(Source: Open Source Initiative) OSS, which essentially consists of source code, is made openly available by whoever holds the original copyright. Based on a certain license agreement, the software can be used, changed or distributed by anyone, meaning it provides the opportunity to use it freely without any restrictions. In this context, the software is usually not only developed by a core project team or company, but by anyone who wants to contribute to the maintenance and improvement of the software’s features. The consequence is a collaborative creative process that drives the product development forward in an efficient and high-quality manner. Open source projects are ultimately protected and promoted by the global non-profit Open Source Initiative. Antonym of OSS is closed source proprietary software which refers to conventionally licensed software with the licensee being very limited in the range of applications. The software’s publisher usually owns the intellectual property rights, i.e. foremost the source code copyright which restricts the use, inspection, modification and distribution of the software. This grants exclusive rights to those people willing to pay for using the software product. The Advantages This model can lead to a multitude of advantages in comparison to proprietary closed source software: The large community development base leads to an above average review rate of the source code which accelerates and improves troubleshooting/bug fixing The broad collaborative efforts generate more diverse design scopes Offers full product transparency as well as security Avoids contractual vendor lock-in for its users Avoids the necessity of having to use specific hardware to run the software Allows for anyone to propose and execute new ideas which ultimately boosts innovation effects Allows for full software customisation, from a private as well as business perspective Support is distributed among all software users’ shoulders instead of reduced to only one team or company Most or all software features can usually be used for free without having to spend a cent If the core development team or company goes out of business, the software can yet be further developed The Disadvantages Nevertheless, there may also be disadvantages about the OSS model: As OSS is freely driven by developers modifying the source code, the needs of average end users may not be fully met OSS relies on strong community support in favour of phone or chat support, the latter of which most people are used to and feel more comfortable using Among those improving the software, there may also be malicious users that may make the software vulnerable Often, OSS requires more time and effort to be able to use it Concluding Remarks Besides LimeSurvey, many well-known companies have been successful in developing popular OSS applications, e.g. Magento, Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), VLC Media Player. Open source solutions combine the benefits of large scalability and low costs while unconditionally allowing every person to have access to the software in order to ensure worldwide user equality and fairness. As it’s easy to switch between vendors and test different open source software solutions for free, there is no risk of getting stuck with the “wrong” product. LimeSurvey open source software is a powerful tool which matches the functionality and performance of commercial proprietary solutions. It is thereby free of charge up to 25 responses per month with all features included. The LimeSurvey team is continuously working on great software upgrades, powerful features and user-friendly handling.  

  Table of contents What are mask questions? Types of mask questions Date and time Yes and no File upload Gender Get started using mask questions What are mask questions? We at LimeSurvey define mask questions as question types that provide predefined answer inputs, e.g. gender, date and time, ranking, equation or simple yes and no questions. These question types greatly facilitate the collection of basic data as well as avoid having to waste time on workaround processes. Thus, mask questions nicely complete an all-round exciting survey. Types of mask questions Date and time The date/time question type enables you to create a question which requires the convenient response of a specific date, such as a participant’s date of birth, or a specific time, such as the hours worked each day. In order to use a date/time question, create your question and in the General options, select Question type and choose the type Date/Time in the dropdown menu. Then hit Save and close. Select Date Question Type If you check out the preview of your question, it will display a text/dropdown field. Your participant can either type in a date by complying with your date format or simply pick a date from the dropdown calendar. A little green bin icon at the bottom of the calendar allows a respondent to delete a date selection made. Date Question Type Preview Advanced tip: if you want to change the appearance of your date question type, navigate to the advanced settings in your question and switch on ‘Display dropdown boxes’. This will create three dropdown boxes for the participant to set a date. Date Dropdown Option Date Dropdown Option Preview If you would like to ask for a certain time instead of a date, go to the advanced settings of your date/time question and add a (valid) time format to the Date/Time format field, for example HH:MM (Hours:Minutes). Analogous to the date question, you can set the “Display dropwdown boxes” to either on or off to change the presentation style of your question. Time Question Type With the dropdown boxes option switched off, the time input can be added manually or by the time selector. Time Question Type Preview With the dropdown boxes option switched on, dropdown boxes according to your inserted time format will be displayed. Time Dropdown Option Preview Advanced tip: combine date and time function by adding both formats to the Date/Time format field in the advanced question settings, for example “dd/mm/yyyy HH:MM”. Date & Time Combination You can find even more detailed and advanced information on the date/time question type in our manual. Conclusion: date and time questions can be used flexibly and provide clarity in their usability. Yes and no The