Colectica Designer

Colectica Designer provides a visual survey instrument designer. Using a structured designer enables simple versioning and re-use of questions and other instrument constructs.

Questions and sequences of questions from any Colectica Repository can be used simply by dragging them onto the designer.

Editing a study's metadata in Colectica Designer is as simple as filling out a form.

Each text field can be assigned text in multiple languages. Documentation can then be published in one or all of these languages.

Colectica Designer allows general study information to be documented, including:

• Study title, abstract, and purpose
• The universe targeted by the study
• Funding sources
• The study's citation
• Concepts referenced by the study
• Classification schemes referenced by the study

Colectica's data collection support is enabled through its visual instrument designer.

Colectica Designer can also document the data products produced by a study. A data product’s documentation consists of general descriptive information and variable descriptions. Variable descriptions include labels and descriptions, the variable’s data type, its concept, its universe, and any source questions upon which the data is based.

We are actively adding more types of metadata to the Colectica platform. Specific types used by your organization can be added through our Colectica Customization service.

By integrating with Colectica Repository and Colectica Web, it is simple to publish a study's metadata to the web.

Learn more about the functionality provided by Colectica Web.

Colectica Designer automatically generates Computer Assisted Interviewing (CAI) source code for data collection instruments. CAI systems supported include:

• Blaise®
• CASES™

Support for other languages or data systems can be added with our Colectica Customization service.

Colectica Designer can automatically generate statistical command files consisting of variable definitions and labels. Supported statistical languages include:

• SAS®
• Stata®
• SPSS®

Support for additional languages or data systems can be added with our Colectica Customization service.

Colectica Designer can import source code from several CAI systems. Instruments are imported into Colectica’s model. Once in the model, instruments are managed in the Colectica Repository. Imported instruments can be visualized using the instrument designer; Colectica Designer’s instrument analysis and diagnostic features are also available to imported instruments. CAI systems supported include:

• Blaise®
• CASES™
• CSPro

Support for additional languages or data systems can be added with our Colectica Customization service.

Colectica Designer automatically analyzes instruments and provides descriptive information including:

• Question counts by type
• Estimated time of survey

Colectica Designer automatically detects several types of common problems with survey instruments. These diagnostics can be applied to instruments designed in Colectica as well as those imported from existing source code. Types of issues that can be detected include:

• Survey item is unreachable
• Dead ends
• Missing goto targets
• End of a survey is unreachable

Colectica Designer is used to create and edit data that is stored in a Colectica Repository. Colectica Designer can be configured to work with one or more repositories, allowing the integration of items from multiple sources. This enables metadata from existing studies to be reused in new studies, even if they are from other organizations.

Colectica's repository-based approach means that all changes to any item are automatically tracked. Colectica provides an easily-accessible, full version history.