Online Surveys

StatPac can create single page or multiple page Internet surveys from a codebook. In order to use the Internet survey feature you must have a Web site that supports CGI. Usually, this means you will have access to a cgi-bin folder on your server. Nearly all hosting services support CGI, so you may need to contact your ISP for more information. StatPac has a Perl script that you will install in your cgi-bin folder. If you do not wish to host your own survey, StatPac can provide a server for you.

Optionally, you will have a WYSIWYG HTML editor. StatPac will create aesthetically pleasing and fully-functional Internet surveys, but you may want to visually enhance their appearance with graphics or other design features. In order to do that, you must have a What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get HTML editor. Microsoft Front Page and Macromedia Dreamweaver are examples of  WYSIWYG HTML editors. However, any WYSIWYG HTML editor will work… even recent versions of Micrososft Word.

After StatPac creates the HTML pages, you may edit them, but if you were to subsequently regenerate the pages with StatPac, all edits would be lost. Therefore, don’t edit the HTML until you are satisfied with StatPac’s pages. Test the StatPac generated HTML pages online before using an HTML editor to enhance the appearance of the pages.

Many of the features of Internet surveys will only work when the survey is online. Things like branching, cookies, piping, popup windows, help windows, and page submissions will not work on your local computer. Use your local computer to view and edit the pages, but the survey must be on a server to test the functionality of these features.

The basic process for creating and using Internet surveys is as follows. We suggest that you follow this process for each Internet survey you conduct.

Server Setup

If you will be using your own server to host the survey and you have not already setup your server, select Server > Setup to specify your server settings.

If you will be using StatPac's server to host the survey, you'll be able to select a private folder name when you design your first survey.

Create the HTML Survey Pages

1. Create a codebook.
2. Create a default script by selecting Design > Internet Survey.
3. Modify the Primary Settings and script as necessary.
4. Generate and view the HTML files. Repeat this step as necessary.

Upload the Files to the Web server

Select Server > Auto Transfer . Click the Upload Survey button.

Test the survey

Test the survey by repeatedly taking it online as if you were a respondent. Test branching and validity checks.

Download and import the test data

Select Server > Auto Transfer. Click the Download Responses button. The responses will be downloaded and imported into StatPac.

Alternatively, you may manually download the file of responses by selecting Server > FTP. In the top pane, navigate to the folder containing the responses (usually cgi-bin). Drag the response file from the top pane to the lower pane to download the file. After downloading the response file to your local computer, select Data > Import > Internet Response File to import the data into StatPac.

Delete the test data from the server

Select Server > Auto Transfer Select the Delete tab and click the Delete Responses button.

Alternatively, you can manually delete the responses using FTP.

If you are using the StatPac server, select Server > FTP > StatPac. Select View > Response Folder. Right click on the response file and select Delete.

If you are using your own server, select Server > FTP > YourServerName. In the top pane, navigate to the folder containing the responses (usually cgi-bin). Right click on the response file and select Delete.

Conduct the survey

Email invitations or somehow make respondents aware of the link to the survey.

Download and import the data

If you are using your own server, select Server > Auto Transfer > YourServer. Click the Download Responses button.

If you are using StatPac's server, select Server > Auto Transfer > StatPac. Select the Auto Transfer tab and click the Download Responses button.

Alternatively, you may manually download the file of responses by selecting Server > FTP. In the top pane, navigate to the folder containing the responses (usually cgi-bin). Drag the response file from the top pane to the lower pane to download the file. After downloading the  response file to your local computer, select Data > Import > Internet Response File to import the data into StatPac.

The server will always contain the entire data set unless you delete the response file on the server (i.e., downloading the response file does not erase it from the server). Therefore, you can download the data at any time from a survey in progress and the download would contain the entire data set from the beginning to that point in time. When you import the data, you would overwrite the existing file because the newly downloaded file contains the entire data set.

Display a survey closed message

Select Server > Auto Transfer . Select the Delete tab and click the Delete Survey button.  The survey will be deleted and the survey closed page will be shown to people attempting to access the survey. If you repeat this process, the survey closed page will be deleted.

Alternatively, you can use FTP to manually close a survey. Select Server > FTP. In the top pane, navigate to the folder containing the survey. Right click on the SurveyName.htm file and rename it to something else. Right click on the SurveyName_closed.htm file and rename it to SurveyName.htm,

Before you can create an Internet survey on your own server, you must tell StatPac about that server. Select Server > Setup .

If you already have setup a server or servers, use the arrow keys to scroll through your server list.

To create a new server profile, click the New button. To delete the server profile that is currently displayed, click the Delete button.

Your ISP will be able to tell you the following FTP login and folder information.

FTP Login Information

Server Type

There are basically two types of servers: 1) Unix / Linux and 2) Windows NT / IIS. When you make a Server Type selection, the most likely Paths and Folders settings will be filled in

Domain Name

The domain name should be specified without an http or www prefix. For example, statpac.com or webpoll.org.

FTP Server

The FTP Server is the address of the FTP server. It almost always your domain name with an ftp prefix. For example, ftp.statpac.com or ftp.webpoll.org.  It could even be an IP address.

Username and Password

Your Username and Password will be provided by your ISP. Usernames and passwords are usually case sensitive, so use care when entering the information.

Paths & Folder Information

Web surveys will not function properly unless you get all of the settings right. There is a good chance that the default settings are correct, but not necessarily. So please be careful. On a Unix or Linux server, this information is case sensitive and is typically lower case.

FTP Path to WWW Root Folder

When you log in to your server using an FTP program, you'll be sitting in a folder on the server. Your wwwroot folder is the folder where you put your Web site HTML files. You should see your Web site home page in that folder. It might be the FTP login folder or it might be a subfolder All of these are likely subfolder names.

public_html

wwwroot

docs

yourdomain name.com

If your FTP login folder is the same as your wwwroot folder, then leave this setting blank. If your wwwroot folder is in a subfolder, specify the subfolder name.

If you don't know, contact your ISP or try to discover it yourself by exploring your server. Select File > Exit. Select Server > FTP and select the server you are trying to set up. The top pane will be your FTP login folder. Do you see any HTML files in that folder? If not, do you see any of the above subfolder names?  You can double click on the subfolder names to see the contents of that folder. Your looking for the folder that contains files with extensions of .htm or .html (e.g., index.htm or default.html). Close the FTP program and return to the Server Setup program to enter the folder name.

FTP Path to CGI Script Folder

This folder is easy to identify because it is nearly always called cgi-bin or cgi. It is usually a subfolder of the wwwroot folder. Specify the path as the full path to the folder beginning at the FTP login folder.

Example 1 – The wwwroot folder is a subfolder (typical Unix/Linux server)

The server folder structure is:

       FTP Login Folder

              public_html

                     cgi-bin

The FTP path to the wwwroot folder would be:  public_html

The FTP path to the CGI script folder would be:  public_html/cgi-bin

Example 2 – The wwwroot folder is a subfolder (typical Windows IIS server)

The server folder structure is:

       FTP Login Folder

              wwwroot

                     cgi-bin

The FTP path to the wwwroot folder would be:  wwwroot

The FTP path to the CGI script folder would be:  wwwroot/cgi-bin

Example 3 – The wwwroot folder is the wwwrootfolder (e.g., godaddy.com)

The server folder structure is:

       FTP Login Folder is the wwwroot folder

                cgi

The FTP path to the wwwroot folder would be:  leave blank

The FTP path to the CGI script folder would be:  cgi

Example 4 – The wwwroot folder is a subfolder called mydomain.com and the cgi script folder is at the same folder level as mydomain.com

The server folder structure is:

       FTP Login Folder

              mydomain.com

              cgi-bin

The FTP path to the wwwroot folder would be:  mydomain.com

The FTP path to the CGI script folder would be:  cgi-bin

Response Storage Folder

This is the folder where respondents answers will be stored. It is specified differently depending of the type of server.

Unix or Linux Server

On an Unix/Linux server, it is expressed as either an absolute server path or a path relative to the cgi script folder. We highly recommend leaving the setting as ./  which means to store responses in the cgi script folder. The cgi script folder is not visible to the outside world on a properly configured server.

There are numerous ways to specify the storage folder on a Unix or Linux server. The setting may be specified as absolute server path or relative to the cgi-bin folder. Absolute server paths always begin with a forward slash.

All of these would store the results in the cgi-bin folder.

StorageFolder=/home/username/public_html/cgi-bin   (absolute server path)

StorageFolder=../cgi-bin     (two periods)

StorageFolder=./                (one period)

All of these would store the results in a folder called "storage" which is immediately below the cgi-bin folder.

StorageFolder=/home/username/public_html//cgi-bin/storage

StorageFolder=../cgi-bin/storage     (two periods)

StorageFolder=./storage                 (one period)

These would store the results in a folder called "private" which is at the same level as public_html (and therefore not accessible to the outside world).

StorageFolder=/home/username/private    (absolute server path)

StorageFolder=../../private       (two periods)

These would store the results file in a folder called "storage" which is immediately below the public_html folder. Note that this may pose a security risk because the storage folder would be accessible to the world. 

StorageFolder=/home/username/public_html/storage    (absolute path)

StorageFolder=/public_html/storage

StorageFolder=../storage     (two periods)

NT, Windows, or  IIS Server

On an NT or IIS server the setting is specified using a DOS path (i.e., the full path beginning with a drive letter to the folder where responses should be stored). Users must have read/write access to the folder. An example might be:

StorageFolder=c:\inetpub\wwwroot\cgi-bin

In order to use FTP to retrieve the data, the wwwroot folder name must part of the StorageFolder path. For example, you would not be able to use FTP to retrieve this data because the storage folder is not below the wwwroot folder.

StorageFolder=d:\datastorage

Some older NT servers require that you use double backslashes instead of single backslashes. If you receive a “Server Busy” message after clicking the submit button on a survey, try changing the path to double backslashes in place of single backslashes:

StorageFolder=c:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\cgi-bin

Server Path to Perl

Type the absolute path where Perl is installed on your server. Your ISP will be able to tell you this information. The default settings are most likely correct. The syntax for this setting is different for Unix/Linux and NT/IIS servers.

Unix or Linux server:

Perl=/usr/bin/perl

Windows (NT or IIS) server:

Perl=c:\perl\bin\perl.exe

Mail Method

There are 4 mail methods to select from. The defaults are probably correct. For Unix/Linux servers, we suggest Unix SendMail. For NT/IIS we suggest SMTP Mail Server.

Unix Sendmail

Use this method on Unix/Linux servers only. Set the server path to the mail program to pint to the absolute server path. Your ISP should be able to give you the path and name of your server mailing program. For example, usr/sbin/sendmail

Perl Mail: Sendmail

This method may be used with any kind of server. It uses the perl Mail::Sendmail module. You must have the perl module installed on your server to use  this method..

SMTP Mail Server

This method may be used with any kind of server. It uses your SMTP server to send emails.

Perl Net: SMTP

This method may be used with any kind of server. It uses the perl Net:SMTP module. You must have the perl module installed on your server to use  this method..

SMTP Port

When you choose one of the SMTP methods you must also specify the SMTP port. Port 25 is the default and it is most likely correct for your server although some servers use a different port.. Your ISP to will be able to tell you your SMTP mail port number.

The first step in any survey is to create a codebook. Generally, this would be done using the Grid. There are only a few special considerations in designing a codebook for an Internet survey.

1. Use a short lower case codebook name without dashes or special characters.

2. Keep your survey pages short. Responses are only collected when the user clicks the submit button. If the user gets frustrated and leaves your Web site without completing the survey, none of  her responses will be recorded. You can dramatically increase response by keeping your surveys short (e.g., under 20 questions). If your survey needs to be longer, use a multiple page survey so that responses are stored at the end of each page. Even if a respondent fails to finish the entire survey, data will be captured for each page they completed.

3. Allow missing response for most items. When you do not allow missing response and the user clicks the submit button without answering all the items, they will be presented with a message to complete the missing item. If they become frustrated and leave your Web site, none of their responses on that page will be recorded even though only one item might actually be missing.

4. Specify a variable name for each variable. Do not use special characters in the variable name except the underscore character. A good variable naming scheme is Q1, Q2, Q3a, Q3b, etc.

5. When creating multiple response variables, there must be the same number of variables as value labels, and all the value labels must be specified for each of the  variables of the multiple response variables. For example, if you have a survey with a question that says “Check all that apply”, and there are five response choices (value labels),  then the codebook must contain five variables with identical variable and value labels.

