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This is to let you know that you can download either the UNIX source code
or the Windows installer for the software. Go to

http://www.educara.com/products/survey.php

to read about Educara SURVEY. The link to the code is at the bottom of the
page.

In brief, this web-based suite of programs lets users develop surveys using
some of the best-known tools in cognitive social science -- free lists,
pile sorts, frame substitution, and paired comparisons, as well as all the
usual survey-question formats (radio button, open-ended text, and so on).

These tools have been under development for several years by H. Russell
Bernard, Stephen Borgatti, and Gery Ryan, working with the Educara Software
Corporation (Columbia, Missouri). Support for the prototype of the system
came from Ford Motor Company in the late 1990s, with a grant to the
University of Florida. The latest version of the tools were developed under
a grant to the University of Florida from the National Science Foundation.

To get an idea of what these tools can do, go to

http://dustbunny.clas.ufl.edu/index.php?displayID=43CC8D2C1F

and just run through the test. The test is on a list of emotions. (There
are 37 emotions in the pile sort and 15 in the rest of the survey. The 15
emotions are the same ones used in: Romney AK, Moore CC, and Rusch CD 1997.
Cultural universals: Measuring the semantic structure of emotion terms in
English and Japanese. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 94:5489-5494.)

The data from this demo site are anonymous and will not be used in
published research.

As you go through the demo, keep in mind the following:

1) There are several backgrounds available. When you build a survey, you
choose from among a set of backgrounds. If you can program in HTML, you can
create your own background. For example, I have a background on file that
uses my university's colors and logo, so when respondents take a survey
that I design, they know it's sponsored by my university.

2) The demo survey on emotions does not require a login ID. However, this
is an option when you build a survey. That is, you can issue individual
login ID's to each respondent.

3) The data from these surveys are exported as tab-delimited Excel files.
You can import the data, after suitable preparation, into your favorite
package for analysis. The data are also exported as XML files.

4) The tools are written in PHP and can be configured on both Linux and
Windows servers using the Apache web server and either mySQL or PostgreSQL.

5) When you build a survey, you can specify the lambda design for triad
tests and for paired comparisons.

6) If you make any modifications to the software, you must make the
modifications available to all users, including the owners, Educara
Software Corporation.

7) These tools can be can be installed on your own server, and you can
develop surveys that can be taken by anyone who has access to the Internet.
The current version of the software lets you develop surveys in either
English or Spanish. A French version is in the works.

8) Educara SURVEY 2.1 is designed to output data in several formats,
including Excel and XML.



H. Russell Bernard
Professor of Anthropology
University of Florida

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