Yes/No question type is as self-explanatory as it is easy to implement as well as flexible to use. Within the question edition, navigate to the general options and select Yes/No as your question type, then save and close. Select Yes & No Question Type By default, the Yes/No question type displays your question as a block of buttons which is greatly beneficial as the button sizes facilitate clicking on them. Yes & No Button Format Advanced tip: if you prefer the good old-fashioned ratio buttons, then you will make a find in the question’s advanced settings. Here you can change the “display type” from button group to radio list. Yes & No Radio List Format Need more information on this question type? Check out our manual. Conclusion: Since the answer options are pre-set to yes and no, this question type may seem somewhat restricting at first. However, the fact that basically any question fitting the logic of the yes or no format, may be applied. This makes it incredibly flexible and convenient at the same time. File Upload The file upload question type allows the attachment of any file to a posed question. Simply choose “File upload” in the question type general settings. File Upload Question Type Respondents may then click on the “Upload files” button of the respective question and select files from their computers to add to the survey. Simple and effective! File Upload Preview Advanced tip: check the advanced settings of your question and have full administrative control over the file upload specifics of your respondents, i.e. restricting the maximum file size and number of files, the minimum number of files as well as all allowed file types. File Upload Advanced Settings Need more information on this question type? Check out our manual. Conclusion: a very easy, but valuable question type to have at hand. One of the most prominent examples nowadays is an employer requesting uploaded documents from a job applicant within the application process. Gender The gender question type is set up by selecting “gender” within the general options of your question. Gender Question Type Analogous to the Yes/No question type, the default display option are blocks of buttons. Gender Button Format Advanced tip: again if you prefer radio list buttons, just change the display type in the advanced settings of your question. Gender Radio List Format Need more information on this question type? Check out our manual. Conclusion: for demographic evaluation purposes, asking the gender question is one of the most basic and widespread thing to do in a survey. Leverage the convenience of mask questions in your own surveys LimeSurvey offers all features to paid subscriptions as well as free users. Mask question types are no exception here. Give it a try and create some mask questions of your choice with LimeSurvey! Simply click here to get started. If you want to learn more about mask questions in LimeSurvey, visit our LimeSurvey manual.  

However, this doesn’t just determine who gets to participate in the survey, it also offers other benefits, such as: Importing a list of names and email addresses of those allowed to participate Generating a unique token per participant Sending email invitations to all participants Sending email reminders to those who haven’t participated yet Tracking response statuses Preventing repeated survey participation as well as unauthorized public participation Editing details in participant list Creating templates for email invitations and reminders Conclusion: the use of tokens gives the survey creator much more control over the targeted selection of participants which directly benefits the results and the overall goal of the survey. Getting started with token management There are two ways to get started using the participant management: 1. By clicking Activate this survey in the top left corner of the admin interface, the survey is then published by choosing Save & activate survey. Activating Survey Once done, the option Switch to closed-access mode can be selected to change the default open-access mode to the token-based participation mode. Closed-Access Mode Subsequently, the token participant list is automatically created. Participant Table 2. If the survey is published in open-access mode without setting it to closed-access mode as undertaken in step 1, the participant feature can be activated by clicking Survey participants on the main admin page which will redirect straight to the option of initializing the participant table. Moreover, previous token tables can be restored here if available. Restoring Previous Participant Table The admin interface then displays a summary of the token table that contains the total number of records, with no unique token, invitations set, opted out, screened out and surveys completed. Participant Table Summary In order to fill a participant table with participants, several different approaches can be selected: add participants and their details manually, auto-create masses of dummy tokens or import participant lists from CSV (comma-separated values) files or LDAP (lightweight directory access protocol) queries. Creating Participant List When adding participants manually, all the necessary details such as name, email address, validity date range etc. need to be provided. Adding Participants Creating dummy participants enables the mass-production of tokens at once. Details such as name, email address and language will remain identical for every token generated in the process. The number of tokens as well as the length of tokens can be defined as required. Dummy Participants When uploading participant data from a CSV file, certain settings can be adjusted according to the formatting of the file. For example, separators used, email filters and duplicate handling can be changed. CSV File Participant Import If participant data is obtained from a LDAP query, this can be done by the system administrator using the LDAP plugin. The buttons Display participants and View in CPDB (central participant database) lead to participant overviews and provide valuable insights on the status of survey participants as well as offer options to edit participant details. Participant Table Overview Advanced Tip: if you want to test if your token management is working smoothly on LimeSurvey, simply create a spreadsheet to import and add fake email addresses as well as fake names. Once imported and working correctly, you ought to receive tokens for these fake positions. Conclusion: LimeSurvey provides great flexibility when it comes to creating token lists. This leads to a more user-friendly participant management system in terms of ease of use as well as personal preference for survey creators.   