6. Limit branching to variables that will use radio buttons. Branching out of text boxes or check boxes is not supported. Both simple and complex branching are supported.

7. Test your survey online before going live.  This involves completing the survey several times and importing the data into StatPac. Do not assume that if the survey visually looks okay, it is okay. When you test the survey online, specify an answer for every question. For multiple response checkboxes, check every box. This is the only way to guarantee that you have not made any errors. Visually inspect the .asc response file. If any numeric fields have more than one value (with a comma separator) , it means that you have made an error in the codebook or StatPac script (two variables have the same name or the variable is specified twice in the script).

Testing is a mandatory component of every internet survey. Do not bypass this step!

There are three special variables for Internet surveys: IPAddress, Today, and RespondentID. If you add these variables to your codebook, you will be able to capture the IP address of the respondent, the date that they completed the survey, and a unique Respondent ID number. After generating an Internet survey, StatPac will ask  if you want to add these variables to the codebook. In most cases, you should answer yes.

Alternatively, you can manually add these variables to the codebook during the study design. The IPAddress and RespondentID variables should have an A15 format and the Today variable should have an N8 format. When capturing the date, it will be stored in the data file in YYYYMMDD format. These variables may be placed anywhere in the codebook. They will not be shown on the web pages and are for internal use only.

The RespondentID variable can be used to match respondents data with an existing data base of information. First, include RespondentID as an A15 variable in the codebook. When you generate the Internet survey, it will not appear on the survey.

The RespondentID variable must be included in the codebook if you intend to track who responded to the survey. In a typical web survey, you would use StatPac’s bulk e-mail program to send potential respondents an invitation to take your survey and there would be a link in the e-mail to the survey URL. In order to track who responded or to match respondents' data with the data base, the URL link must be appended with a question mark and the respondent's ID number. For example, when sending the e-mail to respondent whose ID in the data base was 91246, you would use this as the link URL in the email to that respondent. The respondent ID may consist of any alpha or numeric characters.

http://www.yourdomain.com/surveyname.htm?id=91246

Note: If you are using password protection for the survey, the link might be:

http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/surveyname.pl?id=91246

StatPac’s bulk e-mail program will automatically append an ?id= to the URL link in the e-mail invitation. If you use StatPac to send email invitations, ID handling is automatic.

The second step in creating an Internet survey is to create a script that defines all the characteristics of the HTML pages. The script is a set of commands that tells StatPac how to generate the HTML survey files that will become your Internet survey. The script language is quite easy to understand, and there are only a few commands that you'll need to know. In most cases, the default script created by StatPac will require only minor editing.

To create a default script, first open the codebook. Select Design > Internet Survey and the Internet script window will show the current script. If a script has not been previously created for this codebook, a default script will be created.  The default script is StatPac's best guess of how you want your survey to look, but in most cases you'll  be able to improve on its appearance by editing the script.

Again, you do not need to know or understand all the script commands. Usually minor editing will be sufficient. The script is divided into sections to make it easier to understand. There are three major sections: Primary Settings, Advanced Settings, and Survey Creation.

The Primary settings must be specified for each survey. They control parameters that are unique to a given survey.

The Advanced settings control text attributes such as fonts, colors, and spacing. These settings often remain the same from one survey to another. The Advanced settings can be saved in a style sheet so they can be used in a future survey.

The Survey Creation section has commands to control the order and appearance of objects (i.e., radio buttons, check boxes, text boxes, etc.) .

When Settings is not checked, only the Survey Creation section will show in the script. When Settings is checked, all the settings will be shown. The Primary and Advanced settings may be edited directly in the script window (if Settings is checked), or you may click the Edit button to use the Script editor.

The basic process is to let StatPac create a default script and generate the Internet survey HTML pages. Then view the survey pages and note the things you would like to change. Make changes in the script and regenerate the pages. View the HTML pages again and continue making changes to the script until you are satisfied with the survey.

Once you are satisfied with the appearance of a survey, you can click the Server button to upload it to the Internet.

You will want to make changes to the Primary Settings, but only the URL to survey folder is critical because it defines the server and folder that will host the survey online.

Most script commands have two parts. The part to the left of the equals symbol is a keyword for the script. The part to the right of the equals symbol is the text for the keyword. If the text part (to the right of the equals symbol) is longer than one line just continue typing without pressing [Enter], so the text automatically wraps to the next line(s). Unlike a procedure file, an indented line will not be interpreted as a continuation of the previous line.

While viewing the script, you can right click on any line to learn more about that command. If the command involves a file or color selection, the right click will also offer a settings choice.

The actual window for the script has standard editing features. Use Ctrl X, Ctrl C, and Ctrl V to cut, copy, and paste text within the window. There is also a semi-automatic copy and paste feature to expedite changes to the script. You may highlight text from other selected areas of the screen and then click in the script window to automatically paste them into the text (without actually selecting copy and paste).  The copy will work from the workspace or the Detail window. To copy a variable name, select the variable on the right from the list and double-click in the script window on the line where the variable name should appear. Variable names will always be added to the end of the line.

Once created for a given codebook, the script is automatically saved. If you subsequently select Design, Internet Survey for the same codebook, the previously created/edited script will be shown. The script itself is an ASCII text file with the name "codebookname.script". The script is created from the codebook, but once created, it is independent of the codebook. For example, say you are working on a codebook and then create a script just to see what the Internet survey will look like (so far). Then you go back to the Grid and add more variables.  The next time you select Design, Internet Survey, the previous script will be shown -- without the new variables. Click the New Script button to recreate Survey Creation portion of the script with the new variables. Alternatively, you can add the commands to the Survey Creation portion of the script.

If you want to completely start over with the default script for a given codebook, close StatPac, delete the codebookname.script  file, rerun StatPac, load the codebook, and select Design, Internet Survey.

The Advanced settings control the "look and feel" of a survey. Fonts and colors are part of the advanced settings.

You can save the “style” to a file so that you can recall and use the style on a future survey.  The style includes most of the advanced settings (colors, and page layout parameters).  The “Style Buttons” let you save the current style or load a previous style.  “Style files” have the extension of .style and the default folder for style files is the installation folder (although you can save or load styles to and from any folder).

While working on a survey, save the style by clicking on the Style Save Button and typing a name for the style. Load a previous style by clicking on the Style Open Button and select the style. When you generate the HTML files, the current style will control the appearance of the survey.

The actual style file is an ASCII text file that contains most of the Advanced settings. When you first select Design > Internet Survey, StatPac loads a style called Default.style from the installation folder. If you want to change your default style, save the desired style to the installation folder using the name "Default" and overwrite the existing Default.style.

Generally, the procedure you'll follow will be to first click the OK button. This will run the script that creates the Internet survey.  StatPac will create several HTML pages: a loader page, one for each page of the survey, a thank-you page, and a survey-closed page.  Other HTML files, including help and popup windows, and a cookie and/or IP address cutter might also be created.

When the Preview box is checked, the survey will be shown in a preview window. In the Preview window, select View to select the page you want to look at.

You may also select the Browser Local button to launch Windows Explorer and view the survey you created. If your survey contains multiple pages, you will have to look at each page individually. After examining the appearance of the survey, close Explorer. If necessary, make changes to the script and repeat the process. You can continue making changes to the script until you are satisfied with the appearance of the Internet survey. It is important to note that many features (including the continue and submit buttons) will not work properly until the files are actually uploaded to the Internet.

Both the Primary Settings section and the Advanced Settings section of the script can be edited using the Script editor. For inexperienced users, this will be easier than editing the script directly, although both methods achieve the same goal. 

The Script Editor offers the ability to make changes to the Primary and Advanced sections of the script using a form interface. The tabs represent different sections of the script. Changes made using the Script Editor will be reflected in the script itself when you exit the script editor.

In the Primary and Advanced settings section of this manual that follow, the keyword in the script is specified. When using the Script editor, you do not need to be concerned with the keywords themselves.

Click the Edit button to evoke the Script editor.

HTML tags may be imbedded in text settings to control the appearance of the text. These are:

Start and stop bold:   <b> and </b>

Start and stop underlining:  <u> and </u>

Start and stop italics:  <i> and </i>

Insert a line break:  <br>

Thanks=<b>This entire text is bold.</b>

Text=Only one word is <u>underlined</u>.

Instructions=<b><i>This is bold & italics.</i></b>

Closed=Thank you for your interest.<br> <br> The survey is closed.

The Primary settings will always be shown at the beginning of the script. This is the only section of the script that you must complete. It specifies critical information that is likely to vary from survey to survey. There are seven Primary settings.

HTML Name (HTMLName=)

HTML Name sets the name for all survey pages. The default will be the same as the codebook name but you may change it. This will be the name of the survey on the Web and it will be part of the link to the survey. An example would be:

HTMLName=Research

The first viewable page of the survey is named HTMLName_1.htm. All subsequent pages of the survey (including the thank-you page) will have file names with an underscore and number suffix. The last numbered file is the thank-you page, which is the page that respondents will be shown when they click the final submit button.

A one-page survey would have the following files.

Research.htm  (Loader)

Research_1.htm (1st page)

Research_2.htm (Thank-you page)

A three-page survey would have the following files.

Research.htm  (Loader)

Research_1.htm  (1st page)

Research_2.htm  (2nd page)

Research_3.htm  (3rd page)

Research_4.htm  (Thank-you page)

Additionally, the HTMLName command is used to name several other files.

Research_closed.htm  (Survey is closed page)

Research_cutter.htm  (Delete the cookie or your IP address)

Research_popup_1.htm  (1st popup window)

Research_popup_2.htm  (2nd popup window)

Research_help_1.htm  (1st help window)

Research_help_2.htm  (2nd help window)

Research_start.htm  (Loader page for password protected surveys)

The HTMLName_closed.htm page can be used after a survey has been closed. After a survey is closed you can delete the survey from your server. However, you probably also want to prevent late responders from getting a page not found message. Therefore, when you delete a survey, the survey closed page will be shown to respondents.

When cookies or IP addresses have been used to prevent visitors from taking the survey more than once, then you also need to upload a file named HTMLName_cutter.htm. This file is necessary to test your installation. When a respondent finishes a page of the survey, they will be given a cookie as they advance to the next page. The cookie contains the ID number, and controls whether they will be able to return to a previous page and it will redirect their browser to the proper page if they quit the survey without completing it and come back to finish it at a future time. If IP control is used, their IP address will be added to an IP log file. When you test your survey online, you too will receive the cookie and your IP address will be added to the IP log file. Thus, you could test it once but you might be unable to test it again. To delete the cookie from your computer and/or remove your IP address from the IP log file, set your browser to  HTMLName_cutter.htm and the cookie will be deleted and your IP address will be removed from the IP log file. You'll then be able to test the survey again.

Banner Image(s)  (BannerImage=)

BannerImage sets the image that will be shown at the top of the page. To select the image, right click on the BannerImage command line. If you're doing a survey for a client, BannerImage is probably your client's logo.

BannerImage=c:\images\logo.jpg

Multiple banner images may be show side by side. After right clicking on the line, select the first banner image. Then right click on the line again and select the second banner image. They will be separated on the command line by a semicolon.

BannerImage=c:\images\logoA.jpg;c:\images\logoB.gif

To erase any or all previously selected banner images, simple delete them from the BannerImage command line.

Tip: To capture a client's logo, go to their Web site. Right click on their logo and select Save Picture As. You may need to edit the logo with image editing software such as Photo Shop or Paint Shop Pro.

Heading  (Heading=)

Heading sets the text for the page heading. It is generally the title of the survey.

Heading=Acme Inc. Employee Survey

Finish Text & Finish URL (FinishText= and FinishURL=)

FinishText sets the text for a link on the thank you page and FinishURL sets the URL for the link. If you are doing a survey for a client, this is probably a link to their home page. If the survey is for your company, it's probably a link to your home page.

FinishText=Click here for the StatPac home page

FinishURL=http://statpac.com

If both are left blank, then the finish page will not have an outgoing link. If the FinishText is specified and the FinishURL is left blank, the text on the thank-you page will appear as text only without a hyperlink.

Cookie (Cookie=)

Cookie sets the type of cookie that will be used to prevent multiple submissions from the same computer. The valid settings are: None, ID, Partial, or Full.

Cookie=None

Cookie=ID

The respondent’s computer will be given a cookie so that a respondent who attempts to take the survey multiple times will be assigned the same ID number as previous administrations. If they finish the survey or quit prematurely and attempt to take it again, they will start at the first page of the survey and will be assigned the same ID number as their first access. If they change previously entered data, their most recent entry will be captured by the program.

