Survey CTRL: Questasy

CentERdata has ample experience in supporting questionnaire development processes for large international survey studies. In parallel with the SERISS (Synergies for Europe’s Research Infrastructures in the Social Sciences) project CentERdata has compiled a suite of tools called Survey CTRL to fully support the survey life cycle, containing new tools as well as improved existing ones. Questasy is a data dissemination tool based on DDI3. It is written in CakePHP and uses a MySQL database. It supports documentation of longitudinal studies as well as the creation of custom datasets. It has not been developed under SERISS, but is a prime example of interoperability between the tools using DDI. The strength of the Survey CTRL approach is to view a survey design process as iterative. CentERdata provides the tools to solidify and speed up this process, as well as safeguarding and collecting data on each step. This holistic approach makes it easier to monitor and collect para data on the development process. To support existing questionnaire development work processes the tools were designed independently. DDI helps in the communication between the Survey CTRL tools, but also makes it easier to integrate into existing DDI compatible work processes.