A Web-Based Tool for Gathering Ordinal Rankings Elizabeth Arnott David Allbritton DePaul University

Introduction Ordinal rankings are used widely in many areas: Psychology Education Business Across areas the rating task itself is relatively standard

The Problem Standard procedural methodology for gathering ordinal rankings does not exist Ratings often used as a subordinate tool Poorly defined methodology may lead to inconsistencies (Madden et al., 1965; 1964)

Benefits of a Web Interface Convenient use Information stored in a straightforward manner Minimizes participant error Allows for standard program to be used by any experimenter with web access

Perl Script Processes Input Files Text files (one sentence per line) Groups of items (stories) separated by a blank line Generates XHTML Files for Data Collection Forms linked by a “Submit” button

Using the Interface Groups of items to be ordered on a single page Instructions to order from first to last JavaScript Clicking items with the mouse assigns a corresponding number in a text box Participant can “Submit” or “Reset” when finished

Data Collection Perl CGI scripts receive data Data storage: Text file of comma separated values Storage in a database is also possible Additional Text File Stores story and sentence numbers Facilitates matching

Recording the Data Format of text file is minimal: One line per rating for each participant Fields include: Experiment name Group number Item number Rating

Limitations and Future Directions Current version only takes text input Requires a server (XHTML files are delivered by a CGI script on a server) Database storage “Undo” option User-friendly methods for setting parameters