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how to design a 500+questions survey?

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9 years 4 months ago #113591 by holch
Replied by holch on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?
One table one question? I don't think that makes much sense. You will bloat your database a lot.

And to be honest, I agree with Carsten, 500 questions is really a lot. I guess it is not for market research. Because from my experience, when the questionnaire gets too long, the last questions are actually not worth asking, because no one thinks about the question anymore, but just tries to click through. If they don't drop out.

Anyway. I agree that it would be a great addition if we could have a feature where Limesurvey could add a second table so that more questions can be included. When you have a lot of multipe response questions with a lot of answers, you get to the limit quite quickly.

Maybe you can make a feature request in the bug tracker?

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  • Mazi
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9 years 4 months ago #113664 by Mazi
Replied by Mazi on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?

holch wrote: Anyway. I agree that it would be a great addition if we could have a feature where Limesurvey could add a second table so that more questions can be included. When you have a lot of multipe response questions with a lot of answers, you get to the limit quite quickly.

Maybe you can make a feature request in the bug tracker?

We are aware of that problem and have tried to solve it in the past several times. BUT... this requires a major code rewrite and currently we do not have the resources for that.
We prefer to use our limited resources for several minor improvements instead of spending lots of time on a single feature only with the risk of leaving something unfinished at the end of developers leave or the like.

Anyway, this is on our list and maybe we participate at "Google Summer of Code" next year which would be an option for implementing such a major feature.

Until then you need to split up surveys and pass IDs to hidden questions to merge data later.
...or just don't annoy your users with hundreds of questions :-)

Best regards/Beste Grüße,
Dr. Marcel Minke
Need Help? We offer professional Limesurvey support: survey-consulting.com
Contact: marcel.minke(at)survey-consulting.com
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9 years 4 months ago #113665 by holch
Replied by holch on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?
> or just don't annoy your users with hundreds of questions

I agree. But often Limesurvey is used for things slightly different to what we know as market research, etc. Sometimes it is more a help for data entry, etc.

And with with 10 multipe choice question with 100 items the limit is also reached I guess.

I also agree that this is not the most important feature for sure. If it is so hard to implement, we should focus on other things instead to "waste" all forces on this feature, which I would call "nice to have".

Thank you for the further explanation. Makes things a lot clearer.

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9 years 4 months ago - 9 years 4 months ago #113683 by Ben_V
Replied by Ben_V on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?

But often Limesurvey is used for things slightly different to what we know as market research, etc. Sometimes it is more a help for data entry, etc.


Yes, and I'm pretty sure that LS will fit, more and more, a lot of those needs.... however my opinion is that people using the software in very special or extreme conditions have to adapt the code themselves; Open-source projects are made for this!

About surveys with +500 questions, I think the most important issue is not the software, but the ability of the coder to configure a very complicated survey using the excel import feature (hard to use LS GUI for this). Personally (and for the moment) I just can rely on one (found here ) :

"The EM author used similar view (a little cleaner) to let his collaborating Epidemiologists and Institutional Review Board validate and authorize surveys with thousands of questions in highly branched and tailored structured interviews"


Benoît

EM Variables => bit.ly/1TKQyNu | EM Roadmap => bit.ly/1UTrOB4
Last Releases => 2.6x.x goo.gl/ztWfIV | 2.06/2.6.x => bit.ly/1Qv44A1
Demo Surveys => goo.gl/HuR6Xe (already included in /docs/demosurveys)
Last edit: 9 years 4 months ago by Ben_V.
The following user(s) said Thank You: DenisChenu
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9 years 4 months ago - 9 years 4 months ago #113768 by iscar
Replied by iscar on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?
i try to submit the bugtracker, but get 404 error.
1.it's common to disign a survey of more than 1000 questions. i am not aware of this question till the server speed become slow, then i notice LS mysql database design problem.i think sql database is the base of ls.
2.i am not sql expert. i review the sql database design principle guide just now, it's not recommended to put irrelevant things in 1 table, like all surveys questions.
3.i am not sure what's reason if put much column in 1 table, I/O?
Last edit: 9 years 4 months ago by iscar.
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9 years 4 months ago - 9 years 4 months ago #113953 by david2013
Replied by david2013 on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?
It seems like we can have more than 1000 columns. I create a testing survey. 16 groups. each group contains 1 multiple choice question. And each multiple question contains 100 items. So I have around 1600 columns in the result table. It seems fine. (i.e. I can test it and export the data).

Am I suppose to see error message when I reach the limit of column? If anyone have experience of reaching limit. Please share. I use local php server (easyPHP: APACHE 2.4.4 MYSQL 5.6.11 PHP 5.5.0)
Last edit: 9 years 4 months ago by david2013.
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  • Mazi
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9 years 4 months ago - 9 years 4 months ago #113955 by Mazi
Replied by Mazi on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?
You can always test if you reach the column limit by (temporarily) activating the survey.

Best regards/Beste Grüße,
Dr. Marcel Minke
Need Help? We offer professional Limesurvey support: survey-consulting.com
Contact: marcel.minke(at)survey-consulting.com
Last edit: 9 years 4 months ago by Mazi.
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9 years 4 months ago - 9 years 4 months ago #113989 by david2013
Replied by david2013 on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?
I tested it as I mentioned previously. I think I know why I can have more than 1000 columns. It seems Limesurvey use MyISAM as default storage engine. (See database_helper.php: $sOptions='ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci';)

Just wondering why not use InnoDB as default as it has many more features? (i.e. Transactions, Row Locking, Relational base design , etc).

Just a thought
Last edit: 9 years 4 months ago by david2013.
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9 years 4 months ago #113992 by Mazi
Replied by Mazi on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?
To my knowledge InnoDB uses more bytes per column and thus limits the amount of total questions even more which is the main reason we are still using MyISAM.

Best regards/Beste Grüße,
Dr. Marcel Minke
Need Help? We offer professional Limesurvey support: survey-consulting.com
Contact: marcel.minke(at)survey-consulting.com
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  • iscar
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9 years 2 weeks ago #117769 by iscar
Replied by iscar on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?
i think lots of problems will happen if we have no a high level mysql design.
we are in big data or die
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  • c_schmitz
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9 years 2 weeks ago - 9 years 2 weeks ago #117771 by c_schmitz
Replied by c_schmitz on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?
InnoDB only supports 1000 columns at a maximum.

With MyISAM you have at least the chance to have more than 1000 - as already said it depends on the question types and number of subquestion how many you really have.
And, we don't need row locking or transactions - survey participants primarily write, administrators read. There is rarely a different scenario, so advanced InnoDB features are beaten by the faster MyISAM engine.

Best regards

Carsten Schmitz
LimeSurvey project leader
Last edit: 9 years 2 weeks ago by c_schmitz.
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  • DenisChenu
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9 years 2 weeks ago #117815 by DenisChenu
Replied by DenisChenu on topic how to design a 500+questions survey?

c_schmitz wrote: With MyISAM you have at least the chance to have more than 1000 - as alread said it depends on the question types and umber of subquestion how many you really have.

Near the max: 728 question + 670 sub question ;)

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