Cookie=Partial 

A cookie will be given when the respondent reaches the thank-you page to prevent them from taking the survey again. Thus, the respondent will be able to page back and forth within the survey, but not after they have completed the survey. Once they’ve completed the survey, they will not be able to access it again.

Cookie=Full 

A cookie will be given when the respondent submits each page. Thus, if a respondent stops taking the survey on a given page and tries to take the survey again at a future time, their browser will automatically be redirected to the page where they left off. Setting Cookie=Full turns the survey into a “forward only” survey. Respondents will be able to go forward to the next page of the survey, but they will not be able to go back to a previous page. In other words, their browser’s Back Button will not work. Once they’ve completed the survey, they will not be able to access it again.

When cookies have been used, a file named HTMLName_cutter.htm will also be created and uploaded. While testing, you will be given the same cookie that will be given to respondents, so you will need to delete the cookie from your computer to re-test the survey. Set your browser to this file to remove the cookie from your computer.

Note: The legacy file HTMLName_cookie_cutter.htm will still be created but AutoTransfer will not upload it to the server.

IP Address Control (IPControl=)

IPControl sets whether IP addresses will be used to prevent multiple submissions from the same IP address. The valid settings are: Yes or No

IPControl=Yes

When a respondent completes the survey, their IP address will be recorded in an IP log file. If they attempt to take the survey again, their IP address will be found in the log file and they will be prevented from taking the survey again.

IPControl is more effective than cookies because cookie blockers are sometimes installed on respondents' computers. IPControl cannot be blocked. However, IPControl should only be used when you have reason to believe that each potential respondent has a different IP address. For example, if you are surveying different companies and you want to allow only one respondent from each company, IPControl could be used. IPControl would not be appropriate if you were surveying multiple people from the same company.

When using cookie or IP control, the HTMLName_cutter.htm will allow you to delete the cookie or your IP address. Since the HTMLName_cutter.htm can be accessed from your browser, it means that anyone can access it. The HTML_SecureCutter setting in the StatPac.ini system defaults file can be used to control whether you will be required to enter your StatPac serial number to access the HTMLName_cutter.htm file. If HTML_SecureCutter=1, you will be required to enter your serial number and if  HTML_SecureCutter=0, you will not.

Allow Cross Site Access (AllowCrossSite=)

Cross site access might be a useful feature. You can place the loader page on your domain (the URL respondents will see) and host the survey itself on the StatPac server. The loader page is named HTMLname.htm and its purpose is to load the first page of the survey (named HTMLname_1.htm). When cross site access is allowed, the loader page can be hosted on a server that is different than the survey itself.

Allowing cross site access has risks because it makes your survey more convenient to hacking attempts. StatPac was written to minimize the possibility of being hacked, and we are not aware of any successful attempts. However, we are aware of many situation where hackers have tried to defeat StatPac's security. This is especially true for surveys from financial institutions and "popularity polls" for the young adult audience. Allowing cross site access makes it more convenient for someone to try to hack the survey, so we recommend not using cross site access unless you actually need it.

The HTML_AllowCrossSite setting in the StatPac.ini system defaults file is used to control cross site access. When HTML_AllowCrossSite = 1, cross site access will be allowed. When HTML_AllowCrossSite = 0, an Access Denied message will be displayed,

URL to Survey Folder  (WebFolderURL=)

WebFolderURL sets the server and optionally the folder where the survey will reside. It is the full URL to the folder that will hold the survey. All of the survey pages are uploaded to this folder.

If you will be using the StatPac server:

Specify StatPac as the WebFolderURL setting:

WebFolderURL=take-suvey.com

If you want to use StatPac's secure SSL server, add an https://www. prefix.

WebFolderURL=https://www.take-suvey.com

When you click OK to generate the HTML, the setting will be changed to reflect your current private folder on the StatPac server, and the HTML will be created using the modified setting. When using SSL, the www. prefix is required and will be added by the software if you inadvertantly omit it when using https://.

The link to your surveys on the StatPac server will be:

http://take-survey.com/foldername/surveyname.htm

or

https://www.take-survey.com/foldername/surveyname.htm

To change your private folder name (when Settings is checked), right click on the WebFolderURL line and select Server Folder Setting. Alternatively, select Server>Auto Transfer and click the Folder tab.

After you change you folder name, you must regenerate the HTML so that the survey incorporates the new folder name and not the old folder name. The WebFolderURL setting will be adjusted when to your new folder name when you generate the HTML.

If you will be using your own server:

Specify the full URL to the folder that will hold your surveys.

If your domain name is acme.com and you place the survey in the home directory, then you would set this parameter to:

WebFolderURL=http://www.acme.com

If you want to place your survey in a "survey" folder immediately below the home directory, then you would set WebFolderURL to:

WebFolderURL=http://www.acme.com/survey

If you want to run the submission process over a secure (SSL) server, then you must use the fully qualified secure socket URL:

WebFolderURL=https:// www.acme.com /survey

The Header & Footer settings let you control what will appear at the top and bottom of each page.

RepeatBannerImage

RepeatBannerImage sets whether the banner image (as defined in the Primary Settings) will be repeated on each page.  RepeatBannerImage may be set to Yes or No.

RepeatBannerImage=Yes

RepeatHeading

RepeatHeading sets whether the page heading (defined in the Primary Settings) will be repeated on each page. RepeatHeading may be set to Yes or No.

RepeatHeading=No

PageNumbers

PageNumbers sets whether page numbers will be shown at the top of each page. When a banner image is displayed, page numbers will appear in a small font below the banner image. If no banner image is displayed, they will appear below the page heading.  PageNumbers may be set to Yes or No.

PageNumbers=No

ContinueButtonText

ContinueButtonText sets the text on the continue button for multiple page surveys. On a single page survey, this setting is ignored.

ContinueButtonText=Continue

The ContinueButtonText may be used more than once in the Survey Creation section of the script  to change the continue button text on each page.

<Commands to create the first page go here>

ContinueButtonText=Click here for the second page

NewPage

<Commands to create the second page go here>

ContinueButtonText=Click here for the third page

NewPage

SubmitButtonText

SubmitButtonText sets the text on the final submit button for the last survey page. Clicking this button will take the respondent to the thank you page.

SubmitButtonText=Finish

ProgressBar

ProgressBar sets whether a progress bar will be shown at the bottom of each page.  It applies only to multiple page surveys. The progress bar uses two graphics, blue.gif and grey.gif. Thus, when using the progress bar, both of these graphics must be uploaded to the same server folder as the survey. Auto Transfer will automatically upload these files when necessary. ProgressBar may be set to Yes or No.

ProgressBar=Yes

FootnoteText & FootnoteURL

FootnoteText sets the text for a link that will be shown at the bottom of each page and FootnoteURL sets the URL for the link. This is usually a link that a respondent can click if they have problems with the survey. If both settings are blank, no footnote will be shown. If FootnoteText is specified and FootnoteURL is left blank, the footnote will appear as text only.

FootnoteURL=http://statpac.com

FootnoteURL=mailto:admin@statpac.com?subject=Survey Help

The Finish and Popup settings let you control the message respondents will see when the survey is completed, and the characteristics of popup windows if they are used.

Thanks

Thanks sets the text for the thank you page. The text will use the Title command attributes but may be modified using basic html tags to control the text appearance and line spacing.

Thanks=Your response has been received.<br>Thank you for completing the survey.

Closed

Closed sets the text for the survey closed page. By default, the text will use the Title  attributes, but may be modified using basic html tags to control the text appearance and line spacing.

Closed=Thank you for your interest.<br> The survey is closed.

HelpWindowWidth & HelpWindowHeight

HelpWindowWidth sets the Help window width in pixels and HelpWindowHeight sets the Help window height in pixels.

HelpWindowHeight=250

HelpWindowWidth=350

HelpLinkText

HelpLinkText sets the text that the respondent will see on the survey for the help link. If not specified, the default is "Help".

HelpLinkText=Click here for help

Help commands may be used together to insert a pre-existing help file. The keyword "Helpwindow" determines where the link will be inserted.

LinkText

LinkText sets the text for the Link command which is used to insert a hyperlink into the survey. Linkext and LinkURL should be set before using the Link command.

LinkText=Click here to see our home page

LinkURL=http://www.statpac.com

Link

PopupBannerImage

PopupBannerImage sets whether the banner image will be displayed at the top of popup windows. PopupBannerImage may be set to Yes or No.

PopupBannerImage=Yes

PopupFullScreen

PopupFullScreen sets the size of popup pages. PopupFullScreen may be set to Yes or No. When set to Yes, popup pages will fill the respondent’s entire screen. When set to No, popup pages will only fill the current window display area (i.e., the browser toolbar and URL address bar will not be obscured by the popup page). When there are no popup pages, the setting is ignored. A full screen popup is preferred if the popup window contains more than a couple of questions.

PopupFullScreen=No

The Control tab lets you change settings that control the basic operation of the survey

Method

Method sets the method that will be used to capture respondents' answers. Method may be set to Email, File, or Both.  When Method=Email, the responses will be emailed to you. When Method=File, they will be saved in a file on the server. When Method=Both, responses will be emailed to you and stored in a file on the server. The suggested method is File.

Method=File

Email

Email sets the suffix or full email address where the completed survey responses will be mailed. This command is ignored when using the File method.

In the first form of the command, only the suffix is specified and the email will be sent to your codebook name at the specified domain. For example, if you create an Internet survey for a codebook named "research", the completed responses will be mailed to research@domain.com. In the second form of the command, the entire email address is specified.

EMail=@acme.com

EMail=John.Doe@acme.com

RestartSeconds

RestartSeconds sets the number of seconds that the thank you page is displayed before the survey is restarted. This feature is useful for kiosk surveys or when using a Web survey as the mechanism for data entry. When RestartSeconds is set to blank or zero, the thank you page will be displayed indefinitely. When set to a value greater than 0, the thank you page will show for the specified number of seconds, and then the survey will be loaded again beginning with the first page.

RestartSeconds=15

MaximizeWindow

MaximizeWindow sets whether the survey will attempt to maximize the respondents browser window to full screen.  MaximizeWindow may be set to Yes or No.

MaximizeWindow=Yes

BreakFrame

BreakFrame sets whether the survey will attempt to break out of an HTML frame.  Do not use this feature unless you are linking to the survey from within a frame set. BreakFrame may be set to Yes or No.

BreakFrame=No

AutoAdvance

AutoAdvance sets whether the screen will automatically scroll to the next question when a radio button is clicked. It is often disconcerting for respondents to see the screen scroll on it's own, so the recommended setting is No. AutoAdvance may be set to Yes or No.

AutoAdvance=No

BranchDelay

BranchDelay sets whether branching is immediate or delayed until the page is submitted. BranchDelay may be set to Yes or No. When the last variable on a page contains a branch, it will always be delayed until the page is submitted.

When set to No, all other branching will happen immediately when the radio button is clicked. When set to Yes, all branching on that page will be delayed until the respondent finishes the page and clicks the submit button. BranchDelay may be used multiple times to change the setting from page to page or within a page.

BranchDelay=Yes

Cache

Cache sets whether the respondents' browsers will cache the survey pages. Cache may be set to Yes or No.  If you expect respondents to frequently use the back button to review previous answers, set Cache to Yes so their pages load faster. Otherwise, the setting is not important.

Cache=Yes

Index

Index sets whether search engine spiders will be allowed to index and follow links on the survey pages. Index may be set to Yes or No.  Each survey page will include the robots meta tag with instructions to search engine spiders to include or exclude the page from their index. Some search engine spiders ignore meta tags so setting Index to No will not guarantee that a page will not be indexed.

Index=No

ForceLoaderSubmit

ForceLoaderSubmit sets the method used to load the first page of the survey. ForceLoaderSubmit may be set to Yes or No. The link to the survey is actually a link to a loader page. The loader can display the first page of the survey using two different methods.

When set to No (fastest method), the loader page is replaced with the first page of the survey. Using this method, you will not be able to tell how many people just looked at the survey without completing any questions. Data will only be captured when they click a submit button.

When set to Yes, the loader page is processed as if a submit button were clicked. The respondent's IP address and data and time are captured. Even if they don't complete any actual survey questions, you'll know that they looked at first page of the survey.

ForceLoaderSubmit=Yes

ExtraTallBlankLine

ExtraTallBlankLine sets the height when the BlankLine command is used. ExtraTallBlankLine may be set to Yes or No.  A setting of Yes increases the height of a blank line, and No decreases it.

