1. I n f o r m a t i o n www.statistik.at Moving e-Quest/Web:
Statistics Austria‘s new system for the metadata-driven development of web questionnaires
I n f o r m a t i o n
Guenther Zettl
© STATISTIK AUSTRIA

2. e-Quest and e-Quest/Web: chronology and concept
Agenda
e-Quest and e-Quest/Web: chronology and concept
Presentation of e-Quest/Web
Tools for the metadata-driven development of web questionnaires
Experiences

3. The e-Quest System: Chronology and Concept
Summer 1998: launch of a project to develop an integrated electronic questionnaire for economic surveys
PC software instead of web forms
Metadata-driven, survey-independent infrastructure for statistical raw data collection by means of self interviews
Covering all phases of the data collection process
November 1999 – December 2001: development of e-Quest (CSC Austria)
e-Quest Questionnaire Manager (first deployed in April 2001)
e-Quest Metadata Manager
e-Quest Package Manager

4. The Windows Solution: e‑Quest
follow-up processing systems
Metadata Manager
e-Quest
Receive DB
Package Storage
CSI
Receive
e-Quest
Distributor
Hoover
Package Mgr
Questionnaire Manager
[mainframe]
Respondent-
specific
(meta)data
(XML)
structural
metadata
(XML)
Deploy
Response
package
(XML)
export
(XML)
CD-ROM
Questionnaire Manager
e-Quest
import
(XML)
Respondent

5. e-Quest/Web: Chronology and Concept
Spring 2002: feasibility study on the subject of a web questionnaire strategy for Statistics Austria
Standards for web form design, features and security
Development of survey-independent modules (user login, list of available questionnaires, etc.)
Integration into the existing e-Quest infrastructure
(Re-)use of e-Quest metadata
Automatic generation of HTML/JSP pages, Javascript code, server-side Java code, SQL statements
February 2003: launch of project (CFC, Software AG)
December 2004: first e-Quest/Web questionnaire (farm animal survey)
2005: implementation of several other questionnaires and of additional software tools

6. The Web Solution: 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
optional
structural
metadata
(XML)
RDBMS
Metadata
e-Quest / Web
Data
Intranet
optional
Generator
(Uml2Web)
SQL
Respondent
Browser
Presentation
Business Logic
SOAP
XHTML, JSP JavaScript, Java Web-Services
Internet
Web- and J2EE-Servers

7. Presentation of e-Quest/Web

8. e-Quest/Web

9. e-Quest/Web

10. e-Quest Metadata Manager

11. Eclipse with Uml2Web plugin

12. JspPro (page preview)

13. JspPro (JSP editor)

14. JspPro (JSP editor)

15. e-Quest/Web Database Administration Tool

16. e-Quest/Web Database Administration Tool

17. Experiences

18. Number and percentage of reported questionnaires
Short-term survey (January 2005)

19. Reporting stream analysis (short-term survey - prod.)