Things worth knowing about when working with LimeSurvey participants If neither a fully closed-access mode nor an open-access mode is desired, LimeSurvey also offers a hybrid access mode which allows the survey to be taken by the general public, but with the addition of requiring a token to participate. All that has to be done in this case is to turn on the option Allow public registration in the main survey settings. Open-Access Mode With Tokens A participant table be used both for anonymous and non-anonymous surveys. This is determined when creating a survey. If a survey is not anonymous (or 'tracked'), then the token list can be used to find the responses that a participant has submitted. If the survey is anonymous, then there is no link available between the token table and the participants’ responses. When all is taken care of, the survey can be sent out to participants. LimeSurvey supplies all options necessary to send out survey invitations. Invitations & Reminders Upon clicking Send email invitation, the (default) email template is provided in all languages selected for the survey and can be sent out to the participant list. Invitation Email Analogous to the latter, Send email reminder offers the same interface, but adds the option to set minimum and maximum days between reminders. Advanced Tip: you don’t necessarily have to settle for our default email templates. You may compose your own by using all the formatting functionalities that are available when creating survey questions. Hereby, you can build templates for all your participant emails, e.g. invitation, reminder, confirmation, registration as well as admin notification emails. Visit our manual to find out more about all valid email placeholders that can be used to successfully write your email templates. Important to consider when sending out emails to participants is to take care of bounce settings in case emails can’t be delivered successfully. Certain details, such as survey bounce email address, server information and encryption type need to be determined by the survey creator. Our manual contains more detailed information on how to fill out the fields. Email Bouncing Leverage the powerful participant table feature in your own surveys LimeSurvey offers all features to paid subscriptions as well as free users. The token management function is no exception here. Give it a try and set up your participant list with LimeSurvey! Simply click here to get started. If you want to learn more about tokens in LimeSurvey, visit our LimeSurvey manual.

Simple mode and expert mode First of all, there's the 'Responses' button in the admin interface that will lead you to LimeSurvey statistics via 'Responses & statistics'. Responses & Statistics When you access the statistics function, you have two possible statistics modes from which to choose: The simple mode This mode will give you swift statistics by merely clicking on the 'Simple mode' button. Thus, you will only get response graphs and no free text answers. However, you can switch between displaying all responses, only complete responses and only incomplete responses. Simple Mode The expert mode This mode allows you to filter your responses according to certain criteria. Once you have set all your filters, you generate the statistics report by clicking on the ‘View Statistics’ button in the top right corner. If you have falsely filtered and would like to restart, you can ‘Clear’ your selection in the top right corner. Results Summary Expert Mode Now to the available filters: The general filters contain … Data selection Include either all responses, complete responses or incomplete responses Provide a summary of all fields: if activated, this will automatically mark all question groups and questions to be taken into account for the statistics Subtotals based on displayed questions: if activated, this will hide the number of incomplete or not displayed response count Statistics report language: selectable are all languages that the survey was set up in Response ID: an interval of respondent IDs can be chosen to focus the attention on only those statistics Output format: HTML, PDF or Excel are available Output options Show text responses inline: lists all answers from free text question types Show graphs: adds graphic illustrations to the statistics Number of columns: one to three columns can be set to display statistics Graph labels: question code, question text or both can be used to label the horizontal graph axis Chart type: different chart types such as bar charts, pie charts and line charts can be chosen for the graphs, however, these can be changed later individually for each graph within the statistics overview General Filter The response filters contain all question groups, questions and answer options that can all be selected individually depending on the statistics you want to look at. Response Filter By clicking on the ‘Export images’ button at the bottom of the result table, regardless of simple or expert mode, you may receive the results in a file format of your choice (default PNG, PDF or Excel). Alternatively, the ‘Responses’ button within the statistics function offers you to browse through your results and filter according to certain criteria you determine. Response Overview Advanced tip: LimeSurvey offers many export possibilities. Go straight to processing your results in many other data handling software solutions such as Microsoft Excel/Word, SPSS, R, STATA or CSV. This allows you to undertake more complex, statistical calculations and tasks. Results Export Learning by doing statistical evaluation LimeSurvey offers all features to paid subscriptions as well as free users. The statistics function as well as diverse export possibilities are no exceptions here. Give it a try and set up some basic questions and answers which to evaluate statistically with LimeSurvey! Simply click here to get started. If you want to learn more about statistics in LimeSurvey, visit our LimeSurvey manual.