ExtraTallBlankLine=No

RadioTextPosition

RadioTextPosition sets the position of the text that is adjacent to a radio button. RadioTextPosition may be set to Left or Right. When set to Left, the text will appear to the left of a radio button, and when set to Right, the text will be displayed to the right of the radio button.

Example:  RadioTextPosition=Right

RadioTextPosition may be used multiple times to display some questions with the text to the left of the radio buttons and some questions to the right of the radio buttons. For example, these lines would show two groups of questions with radio buttons in a horizontal format. The first group would have the text (questions) appear to the right of the radio buttons, and the second group would have the text appear to the left of the radio buttons.

Question=Please indicate the importance of these items:

RadioTextPosition=Right

Radio Impt_1 - Impt_5

BlankLine

RadioTextPosition=Left

Question=Please indicate your satisfaction with the following items:

Radio Sat_1 - Sat_5

TextBoxTextPosition

TextBoxTextPosition sets the position of the text that is adjacent to a text box. TextBoxTextPosition may be set to Left or Right. When set to Left, the text will be to the left of the text box, and when set to Right, the text will be displayed to the right of the text box. TextBoxTextPosition may be used multiple times to display some questions with the text to the left  and other questions with the text to the right of the text box.

TextBoxTextPosition=Left

LargeTextBoxPosition

LargeTextBoxPosition sets the position of a large text box. LargeTextBoxPosition may be set to Left or Center. When set to Left, a text box will be left justified, and when set to Center, a large text box will be centered on the page. LargeTextBoxPosition may be used multiple times to show some large text boxes to the left and some centered. Applies to large text boxes only (i.e., multiple lines).

LargeTextBoxPosition=Left

LargeTextBoxProgressBar

LargeTextBoxProgressBar sets whether a large text box will have a progress bar underneath of it to show respondents how much of the maximum text space they have typed. LargeTextBoxProgressBar may be set to Yes or No. If the field width of the variable is very long, then the progress bar is unnecessary. If you believe that respondents might attempt to type text that is longer than the field width then a progress bar is desirable.

LargeTextBoxProgressBar=No

There are numerous commands to insert text into a survey page. These are:

Heading=This is a large heading.

Title=This is a title with smaller text.

Text=This is normal text.

Footnote=This is the footnote at the bottom of the page.

Instructions=This is text in a frame.

Question=This is more text in a frame.

The attributes for these commands control the size, color, spacing, justification, and features like bold, underline and italics.

Global Attributes

The Global Attributes specify the default justifications, colors, and table attributes for the various components of the survey. The first letter of each attribute indicates that it is a global command ("G" stands for global), and applies to the web page as a whole.

GJustification=Center

GColor=#000000

GBgColor=#FFFFFF

GBorder=0

GCellpadding=2

GCellspacing=0

GWidth=75%

GBorderColor=#C0C0C0

Wallpaper=c:\StatPac\Wallpaper\background.jpg

GJustification sets the global justification. (Left, Center, or Right)

GColor sets the global font color. To select a color while editing the script, right click on the command line.

GBgColor sets the background color when a wallpaper is not specified. To select a color while editing the script, right click on the command line.

GBorder sets the global border thickness in pixels.

GCellpadding sets the space between the global frame and table cells in pixels.

GCellspacing sets the amount of space between the contents of a cell and the cell wall  in pixels.

GWidth sets the survey width as a percent of the total screen width in percent.

GBorderColor sets the global border color when there is a border. To select a color while editing the script, right click on the command line.

Wallpaper sets the background wallpaper for the survey. To select the wallpaper, right click on the command line.

Heading, Title, Text, & Footnote Attributes

There are four commands that can be used to insert text into the survey without a frame (i.e., the global background color or wallpaper will appear as the background behind the text). These are the Heading, Title, Text and Footnote commands.

Each of these has it's own attributes. Generally, heading is the largest font and footnote is the smallest.

----- Heading Attributes -----

HeadingFontFace=Arial

HeadingFontSize=18

HeadingBold=Yes

HeadingUnderline=No

HeadingItalics=No

HeadingJustification=center

HeadingColor=#000000

----- Title Attributes -----

TitleFontFace=Arial

TitleFontSize=12

TitleBold=Yes

TitleUnderline=No

TitleItalics=No

TitleJustification=left

TitleColor=#000000

----- Text Attributes -----

TextFontFace=Arial

TextFontSize=10

TextBold=No

TextUnderline=No

TextItalics=No

TextJustification=left

TextColor=#000000

----- Footnote Attributes -----

FootnoteFontFace=Arial

FootnoteFontSize=8

FootnoteBold=No

FootnoteUnderline=No

FootnoteItalics=No

FootnoteJustification=center

FootnoteColor=#000000

_FontFace sets the font face. (Any font name)

_FontSize sets the font size. (Font size in points)

_Bold sets whether the text will be bold. (Yes or No)

_Underline sets whether the text will be underline. (Yes or No)

_Italics sets whether the Heading will be italics. (Yes or No)

_Justification sets the justification for the text. (Left, Center, or Right)

_Color sets the font color for the text. To select a color while editing the script, right click on the command line.

Instructions, Question, and Response Attributes

There are three kinds of framed text. This text will appear in a frame with a border. The background color of the frame may be different from the global background color. Two of these (Instructions and Question) may be inserted into the page by using the command.

Instructions=Please answer the following items.

Question=Select you level of agreement or disagreement with the following:

The response attributes controls the appearance of the response choice frame. That is, the frame that displays the response choices and contains radio buttons, check boxes, or text boxes.

The first letter of the command indicates which type of attribute is being modified.

"I" stands for instructions, which is special text that can be shown to the user. The instruction attributes control the appearance of the instruction text.

"Q" stands for the question itself (i.e., the variable label). The question attributes control the appearance of the question text.

"R" is for the response categories or response text (i.e., the value labels). The response attributes control the appearance of the response choices.

There are several attributes for each of the framed components. These lines describe the attributes that will be used to create the Internet survey. Once you have set your preferences, they will rarely need to be changed in the script commands.

----- Instruction Attributes -----

IFontFace=Arial

IFontSize=10

IBold=Yes

IUnderline=No

IItalics=No

IJustification=left

IColor=#000000

IBgColor=#FFFFFF

IBorder=0

ICellpadding=2

ICellspacing=0

IWidth=100%

IBorderColor=#C0C0C0

----- Question Attributes -----

QFontFace=Arial

QFontSize=10

QBold=Yes

QUnderline=No

QItalics=No

QJustification=left

QColor=#000000

QBgColor=#DDDDDD

QBorder=1

QCellpadding=2

QCellspacing=0

QWidth=100%

QBorderColor=#C0C0C0

----- Response Attributes -----

RFontFace=Arial

RFontSize=10

RBold=No

RUnderline=No

RItalics=No

RJustification=left

RColor=#000000

RBgColor=#FFFFFF

RBorder=1

RCellpadding=2

RCellspacing=0

RWidth=100%

RBorderColor=#C0C0C0

RBarColor=#F0F0F0

_FontFace sets the font face. (Any font name)

_FontSize sets the font size. (Font size in points)

_Bold sets whether the text will be bold. (Yes or No)

_Underline sets whether the text will be underline. (Yes or No)

_Italics sets whether the Heading will be italics. (Yes or No)

_Justification sets the justification for the text. (Left, Center, or Right)

_Color sets the font color for the text. To select a color while editing the script, right click on the command line.

_BGColor sets the background color of the frame. To select a color while editing the script, right click on the command line.

_Border sets the size of the border around the frame in pixels.

_Cellpadding sets the space between the global border and the frame border in pixels. _Cellpadding is used to control the amount of space that the text will be indented. For example, if RCellpadding=0 then the object for the response choices (radio buttons, check boxes, etc.) will be flush left. If RCellpadding=5 then the object for the response choices will be indented five spaces (characters).  Here are two examples. On the first one, RCellpadding=3 and on the second, RCellpadding=10.

1. What is your gender?

   ¦ Male

   ¦ Female

1. What is your gender?

          ¦ Male

          ¦ Female

_Cellspacing sets the space between the frame border and the text in the questions cell in pixels.

_Width sets the width of the frame as a percent of the global width (usually 100%).

_BorderColor sets the questions border color when there is a border.

RBarColor sets the background color of every other row in matrix style response choices.

Password protected surveys are one way to control who has access to the survey.

LoginBannerImage

Sets the image that will appear at the top of the login page. To select the image while editing the script, right click on the command line.

LoginBannerImage=c:\images\logo.jpg

LoginBGColor

Sets the background color for the login page when no login wallpaper is specified.  To select a color while editing the script, right click on the command line.

LoginBgColor=#FFFFFF

LoginWallpaper

Sets the background wallpaper for the login page. To select the wallpaper while editing the script, right click on the command line.

LoginWallpaper=c:\images\background.jpg

LoginWindowColor

Sets the background cell color for the login window. To select a color while editing the script, right click on the command line.

LoginWindowColor=#FFFFFF

PasswordType

PaswwordType sets the method that will be used for password protection. PasswordType may be set to type to None, Single, or Multiple.

When PasswordType=None, there will be no password protection. None of the other parameters in the Password Section need to be set. They are only important if PasswordType is set to Single or Multiple.

When PasswordType=Single, there will be one password for all respondents who access the survey.

When PasswordType=Multiple, each person who accesses the survey will have a unique password.

PasswordType=Multiple

LoginText

LoginText sets the text shown at the top of the login window. It is the heading for the login window.

LoginText=Please Log In

PasswordText

PasswordText sets the text on the login screen that prompts the respondent for the password. It will appear to the left of the textbox where a respondent enter their password.

PasswordText=Password

LoginButtonText

LoginButtonText sets the text for the button on the login screen.

LoginButtonText=Log In

FailText

FailText sets the message that will be shown to a respondent who enters an invalid password.

FailText=Invalid Login Attempt to

FailButtonText

Sets the text on the retry button that will be shown to a respondent who enters an invalid password.

FailButtonText=Try Again

ShowLink

ShowLink sets whether the finish page hyperlink (usually a link to your home page) will also be displayed on the login page. ShowLink may be set to Yes or No. The Primary settings of FinishText and FinishURL control the creation of the link.

ShowLink=Yes

EmailMe

EmailMe sets the conditions when you will be emailed a notification of a login. EmailMe may be set to None, Valid, Invalid, or Both.

EmailMe=None  No e-mail will be sent to you for either valid or invalid login attempts.

EmailMe=Valid  An email will be sent to you when there has been a valid login.

EmailMe=Invalid  An email will be sent to you when there has been an unsuccessful attempt to login.

EmailMe=Both  An email will be sent to you when there has been a valid or invalid login attempt.

EmailMe=No

KeepLog

KeepLog sets what kind of access will be saved in a server log. KeepLog may be set to None, Valid, Invalid, or Both.  The actual log file will be named codebookname.log and will be stored in the same folder as the script (usually the cgi-bin folder). This is an ASCII text tab delimited file and may be downloaded and examined with any editor.

KeepLog=None  No messages will be written to the server log.

KeepLog=Valid  A message will be written to the server log when there has been a valid login.

KeepLog=Invalid  A message will be written to the server log when there has been an unsuccessful attempt to login.

KeepLog=Both  A message will be written to the server log when there has been an valid or invalid attempt to login.

KeepLog=Both

The script editor will ask for slightly different information depending on the password method (single or multiple). The link to a password protected survey is the same as a non-password protected survey.

Password (single password method)

Password sets the password for the survey. The same passwords is used for all respondents. The password can be any combination of letters and numbers. It is not case sensitive. We recommend short numeric passwords consisting of three to five digits or simple words or acronyms. Access to the survey will be limited to people knowing the password.

Password=Secret

PasswordFile (multiple passwords method)

PasswordFile sets the name of the file containing the  passwords. Multiple password surveys use a data base of passwords stored on the server in the cgi-bin folder. The password file is in tab delimited ASCII text format. It must contain at least one field (the valid passwords), but it may contain other fields as well. It is often the same file that used to send e-mail invitations to participate in the survey. When a respondent types a password at the login screen, the password file associated with the survey is examined to see if there is a match. To select a password file, right click on the command line.

PasswordFile=c:\survey\A83passwords.txt

PasswordField & ID Field (multiple passwords method)

Suppose you had an Excel file of email addresses and employee ID numbers. The first thing you would do is use Excel to write the two fields to a tab delimited file. The file would now look like this:

john@somedomain.com 465-35

mary@anotherdomain.com 476-57

If you wanted to use employee ID as the password for the login, you would set PasswordField=2. Employee ID would be used as the password.

