r m a t i o n e n Moving i n f o r m a t i o n www.statistik.at May 2004