Queries and Course Analysis Forms

Browse query help Starting a new query See the result of a query Responding to a query Using the Query Wizard

The query/course analysis facility in KOM 2000 makes it very easy to compute the results of complex HTML-form questionnaires. There is no need to write any CGI scripts. KOM 2000 will automatically analyze your HTML form and tabulate the results of the query. Both anonymous and non-anonymous queries can be handled.

Starting a New Query

Before starting a new query, you should make up your mind on three issues:

  1. Who are to be invited to participate, and what security do you want against faked responses More info.
  2. Should the name of who responded what be shown in the results (open query) or protected (secret ballot) More info.
  3. Which type of question(s) to use More info.
 You can start a query using the Start Query command or using the Query Wizard. The Query Wizard is specially suitable to queries, to which people are to be invited by e-mail.

Using the Start Query Command

Simple yes/no/abstain query

Evaluation query (evaluate a number of choices on a bad...good scale)

Any other query format

(1)

Skip step (1).

Skip step (1).

Produce the questionnaire in HTML format. You can use HTML editors like Dreamweaver, Netscape Communicator, Adobe Golive or Microsoft Frontpage to do this. Read the hints on how to format a HTML form for a KOM 2000 query.
(2)

To start a production query for real usage, go to URL http://sol.dsv.su.se/ to start an English-language query, or go to URL http://kom2000.nu/ to start a Swedish-language query.

To test your query before giving it to real usage, go to go to for example URL http://sol.dsv.su.se/kom2k/sol/3/2/;login to start an English-language query, or go to URL http://kom2000.nu/sv/kom2000/4/19/;login to start a Swedish-language query.

These URLs are for queries open to anyone. To produce a query open to only certain people, start a closed forum in KOM 2000 and start the query in that forum. (An alternative way to restrict access to a query is to use the Query Wizard and produce a password.protected query. Anyone can then see the query, but only those who know the password can respond.)
(3)
 Click on "Start query" (Swedish: "Starta rundfråga") to open a new query form.
(4)

Simple yes/no/abstain query

Evaluation query (evaluate a number of choices on a bad...good scale)

Any other query format

(5) Just type in the question in the Start Query form. You do not have to produce any HTML form in this case. Push the 2. Create an evaluation query link. Copy, from the HTML editor used in step (1), the whole HTML form, but not including the initial <FORM> tag and not including the final button and the end </FORM> tag.
(6)
 Skip step (6). Fill in the form for specifying an evaluation query. Paste this into the large text area.
(7)
 Add a suitable subject for the query, and check "Secret ballot" (Swedish: "Hemlig rundfråga") if you want respondents to be anonymous.
(8)
 Click on the or button to check that your questionnaire looks right before submitting it.
(9)
 Click on the button to submit the query.
(10)

You will now see a list of queries. Click on the item corresponding to the query, which you have just started.
(11)

Note the URL of the query web page you get to. The part of the URL up to ";" is the URL of the query.

Add ";login" at the end of this URL to get a suitable URL to give to people for queries which are not open to anyone, or when you want people to identify themselves before responding to a query.

Add ";" at the end of this URL to get a suitable URL to give to people who want to answer the query anonymously, in queries which are open for anyone to respond to.

Add ";result" at the end of this URL to get a suitable URL to give to people who want to see the result of the query.
 

Responding to a Query
(1)

Locate the query in one of two ways:

  1. Log in to a KOM 2000 server and browse the forums to find the query.
  2. Use the URL for the query which was given to you by the person who started the query.
(2) If the query URL ends with ";login" or if this is a closed query (not open for anyone to respond to), then you will have to specify your name and password before responding to the query.
(3) Otherwise, just respond to the query, and end by pushing the button.
 

Seeing the Results of a Query

Three ways to get to see the results of a query:

  1. Respond to the query. You will see the result window after submitting your response.
  2. Locate the query, and click on the command in the left-hand menu bar.
  3. Use the URL of the query, but replace the part after the ";" in the URL with the string "result".
 

Here are some examples of how query results may look:

Simple yes/no/abstain non-anonymous query result:
 

Simple yes/no/abstain anonymous query result:
 

Anonymous evaluation-query result:
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