PasswordField=2

If you want to be able to track who responded and who didn't then you need to also specify an IDField. IDField identifies what field will be used as StatPac's internal RespondentID to identify that respondent. In the above example, if you wanted to use Employee ID to track respondents, then you would also set IDField=2.

PasswordField=2

IDField=2

If you wanted to use employee ID as the password for the login but keep the survey anonymous, you would set PasswordField=2 and leave the IDField blank. When IDField is left blank, a random ID number will be generated when a respondent begins taking the survey. This will not allow you to track who responded and who didn't. It is the only method to create a password protected anonymous survey.

PasswordField=2

IDField=

You could use the e-mail list management programs to add a random ID number to the tab delimited file for tracking respondents. StatPac always adds the ID number as the second field, so after running the program to add an ID number, the file might look like this:

john@somedomain.com        9867423    465-35

mary@anotherdomain.com    3279684    476-57

You would set PasswordField=3 and set IDField=2. Then, respondents would enter their Employee ID number as the password and a random ID number would be used to track respondents. Note that this method is not anonymous because the random ID number could be used to link a particular respondent with their responses to the survey.

PasswordFile=c:\office\employee.txt

PasswordField=3

IDField=2

PasswordControl

Sets the progress control that will be used on password protected surveys. Available only for multiple password surveys. Can be set to None, Once, or Forward.

Once means that a respondent can complete the survey only once. They can log in multiple times (always beginning on page one), but after they've reached the thank you page, they will not be able to log in again.

Forward means that they can log in multiple times, but they will always begin on the page where they left off. After they're reached the thank you page, they will not be able to log in again. Forward control only applies to multiple page surveys.

PasswordControl=Once

The information in this section is not required to run StatPac. StatPac's Auto Transfer feature makes it unnecessary to know what files need to be uploaded to what folders. However, the information is important should you decide to manually upload or download files.

When you create a password protected survey StatPac does numerous things "behind the scenes".

For a single password method, a file called studyname.text is created in the project folder. It contains a single line consisting of the password. For a multiple password method, the password file you specify is written to the project folder using the name studyname.text. Auto Transfer uploads this file to the cgi-bin folder.

A file called password.pl will be created in your project folder. Auto Transfer uploads the file to the cgi-bin folder on your server and sets the permissions to 755. This is the program that reads the data base to determine if the respondent has entered a valid password.

The first page of the survey (studyname.htm) is renamed to studyname_start.htm and the login page is named studyname.htm. Auto Transfer uploads studyname_start.htm,

When using your own server, you can override your server settings by using these commands. We do not recommend the use of these commands since the appropriate way to make a change is to change your server settings. To use these commands, remove the leading ~ so the command is left justified in the script.

ActionTag

ActionTag sets the full URL to StatPac's Perl script. The ActionTag setting will become part of the action tag in the html source code for the survey. The function of the Perl script is to take the answers from the html page and store them in a file on the server or email them to you. When a respondent clicks the submit button, it will direct the process to the location of the Perl script on the server.

The name of the Perl script on your local computer is statpac11.pl. Respondents will see the ActionTag setting in the address bar of their browser while taking the survey. For example, they would see:

http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/statpac11.pl

Therefore, the default script will change the name of  statpac11.pl to your surveyname.pl. For example, if you are doing a survey for XYZ company, you might name the html files "XYZ". The default ActionTag setting would be:

ActionTag=http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/XYZ.pl

That way, respondents will see the company name in their address bar while they are taking the survey. On most servers, the www is optional and could be:

ActionTag=http://yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/XYZ.pl

If you are running on a secure server will SSL and your WebFolderURL uses a https:// prefix, then the ActionTag should also use https://

ActionTag=https://yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/XYZ.pl

You may name the Perl file to anything you want (except it must have a .pl extension). If you manually upload the files to your server, then you need to manually rename the file on your server from statpac11.pl to XYZ.pl. The important thing is that the name of the .pl file on your server is exactly the same as the ActionTag setting in the script.

Unix/Linux servers are case sensitive, so make sure you use the same case for the file name that you plan to give to respondents.

StorageFolder

StorageFolder sets the path to the folder where responses will be stored on the server. Typically, responses are stored in the cgi-bin folder because it in not readily accessible to the outside world. When left blank, StatPac will use the cgi-bin folder to store responses.

The actual file name for storing responses will be codebookname.asc.

The setting is specified differently for Unix and Windows servers.

Unix or Linux Server

There are numerous ways to specify the storage folder on a Unix or Linux server. The setting may be specified as absolute or relative to the cgi-bin folder.

All of these would store the results in the cgi-bin folder.

StorageFolder=/home/username/public_html/cgi-bin

StorageFolder=../cgi-bin     (two periods)

StorageFolder=./                (one period)

All of these would store the results in a folder called "storage" which is immediately below the cgi-bin folder.

StorageFolder=/home/username/public_html/cgi-bin/storage

StorageFolder=../cgi-bin/storage     (two periods)

StorageFolder=./storage                 (one period)

This would store the results in a folder called "private" which is at the same level as public_html (and therefore not accessible to the outside world).

StorageFolder=../../private       (two periods)

These would store the results file in a folder called "storage" which is immediately below the public_html folder. Note that this may pose a security risk because the storage folder would be accessible to the world. 

StorageFolder=/home/username/public_html/storage

StorageFolder=../storage     (two periods)

NT, Windows, or  IIS Server

On an NT or IIS server the setting is specified using a DOS path (i.e., the full path beginning with a drive letter to the folder where responses should be stored). Users must have read/write access to the folder. An example might be:

StorageFolder=c:\inetpub\wwwroot\cgi-bin

In order to use FTP to retrieve the data, the wwwroot folder name must part of the StorageFolder path. For example, you would not be able to use FTP to retrieve this data because the storage folder is not below the wwwroot folder.

StorageFolder=d:\datastorage

Some IIS servers require that you use double backslashes instead of single backslashes. If you receive a “Server Busy” message after clicking the submit button on a survey, try changing the path to double backslashes in place of single backslashes:

StorageFolder=c:\\inetpub\\wwwroot\\cgi-bin

ScriptFolder

ScriptFolder sets the full URL of the cgi-bin folder (including the trailing /).

ScriptFolder=http://www.yourdomain.com/cgi-bin/

Perl

Perl is set to the absolute path where Perl is installed on your server. Your ISP will be able to tell you this information. The syntax for this setting is different for Unix/Linux and NT/IIS servers.

Unix or Linux server:

Perl=/usr/bin/perl

Windows (NT or IIS) server:

Perl=c:\perl\bin\perl.exe

MailProgram

MailProgram is set to point to the mail program on your server. The MailProgram parameter only needs to be set if you are using password protection and want e-mail notification of login activity.

MailProgram=/usr/sbin/sendmail

Branching is set up in the codebook using a semi-colon to indicate a skip pattern. Any skip patterns specified in the codebook will work for internet surveys. Nothing special needs to be done. Branching is supported for radio buttons.

A branch to another question on the same page will be immediate. As soon as the respondent clicks one of the radio buttons, the screen will scroll to the branched variable. A branch to a variable on another page may be immediate (when the respondent clicks the radio button) or delayed until the respondent clicks the submit button.

The BranchDelay command may be used multiple times in the script to set the branching to immediate or delayed. It may be set to Yes or No. For example, the following command would delay the branching to another page until the submit button is clicked.

BranchDelay=Yes

Piping refers to displaying an answer from a previous question to a subsequent question. Piping is supported for multiple page surveys. You may pipe a response from one page to another page, but not to the current page.

For variables that contain value labels, the piped text will be the value label of the selected response choice. For variables that do not contain value labels, the piped text will be the actual text entered by the respondent. A piped response is requested on a subsequent page using the (*VariableName*)  syntax in either an Instruction command, Question command,  a variable label or value label in the codebook.

For example, suppose you had a variable named Gender with value labels of 1=male and 2=female. You also have a two open ended variables named FirstName and Age.  The script for the survey might be:

TextBox FirstName

BlankLine

Radio Gender

BlankLine

TextBox Age

NewPage

Instructions=Hello (*FirstName*)! Thanks for taking our survey.

Instructions=You indicated that you are a (*Age*) year old (*Gender*).

BlankLine

Question=How would most (*Gender*) s respond to these items?

Radio V25-V30

Piping may also be used to prefill a textbox with a response to a question from a previous page. In order to prefill a textbox, you must use the  ;(*VariableName*) syntax as a value label in the codebook.  Note that the syntax begins with a semicolon when it is specified as a value label. For example, if a previous question had asked for “YourName”, and a question on a subsequent page asked for the Name of the CEO, you could prefill the Name of the CEO textbox with “YourName”, by adding a value label to the Name of the CEO variable in the codebook. The value label would be ;(*YourName*) on a line by itself.

StatPac supports value label randomization for radio buttons and checkboxes. It also supports variable randomization when groups of variables are displayed horizontally.

Traditional paper and pencil questionnaires typically use rotations for nominal data in order to vary the order in which response choices are presented to respondents. This is done to reduce bias that might be introduced by the order in which choices are listed on the page. Internet surveys have an advantage because they can randomize (not rotate) the order of the value labels (i.e., response choices).

The /R switch can be added to the end of the Radio or CheckBox commands to randomize the order that the response choices will be displayed in the respondent’s browser. Each respondent will see a unique sequence of the response choices. For example, the following two commands would randomized the response choices for the variable 1 radio buttons and the multiple response variables 2 through 6. Use a space to separate the /R from the rest of the command.

Radio V1 /R

CheckBox V2-V6 /R

When used in the above form, all of the value labels will be randomized. This is sometimes undesirable when the last value label is an “other” response. Typically, you would want to leave the “other” choice as the last one displayed even though the other choices are randomized.

Add a number suffix to the /R switch to tell how many value labels should be excluded from the randomization. For example, if the last two value labels for variable 1 were “other” and “don’t know” choices, the following command would exclude both value labels from the randomization (i.e., they will always be displayed as the last two choices).

Radio V1 /R2

In a similar example, the last value label would not be included in the randomization.

CheckBox V2-V6 /R1

The following would randomize the order of the variables in a series of horizontal radio buttons. 

Radio Vx- Vy /R

Randomization will only work when the survey is online. It will not work on your local computer and the variable and value labels will always appear in the order specified in the codebook.

Most text in the survey will be generated from the codebook. There are many situations though where you will want to insert additional text into the survey (e.g., to give a section a heading).

The ///// SURVEY CREATION ///// line is inserted as part of the initial script as a comment to let you know where the portion of the script begins that controls the variables. Do not delete or change the location of this line. It is required for StatPac to properly build the HTML survey pages.

Blank lines in the script are ignored. In long and complex surveys, you can add blank lines to the script to make it easier for you to keep track of pages. You can also begin any line with an apostrophe to make it a comment.

'Start the survey

Text=Thank you for your participation.

BlankLine

Text= No individual firms are identified and only aggregate data are made

 public.

BlankLine

Title=Demographics

Radio Age

BlankLine

Radio Gender

BlankLine

NewPage

'Begin second page

Title=Attitudes

Question=Please rate the importance of each of the following items.

Radio Opinion_1 -  Opinion_5

NewPage

'Begin third page

TextBox Q7

Using Commands More than Once in a Script

The Primary settings are only specified once at the beginning of the scrip. Most Advanced settings can be specified repeatedly in the Survey Creation portion of the script to change text, fonts, justifications, colors, and table attributes for the various questions of the survey.

For example, you could begin a survey with one color scheme and change to a different color scheme midway through the survey. To change an attribute, insert the command in the script at the place where you want the new value to take effect.

There are 6 ways to specify text.

Heading

Heading is used to insert text using the heading attributes (usually very large font). There will be no frame around the text.

Heading=DEMOGRAPHIC SECTION

Title

Title is used to insert text using the title attributes. There will be no frame around the text.

Title=About You

Text

Text is used to insert text using the text attributes. There will be no frame around the text.

Text=Thank you for your participation. <br> <br> The information

will be reported in aggregate and no individual will be identified.

FootnoteText

FootnoteText sets the text at the bottom of the page using the footnote attributes. Footnotes will always appear at the bottom of the page regardless of where you insert the command in the script.

FootnoteText=Sponsored by StatPac Inc.

Instructions

Instructions displays text in a frame using the instructions attributes.

Instructions=Please answer all items.

Question

Question displays text in a frame using the question attributes. It is most often used to add the question to grouped text boxes or a series of matrix style radio buttons.

Question=Please rate the importance of each of the following items.

Radio Opinion_1 -  Opinion_5

Question=Please rank the three most important items from this list by typing  a 1, 2, and 3.

TextBox Items_1 -  Items_10

BlankLine

The BlankLine command has no equals symbol or parameters. It is inserted into the script at desired locations to create a blank line on the HTML page. It is usually inserted between each question.

Radio Age

BlankLine

Radio Gender

BlankLine

NewPage

The NewPage command has no equals symbol or parameters. Insert this line into the script when you want to end the current survey page and begin a new survey page. Each time the NewPage command appears, StatPac will create a new HTML page. StatPac's default script for a survey is for the entire survey to appear on a single page. If you want to create a multi-page survey, you'll have to manually insert the NewPage commands where you want to begin a new page.

NewPage

Image

The Image command may be used to insert one or more graphics images into the survey.  Type Image= and then right click to select the desired graphics file (.gif, .jpg, or .bmp).  The format for the command is:

Image=c:\StatPac\Data\Picture.jpg

You can place multiple images side by side by specifying multiple filenames separated by semicolons.

Image=Filename;Filename;Filename

After the HTML is generated, you can use an HTML editor to manually insert a graphic, you must use either the fully qualified URL as the source file path or the special filename prefix of dot slash dot slash dot slash (i.e., ./././) For example, either of the following would be acceptable methods of specifying a graphics source file:

<img src=”http://www.statpac.com/survey/graphic.gif”>

<img src=”./././graphic.gif”>

When manually inserting a graphic with and HTML editor and you plan to use Auto Transfer to upload your files, the graphic must be in the project folder.

Link

Inserts a hyperlink into the survey. It may be added to the script as a line by itself or may be added as a suffix to other commands.

Before using the Link command, first set the hyperlink information with the LinkURL and LinkText commands.

LinkURL=http://www.statpac.com

LinkText=Click here to see our home page

Then insert the Link command (without the equals symbol) where you would like the link to appear. It may be inserted on a line by itself in the script or may be added as a suffix to other commands. Each of the following would be correct uses of the Link command, and each would create a blue hyperlink on the survey page that a respondent could click on

Instructions=Please answer these questions. Link

Question=Please rate each of the following items: Link

Radio Q1 Link

DropDown Choices Link

Textbox Opinion Link

ListBox V12 Link

The Link commands may be used to make it easier for the respondent to email you. For example, if you have done an anonymous survey and you want respondents to be able to request a copy of the final report without any chance of linking their e-mail address to their responses, you could insert these three commands into the script:

LinkURL=mailto:admin@statpac.com?subject=Please send the report

LinkText=Click here to send an e-mail requesting a copy of the report

Link

HelpWindow inserts a hyperlink into the survey for a popup help window. That is, it lets respondent to see additional text that does not appear on the survey itself (e.g., a help screen).  The command may be added to the script as a line by itself or may be added as a suffix to other commands.

The actual appearance of the link created by the HelpWindow command and the contents of the popup window are controlled by three parameters. These parameters should be set in the script before using the HelpWindow command. When the HelpWindow command is executed, it will use the current settings of the three parameters. The three parameters are:

HelpLinkText=Text

HelpText=Text

HelpFileName=Filename

HelpLinkText is the blue link text that the respondent will see on the survey. If not specified, the default is "Help".

HelpText is the actual text that will appear in the popup window when opened. It may use imbedded HTML tags to control fonts and spacing.

HelpLinkText=Please click here for more information

HelpText=This additional information is provided to help you answer the

question<br>Please try to be objective answering this question. It is

important that you are truthful and give your best answer.

HelpWindow

If you already have an .htm file that you want to use as the contents of the popup window, then you would not use the HelpText command. Instead, use the HelpFileName command to specify the name of the existing .htm file.  If you plan to use Auto Transfer to upload your files, this file must be in the project folder.

HelpLinkText=Click here for an explanation

HelpText=

HelpFileName=c:\StatPac\Data\explanation.htm

HelpWindow

After setting the parameters, the HelpWindow command. Actually creates the window. The HelpWindow command may appear on a line by itself in the script or may be added as a suffix to other commands. For example, each of the following would be correct uses of the HelpWindow command, and each would create a link on the survey page that a respondent could click on to evoke the help window:

HelpWindow

Instructions=Please answer these questions. HelpWindow

Question=Please rate each of the following items: HelpWindow

Radio V5 HelpWindow

DropDown V9 HelpWindow

Textbox V45 HelpWindow

ListBox V12 HelpWindow

The names of the popup window pages will be "surveyname_help1.htm", "surveyname_help2.htm", etc. For each occurrence of the HelpWindow command in the script, a new popup page will be created. The popup window pages are .htm files and must be uploaded to the server to the same folder as your survey.

Here is an example of a script that creates three links in the survey that a respondent could click on to evoke three different popup windows. It will also create three different help files.

HelpLinkText=Click Here for Information about our sponsor

HelpText=This survey is sponsored by StatPac Inc.<br>You can call us

at  (715) 442-2261

HelpWindow

BlankLine

HelpLinkText=Our Privacy Policy

HelpText=We don't tell anyone anything!

Instructions=Please answer all questions HelpWindow

BlankLine

HelpLinkText=Help

HelpText=Please answer this question from the perspective of your average

customer. Try to answer how you think your typical customer would

respond.

Radio V1 HelpWindow

Popup windows provide another way of branching. They are useful when you want to ask (or not ask) a few additional questions depending on the respondent’s answer to another question without changing pages from the respondent's perspective.

An example would be a question where you say, “If yes, please answer the following.” In a multiple page survey, you would place the yes/no question on one page, the conditional question(s) on a second page, and the rest of the questions on subsequent pages. The popup window offers the same functionality, except the conditional questions will appear in a new (popup) window, and the rest of the questions are on the same html page as the yes/no question.

The actual branching instructions are set up in the codebook using the semicolon syntax. For example, suppose we have a codebook with a branch so people who drink coffee are asked questions 1a and 1b, while people who don’t drink coffee are not asked those questions. All value labels immediately prior to the popup must specify a branch (even if it's just to the next variable, which is in the popup window).

Variable Label 1:  1. Do you drink coffee?

     1=Yes ; 2

     2=No ; 4

Variable Label 2: 1a. What is your favorite brand of coffee?

Variable Label 3: 1b. How often do you drink coffee?

Variable Label 4: 2. How old are you?

You can adjust the StatPac script so that questions 1a and 1b will appear on a popup window. The PopupStart and PopupEnd commands may be inserted into the script to create the popup window. In this example, the script might be:

Radio V1

BlankLine

PopupStart

TextBox V2

BlankLine

TextBox V3

BlankLine

PopupEnd

TextBox V4

The surveyname_1.htm file will have questions 1 and 4. The popup page surveyname_popup1.htm file will have questions 2 and 3. The first page the respondent sees will have questions 1 and 2. They will begin by answering question 1. If they select “yes”, a popup window will appear “on top” of the page they are seeing. The popup window will show questions 1a and 1b. When they press the continue button on the popup window, it will close, and the respondent will see the main page again, showing questions 1 (already answered) and 2.

Popup windows are regular html pages. The only difference from a regular survey page is the way in which they are evoked. Popup windows will be named surveyname_popup1.htm, surveyname_popup2.htm, surveyname_popup3.htm, etc.

There are several rules and limitations for using popup windows:

1. Popup windows will only work online. You may view the popup page on your local computer, but you cannot test the popup feature until the files are uploaded to a server.

2. You may branch within a popup window, but you may not branch out of a popup window. That is, you may not branch to a variable that is not in the popup window. Complex branching is not supported within a popup window.

3. Piping is not supported within a popup window. You cannot pipe to or from a popup window.

4. In the variable that evokes the popup window, all value labels must specify a branch, even if it's to the next variable (which will be in the popup window).

Popup windows are ideal for situations where you have a small number of conditional questions. When there are many conditional questions, use the NewPage command instead of a popup window.

The input methods (called objects) include radio buttons, drop down menus, text boxes, check boxes, and list boxes. When StatPac first creates the default script, it will select the objects that seem most appropriate to the questions. However, after the default script has been created, the objects can be changed by simply changing the Survey Creation portion of the script.

The following is a description of  the commands that can be used to create objects. In all of commands, variable names can be used instead of the "V" numbers.

Radio Buttons for a Single Variable

Syntax: Radio Vx  -or-  Radio (parameters) Vx

The Radio command will create a radio button for each value label. It is most appropriate when there are a small number of choices. The first form of the command will create all the radio button in a single column. The second form of the command will allow you to specify various display parameters.  The parameters are:

V H  vertical or horizontal

1  2  one or two columns of radio buttons (applies to vertical format only)

A  E  label all points or label only the end points

Y  N  show numeric codes (yes or no)

- or -- don't show the last 1 or 2 codes

Parameters may be any combination in any order (upper or lower case). One or two minus signs in the parameters can be used to hide the the last or last two value codes. The following would create a horizontal format for variable nine with all points labeled and numeric codes for all labels except the last two.

        Radio (HAY--) V9

In creating the default script, if there are six or fewer value labels, the default will be one column. If there are 7-12 value labels, the default will be two columns. For more than 12 value labels, the default will be a DropDown menu.

A single radio button can be displayed in a horizontal format. For example:

        Radio (HEY) V9

Radio Buttons for Grouped Variables (matrix style)

Syntax: Radio Vx – Vy  -or-  Radio (parameters) Vx - Vy

When your survey has a series of Likert scale or semantic differential scale items, a horizontal radio button format can be specified. Horizontally grouped radio buttons are often referred to as matrix questions.

The first form of the command will create all the radio button in a single column. The second form of the command will allow you to specify various display parameters.  The parameters are:

L  R  radio buttons to left or right of text

A  E  label all points or label only the end points

Y  N  show numeric codes (yes or no)

- or -- don't show the last 1 or 2 codes

C D describes codebook format as close or distant for two
side-by-side radio button groups

The L and R parameters may be used to show the questions to the left or right of the radio buttons. The default can be set with the RadioTextPosition command.

The A and E parameters may be used to label all points or just the end points of the scale. The A parameter will label every response choice. The E parameter will label only the anchors of the scale.

The Y and N parameters control whether numeric codes are used to label the scale.

Parameters may be any combination in any order (upper or lower case). The following would create a group of horizontal radio buttons for variables Q5a to Q5f with text to the left of the buttons, only the end points labeled, and numeric codes above each radio button.

        Radio (LEY) Q5a - Q5f

You will need to manually edit the default script to display a series of items in this format. When you create the default script, StatPac doesn't know which items should be grouped together, so each item will be specified as an individual radio button variable. The default script might look like this:

Radio Q5a

BlankLine

Radio Q5b

BlankLine

Radio Q5c

BlankLine

Radio Q5d

BlankLine

Radio Q5e

BlankLine

Radio Q5f

BlankLine

To convert these to matrix format, you would change the script so the items to be grouped together are specified as a range on a single script line instead of each on their own script line.

Radio Q5a - Q5f

BlankLine

One or two minus signs can be included in the parameters to hide the codes for the one or two highest value labels. For example, suppose you have a 1-5 Likert scale and you also have 6=No Opinion. Including a minus sign in the parameters would still show No Opinion text, but hide the 6 code in the numeric scale. If the two highest response choices were 6=No Opinion and 7=Not Applicable, then two consecutive minus signs in the parameters would hide the numeric codes for both categories. For example:

Radio (-) Q5a - Q5f

BlankLine

If you want to show a single variable in horizontal matrix style format, include the dash without the second variable, as in: Radio Vx- or Radio (parameters) Vx-.

The C (close) or D (distant) parameter should only be used when you want two groups of radio buttons to appear side by side. For example, you may have three attribute variables. You want to ask respondents to rate each of the three attributes and you also want them to assign an importance rating to each attribute. You want the layout on the screen to look like this:

Attribute 1           Rating 1           Importance 1

Attribute 2           Rating 2           Importance 2

Attribute 3           Rating 3           Importance 3

You can set up the codebook two different ways. The C or D describes which way the codebook is set up.

In this codebook, the Rating and Importance variables are close to each other.
 

V1 Attribute 1 Rating

V2 Attribute 1 Importance

V3 Attribute 2 Rating

V4 Attribute 2 Importance

V5 Attribute 3 Rating

V6 Attribute 3 Importance

The command would be:

Radio (C) v1-v6

In this codebook, the Rating and Importance variables are distant from each other.

V1 Attribute 1 Rating

V2 Attribute 2 Rating

V3 Attribute 3 Rating

V4 Attribute 1 Importance

V5 Attribute 2 Importance

V6 Attribute 3 Importance

The command would be:

Radio (D) v1-v6

There are two ways to place a textbox next to the variable label in a matrix style question.

The simplest way is when the last variable in the matrix is the only one you want to have a textbox. In this example, you want Q5f to contain a textbox following the variable label.

Radio Q5a  - Q5f

BlankLine

A textbox can be placed next to the Other response category. When used with a side-by-side matrix, the Other variable must follow the last variable in the variable list. In both examples, V7 would be the Other variable.

DropDown Menu

Syntax: DropDown Vx  -or-  DropDown (y) Vx

The dropdown menu is used when there are a large number of possible categories for the respondent to choose from. The most common example of this is when asking for a country or state. The first form of the command will create a dropdown menu where only one line shows until the menu is selected by the user. You can set the default text for the line by inserting the command: DropDownDefault=some text. In the second form of the command, you can specify the number of value labels to display in the dropdown window before the dropdown occurs. Y is the number of lines you want to display before the user selects the menu. If  y equals the number of value labels, then all the value labels will be shown all the time.

DropDown (5) Country

TextBox for a Single Variable

Syntax: TextBox Vx  -or-  TextBox (parameters) Vx

A TextBox is used when requesting that the user type something rather than choose from a menu of items. The default script will use a textbox if there are no value labels for a variable and the variable has a field width greater than 1. When the field width for a variable is a long alpha field (greater than A60), the textbox will have multiple lines and a scroll  bar. If you want to force a long alpha field to use a single line TextBox, then use the command format of: TextBox (1) Vx

The parameters for the textbox are:

L  C  left justify or center the TextBox in the frame

n        number of lines to show in the TextBox (1 to 5)

P  N   progress bar or no progress bar  (multiple line TextBox only)

The following TextBox was centered, shows five lines,  and show no progress bar as the respondent is typing:

TextBox (C5N) Q7

Adding  a TextBox to a Radio Button, CheckBox, or Radio Button Matrix

StatPac has a special feature that lets you attach one or more textboxes to a radio button variable, set of multiple response variables, or a series of horizontal radio buttons. There are two ways to do this depending on the number and position of the textboxes you want to add. In it's simplest form, one textbox is added to the last item. In the more complex form, a textbox can be added to one or more radio buttons or checkboxes.

In all of the following examples, the textbox variables are specified as alpha format and should use a field length long enough to hold the longest expected comment, In these examples a format of A200 for the textbox variables would most likely be sufficient.

Attaching One Textbox to the Last Item

StatPac has a special feature that lets you attach a textbox to the last item of a radio button variable, set of multiple response variables, and a series of horizontal radio buttons. Here is an example of a textbox that has been attached to a radio button variable.

To use this feature, simply create an alpha variable immediately following the variable (or variables) that you want to contain the text box. Use the word "Other" as the variable label for the alpha variable and do not specify the alpha variable in the StatPac script. The codebook for the above example would be:

Variable 1 Name:  Brand

Variable 1 Label:  What is your favorite brand?

               1=Brand X

               2=Brand Y

               3=Brand Z

               4=Other

Variable 2 Name: Other_Brand_Specified

Variable 2 Label: Other

The two criteria necessary to use this feature are: 1) the alpha variable has a variable label of "Other", and 2) the StatPac script doesn't specify the alpha variable.

In the above example, the StatPac script would omit variable 2 (i.e., it would not include a command line: TextBox Other_Brand_Specified). The command to produce the above example would be:

Radio Brand

BlankLine

Similarly, a textbox can be attached to the last in a series of multiple response variables. There are four multiple response variables followed by a single alpha variable with a variable label of "Other".

The codebook to produce this example would be:

Variable 1 Name:  Hear_1

Variable 1 Label:  Where did you hear about the product (check all)

               1=Radio

               2=TV

               3=Newspaper

               4=Other (specify)

Variable 2 Name:  Hear_2

Variable 2 Label:  Where did you hear about the product (check all)

               1=Radio

               2=TV

               3=Newspaper

               4=Other (specify)

Variable 3 Name:  Hear_3

Variable 3 Label:  Where did you hear about the product (check all)

               1=Radio

               2=TV

               3=Newspaper

               4=Other (specify)

Variable 4 Name:  Hear_4

Variable 4 Label:  Where did you hear about the product (check all)

               1=Radio

               2=TV

               3=Newspaper

               4=Other (specify)

Variable 5 Name:  Hear_Other_Specified

Variable 5 Label: Other

In this example, the StatPac script would not specify variable 5. The command to produce the above example would be:

CheckBox Hear_1 - Hear_4

BlankLine

Finally, here is an example of a textbox that has been attached to the last variable in a horizontal radio button matrix.

The last two variables in the codebook used to create this example are:

Variable 6 Name:  Other_Rating

Variable 6 Label:  Other (please specify)

               1=Excellent

               2=

               3=

               4=Poor

Variable 7 Name: Other_Rating_Specified

Variable 7 Label: Other

The StatPac script would not specify variable 7. The command to produce the above example would be:

Radio Taste - Other_Rating

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In all of the above examples, the variable label "Other" is used to evoke this feature. You can change the variable label used to trigger this feature by editing the StatPac.ini file. Search for HTML_OtherText = Other and change it to the variable label you want to use to evoke this feature.

Attaching More than One Textbox

When you want to attach a textbox to more that one item in a radio button variable, set of multiple response variables, or a series of horizontal radio buttons, a different form of the syntax is required. This syntax can be used to attach a textbox to any of the items (not only the last item).

The variable name for the textbox variables is how you control which radio buttons will have textboxes. All textbox variable names end with "_Other".

Here is an example of a radio button variable that has three textboxes attached to it.

The textbox items immediately follow the radio button variable. Their variable name has three parts with an underscore separating the parts: 1) the name of the radio button variable, 2) the value label code in the radio button variable, and 3) the word "Other".

The codebook to produce the above example would look like this:

Variable 1 Name: Residence

Variable 1 Label: 1. Where do you live?

               1=Minneapolis, MN

               2=St. Paul, MN

               3=Other city in Minnesota (specify):

               4=Madison, WI

               5=Milwaukee, WI

               6=Other city in Wisconsin (specify):

               7=Other state (specify):

Variable 2 Name: Residence_3_Other

Variable 3 Name: Residence_6_Other

Variable 4 Name: Residence_7_Other

The variables for the textboxes are not specified in the StatPac script, So the script for this example would simply be:

Radio Residence

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More than one textbox can also be included in a set of multiple response variables. Here is an example where two textboxes are attached to a set of multiple response variables:

The textbox variables immediately follow the multiple response variables. The textbox variable names have two parts separated by an underscore: 1) the name of the multiple response variable, and 2) the word "Other".

Here is the codebook for the previous example:

Variable 4 Name:  Hear_1

Variable 4 Label:  4. Where did you hear about StatPac? (check all)

               1=Internet

               2=Magazine (please specify):

               3=Word of mouth

               4=Other (please specify)

Variable 5 Name:  Hear_2

Variable 5 Label:  4. Where did you hear about StatPac? (check all)

               1=Internet

               2=Magazine (please specify):

               3=Word of mouth

               4=Other (please specify)

Variable 6 Name:  Hear_3

Variable 6 Label:  4. Where did you hear about StatPac? (check all)

               1=Internet

               2=Magazine (please specify):

               3=Word of mouth

               4=Other (please specify)

Variable 7 Name:  Hear_4

Variable 7 Label:  4. Where did you hear about StatPac? (check all)

               1=Internet

               2=Magazine (please specify):

               3=Word of mouth

               4=Other (please specify)

Variable 8 Name:  Hear_2_Other

Variable 8 Label (optional):  Magazine specified

Variable 9 Name:  Hear_4_Other

Variable 9 Label (optional):  Other specified

The variables for the textboxes are not specified in the StatPac script, So the script for this example would be:

CheckBox Hear_1 - Hear_4

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Textboxes can also be attached to any or all items in a horizontal radio button matrix. Here is an example where two textboxes are attached to all of the items in a radio button matrix:

The textbox variables immediately follow the last matrix variable. The textbox variable names have two parts separated by an underscore: 1) the name of the matrix variable, and 2) the word "Other".

Here is the codebook for the matrix example:

Variable 1 Name:  Quality

Variable 1 Label:  Quality:

               1=Very Good

               2=Good

               3=Fair

               4=Poor

               5=Very Poor

Variable 2 Name:  Service

Variable 2 Label:  Service:

               1=Very Good

               2=Good

               3=Fair

               4=Poor

               5=Very Poor

Variable 3 Name:  Value

Variable 3 Label:  Value:

               1=Very Good

               2=Good

               3=Fair

               4=Poor

               5=Very Poor

Variable 4 Name: Quality_Other

Variable 5 Name: Service_Other

Variable 6 Name: Value_Other

The variables for the textboxes are not specified in the StatPac script, So the script for this example would be:

Question=Please rate our product on each of the following criteria. Feel free to add comments.

Radio Quality - Value

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TextBoxes for Grouped Variables

Syntax: TextBox Vx - Vy  -or-  TextBox (parameters) Vx - Vy

More that one TextBox can be inserted into a single frame by specifying a variable range. Fields with less than 40 characters will shown as a single line TextBox and longer fields will be shown as a multiple line text box with a scroll bar.

Parameters may be used to control the number of lines in each TextBox and the location of the text. Text may be placed to the left, right, top, or bottom of the TextBox using the LRTB parameters. The number of lines for the TextBox can also be specified. For example, in the following command, parameters were used to set the text to the right and to create single-line TextBoxes:

Question=Please rank each of the following by typing a 1 for the most important, 2 for the second most important, and so on.

TextBox (R1) Taste - Package

There are two special validity checks that can be applied to grouped text boxes. These checks can be added to the survey by inserting a line in the script.

Constant Sum Validity Check for TextBoxes

The first is a constant sum, where you want the responses to add up to a certain value. An example would be "What percent of your total time do you spend…" and you want the percents for each of the items to add to 100.  The Sum command may be inserted anywhere in the script. The format of the command is: Sum (the desired sum) Vx – Vy. The desired sum is enclosed in parentheses, and Vx and Vy  should be the same as the TextBox command. An example would be:

Question=What percent of your total time do you spend…

TextBox Eating – Sleeping

Sum (100)  Eating – Sleeping

In Internet surveys it is very important not to frustrate respondents.  Sometimes respondents' sums are off a little bit (e.g., they may add to 99 or 101 instead of 100). The /E switch may be added to the end of the Sum command to specify the amount of error that can be accepted before the respondent will get an error message. For example, if you were willing to accept sums that were between 98 and 102, the commands would be:

Question=What percent of your total time do you spend…

TextBox Eating – Sleeping

Sum (100)  Eating – Sleeping /E2

A special /T switch may also be added to the end of the Sum command. This will add a disabled TextBox at the bottom labeled Total. It will be updated dynamically as respondents type numbers into the other fields of the TextBox Group. This feature is useful when you have asked respondents to make their responses total a given number because it lets them see their current total in real time and make adjustments to their responses to achieve the desired total.

Question=Make the following items total $100

TextBox Food - Insurance

Sum (100) Food - Insurance  /T

You may want to allow respondents to leave a series of constant sum TextBoxes blank. That is, respondents can leave the items blank or they can fill in the items so they add to a constant sum. The Missing Allowed  field in the codebook controls this feature. When Missing Allowed is checked in the codebook for the first variable in the series (i.e., Vx), then the respondent can leave all the items blank or they can fill them in so they add to a constant sum. When Missing Allowed is not checked, they will be required to make the items add to a constant sum and will not have the option to leave them blank.

Ranking Validity Check for TextBoxes

The second type of validity check that can be applied to grouped text boxes is for ranking questions. Respondents are often asked to rank items (e.g., type a 1 for the most important item, a 2 for the next most important item, etc.). The ranking validity check will check for duplicate or missing ranks. The Rank command may appear anywhere in the script. The syntax of the command is: Rank (number of ranks) Vx – Vy. The desired number of ranks is enclosed in parentheses, and Vx and Vy  should be the same as the TextBox command. If the parentheses and desired number of ranks is omitted, all items in the list will need to be ranked by the respondent.

An example where you ask respondents to rank the top two items only would be:

Question=Rank the two most important items:

TextBox Salary - Benefits

Rank (2) Salary - Benefits

You might want to allow respondents to leave a series of ranking TextBoxes blank. That is, respondents can leave the items blank or they can rank the items. The Missing Allowed  field in the codebook controls this feature. When Missing Allowed is checked in the codebook for the first variable in the series (i.e., Vx), then the respondent can leave all the items blank or they can rank them as specified by the Rank command. When Missing Allowed is not checked, they will be required to rank the items and will not have the option to leave them blank.

Slider for Single or Multiple Variables

Syntax: Slider Vx - Vy  -or-  Slider (parameters) Vx - Vy

The Slider command is used to creates one or more sliders with a scaled ruler and a handle that allows a respondent to visually set a value by moving the handle with the mouse. The general appearance of a slider is:

Labeling for the slider scale is controlled either by value labels or specified parameters. The slider will always show an adjacent TextBox to allow the respondent to manually type the response,

The Slider command may be used as an alternative way to present psychometric scaling items or a textbox requiring a numeric response. The slider will never be created as a default object. If you want to use a slider, you must modify the script by changing a Radio or Textbox command to a Slider command.

The Slider is appropriate for Likert and semantic differential scales (e.g. agree to disagree, very important to not important, favor to oppose, etc), These scales are usually 1-5, 1-7, or 1-10. An example might be:

Variable 2 Label: How important is the amendment?
1=Not Important
2=
3=
4=
5=Very Important

The default script would be: Radio V2
You would change the script to be: Slider V2

The Slider is also appropriate for questions where you ask the respondent to rate one or more items:

For example: Please rate your level of optimism about the economy on a scale from 0 to 100. In the codebook, you would define the variable as N3 and set the value labels to 0-100.

The default script would be: TextBox V5
You would change the script to be: Slider V5

Parameters can be used for labeling the slider. The parameters are separated from each other by commas. The format for the parameters is:

(Title, Low Label, Middle Label, High Label)

The title will appear above the scaled ruler. The low, middle, and high labels will be taken from the value labels or can be specified or changed with the parameters. Examples might be:

Example: Slider (Percent) V9
(Create a slider for V9 with a title of Percent, and use the existing value labels to label the lowest, middle, and highest positions of the slider).

Example: Slider (Percent,Negative,Neutral,Positive) V10
(Create a slider for V10 with a title of Percent. Label the left end of the slider Negative, the middle Neutral, and the right end Positive.

Example: Slider ( ,Lowest, ,Highest) V10 - V12
(Create three grouped sliders for V10, V11, and V12. There will be no title and no middle labeling. The left end of the slider will be labeled Lowest and the right end will be labeled Highest. (Note that commas are used to indicate label separation, even if a label is blank).

Additional Examples:

Suppose in your codebook, you have a variable to measure satisfaction on a 1 to 10 scale. The codebook is:

Variable 7 Label: How satisfied are you with the program?
Variable 7 Format: N2
Variable 7 Value Labels:
1=Not at all Satisfied
2=
3=
4=
5=
6=
7=
8=
9=
10=Very Satisfied

The default script would be:

Radio (2) V7

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You would modify the default script to:

Slider V7

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The slider would be created and the endpoints would be labeled Not at all Satisfied and Very Satisfied. The slider would not have a title and the middle point of the slider would not be labeled.

The following would add a title to the slider:

Slider (Level of Satisfaction) V7

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In another example, suppose in your codebook, you have two variables to measure respondents' pessimism/optimism for their country and their company. You plan to use a scale of -10 to +10. The codebook would be:

Variable 1 Label: The country where you live.
Variable 1 Format: N3
Variable 1 Valid Codes: -10 - +10
Variable 2 Label: The company where you work.
Variable 2 Format: N3
Variable 2 Valid Codes: -10 - +10

The default script would be:

TextBox V1

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TextBox V2

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You would modify the default script to:

Question=Please indicate your level of pessimism or

        optimism by moving the slider handle with your mouse.

Slider (Pessimism/Optimism Rating, Very Pessimistic,

        Neutral, Very Optimistic) V1 - V2

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Note: The slider object uses active scripting. Depending on your browser security settings, you may be asked for permission to run the script when previewing the HTML page on your local computer. Permission is not required to run the script after it has been uploaded to a Web hosting server.

CheckBox for Multiple Response Variables

Syntax: CheckBox Vx - Vy  -or-  CheckBox (2) Vx - Vy

The CheckBox is used for multiple response. When creating Internet surveys with multiple response variables, there must be the same number of variables as there are value labels. Furthermore, all the value labels must be specified in each of the variables.
 

V  H  vertical or horizontal layout

1  2  one or two columns of label (vertical only)

In the following example, there would be 4 identical variables, each with 4 value labels.

In creating the default script, if there are six or fewer value labels, the default will be one column. If there are 7 or more value labels, the default will be two columns.  The CheckBox is the only input method for multiple response.

Checkbox horizontal matrix for groups of multiple response variables

Sometimes you might have several multiple response variables that are better shown in a horizontal matrix For example, suppose you have the following question:

What role did you play in selecting each of the following: (check all that apply)

The codebook looks like this:

V9a_1 Label: Magazine A
     1=Determine need
     2=Recommend
     3=Approve
V9a_2 Label: Magazine A
     1=Determine need
     2=Recommend
     3=Approve
V9a_3 Label: Magazine A
     1=Determine need
     2=Recommend
     3=Approve

V9b_1 Label: Magazine B
     1=Determine need
     2=Recommend
     3=Approve
V9b_2 Label: Magazine B
     1=Determine need
     2=Recommend
     3=Approve
V9b_3 Label: Magazine B
     1=Determine need
     2=Recommend
     3=Approve

V9c_1 Label: Other Magazine
     1=Determine need
     2=Recommend
     3=Approve
V9c_2 Label: Other Magazine
     1=Determine need
     2=Recommend
     3=Approve
V9c_3 Label: Other Magazine
     1=Determine need
     2=Recommend
     3=Approve

V9c_Other Label: Other

The default script would treat each of the three groups of variables individually, and would look like this:

Example:

CheckBox Q9a_1 - Q9a_3

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CheckBox Q9b_1 - Q9b_3

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CheckBox Q9c_1 - Q9c_3

To switch to a matrix format, change the script so that all variables are in the same checkbox command.

Question=What role did you play in selecting each of the following:   (check all that apply)

CheckBox Q9a_1 - Q9c_3

Validity Checks for CheckBoxes

The AtLeast command is used when you want to require the respondent to check at least x CheckBoxes. The AtLeast command may be inserted anywhere in the script. The format of the command is: AtLeast (minimum number of checks) Vx – Vy. The minimum number of checks is enclosed in parentheses, and Vx and Vy  should be the same as the CheckBox command. An example would be:

Question=Please select at least two of the following items.

CheckBox V20-V30

AtLeast (2) V20-V30

The Exactly command is used when you want to require the respondent to check exactly x CheckBoxes. The Exactly command may be inserted anywhere in the script. The format of the command is: Exactly (number of checks) Vx – Vy. The number of checks is enclosed in parentheses, and Vx and Vy  should be the same as the CheckBox command. An example would be:

Question=From the following list, please select your three favorite items.

CheckBox V20-V30

Exactly (3) V20-V30

You might want to allow respondents to leave all the CheckBoxes unchecked. However, if they check any boxes they must check the number specified in the AtLeast or Exactly commands. The Missing Allowed  field in the codebook controls this feature. When Missing Allowed is checked in the codebook for the first variable in the series (i.e., Vx), then the respondent can leave all the items unchecked. When Missing Allowed is not checked, they will be required to check at least the number of CheckBoxes specified in the AtLeast command or exactly the number of CheckBoxes specified in the Exactly command.

ListBox

Syntax: ListBox Vx

The ListBox may be used as an alternative to radio buttons. Functionally, the ListBox is identical to the radio buttons.

Auto Transfer

Uploading a Survey

The easiest way to upload files to the Internet is to use the Auto Transfer feature, All necessary files will be uploaded automatically. Changes to the Perl scripts are made automatically.

Run Auto Transfer from the script window by clicking the Server button.  Run Auto Transfer at other times by loading your codebook and then selecting Server > Auto Transfer.

If WebFolderURL (a Primary setting in the script) is set to your own server, Auto Transfer will be to and from that server. If WebFolderURL specifies the StatPac server, then Auto Transfer will be to and from your current folder on the StatPac server.

If you change private folders on the StatPac server, Auto Transfer will automatically adjust your HTML to reflect the new folder name. You do not have to regenerate the HTML or make other changes to your script.

Downloading Responses

When you download responses using Auto Transfer they will be imported into StatPac. StatPac assumes that your are always downloading the entire data set from the beginning of the survey. Each time you download, StatPac will overwrite the existing data file with the newly downloaded data. Thus, there are only two situations where you should delete a response file from the server: 1) to delete the test data file, and 2) to delete the real data after you have finished the survey analysis.

You can edit the StatPac.ini file so that StatPac will prompt you on whether to overwrite or append to the existing data file. Set DataQuery = 1 to use the prompt.

FTP

FTP (file transfer protocol) is the method used to transfer files to and from a remote Web server. Auto Transfer also uses FTP (it just happens "behind the scenes").

In order to use FTP, you need to know the locations of the wwwroot folder and the CGI folder on your server.

The wwwroot folder is where your Web site pages are located. On a Unix/Linux server this is probably public_html. On a Windows NT or IIS server, it is probably  wwwroot. When you login via FTP, you might already be in the wwwroot folder, or you might have to change to another subfolder (e.g., public_html).

The CGI folder is almost always immediately below the wwwroot folder and it is usually called cgi-bin or cgi.

To run StatPac's FTP program, select Server > FTP > server

Two panes will be displayed. The top pane is your server and the bottom pane is your local computer. You can drag and drop files from one pane to the other. Highlight one or more files in one page and drag those to the other pane. The current folder is shown in the text on top of the pane. That is the folder where files will be dropped. To drop to a displayed folder, first double click on that folder to make it the current folder.

You can also right click on a file in either pane for additional options. Double click on a folder to change to that folder.

When using the StatPac server, you will only have access to two server folders, 1) the folder where your surveys reside, and 2) the folder where your response files are written. Select View to change folders.

Demo users all share the folder name of guest and therefore will not have FTP access to the StatPac server. When using your own server, you will have complete FTP navigation.

Uploading a Survey

The WebFolderURL setting specifies the folder where the survey will reside. If it is just a URL without a folder name, then the survey should be uploaded to the wwwroot folder.

WebFolderURL=http://yourserver.com

However, if it also specifies a folder name, then the HTML files should be uploaded to that folder.

WebFolderURL=http://yourserver.com/survey

While Auto Transfer creates the folder if it doesn't exist, you may have to manually create it if using FTP. In the server pane (top), change to the wwwroot folder (if necessary). Then right click on the pane and select New Folder.

All of the following files will be found in your current project folder.

The following files need to be uploaded to the survey folder.

SurveyName.htm  (Loader)

SurveyName_1.htm  (1st page)

SurveyName_2.htm  (2nd page)

SurveyName_3.htm  (3rd page)

SurveyName_4.htm  (Thank-you page)

Additionally, the HTMLName command is used to name several other files.

SurveyName_closed.htm  (Survey is closed page)

SurveyName_cutter.htm  (Delete the cookie and/or your IP address)

SurveyName_popup_1.htm  (1st popup window)

SurveyName_popup_2.htm  (2nd popup window)

closepopup.htm  (internal file to close popup windows)

SurveyName_help_1.htm  (1st help window)

SurveyName_help_2.htm  (2nd help window)

SurveyName_start.htm  (Loader page for password protected surveys)

Any graphics used (including blue.gif and grey.gif)

The following file needs to be uploaded to the cgi-bin folder.

        SurveyName.pl  (Processes data when respondent clicks submit)

After uploading the .pl file, right click on it and set the permissions to 755.

If you have a password protected survey, you also must upload two additional files to the cgi-bin folder:

password.pl  (Controls the login)

SurveyName.text  (Data base containing one or more passwords)

After uploading password.pl, right click on it and set the permissions to 755.

Downloading Responses

Responses will always be saved in the cgi-bin folder and have a. asc extension.

In the server pane (top), navigate to the cgi-bin folder, drag the SuveyName.asc file to your current project folder.

While Auto Transfer automatically imports the data, when you use FTP, you have to manually import the .asc file to create the data file. Close the FTP window and select Data > Import.

Summary of the Most Common Script Commands

This is a summary of the most commonly use commands in the Survey Creation section of the script.