File	Date	Author	Commit
application	2012-02-29	Dav	[bd602b] updates
library	2012-02-10	Dav	[80231e] Question cloning forms
nbproject	2012-02-05	Dav	[6590df] Updated install controller
public	2012-02-15	Dav	[349b93] Completed port of Category
tests	2012-02-19	Dav	[b2043f] Updated install script, included all drop tables.
.gitignore	2012-01-29	Dav	[d9bd4b] Add basic install on first run
.zfproject.xml	2012-02-19	Dav	[b2043f] Updated install script, included all drop tables.
README.txt	2012-02-11	Dav	[0dbbd6] Merge branch 'master' of ssh://formsforsorting....
SQL.sql	2012-02-15	Dav	[349b93] Completed port of Category

Read Me

General information about Questionnaire Sorting and the formsforsorting project:

This PHP script deals with sorting, in HCI and usability research often restrictively named card sorting. 
This script is on questionnaire sorting. More information about sorting has become available on www.methodofsorting.com.
That site is the major place where to look for methodological advances or announce them.
Two scientific papers on an exploration of the characteristics of questionnaire sorting (release 1) and its relation to 
paper card sorting have been published in Quality & Quantity (Quality & Quantity, DOI 10.1007/s11135-006-9038-2
and DOI 10.1007/s11135-007-9163-6 online versions, www.springer.com. Printed versions have been published in 
Quality & Quantity 42, pages 113-134).

Copyright of this script is held by Joachim Harloff, Soft Use, Munich, Germany. The script may be used and 
distributed according to the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 1.2. Anyone using or installing the 
formsforsorting script for research or commercial purposes must link to the project on the installation web site
and refer to it in papers and reports. Please report any suggestions, bugs and improvements to the sourceforge project.

SortKit is a shareware tool for analysis of sorting data. It capable to process data produced by this Questionnaire 
Sorting script. Request it from Joachim Harloff harloff@softuse.com.

This version of Questionnaire Sorting is the first version of release 2 (May 17th 2008).
The employment of XHTML objects (such as Java, movies etc) has not yet been fully tested with this version.

Improvements since release 1:
Release 2 provides more options than release 1. Graded sorting as well as hierarchy construction and the availability
of qualitative questions have been added. S-Mode display as well as the availability of list boxes and free definition
of facets in multiple sorting have been added. Some effort was made to improve security. Also, the roles of a 
super Administrator and normal Administrators have been separated. Thus, the script is suitable for small working 
groups now. Administrators can see projects built by other administrators, but not change them or get the results.
It is possible now to have the positions of both categories and items permuted to avoid positioning effects. (But 
this will possibly require quite a lot of participants to become effective. Another strategy is to instruct 
participants to reassess their sorting after they have worked through a questionnaire the first time.)
Release 2 does no longer work with PHP 4.
Release 2, Update 1 fixes two minor bugs related to displaying and saving results of free numbers of facet instances.

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Setup information:

- A server like Apache 2 with PHP 5 and a MysQL database version 5 are needed. If you are deeply concerned
	about security, use some sort of encryption for the domain like SSL. Place all files included with this script
	into a common new folder within the website folder of the server. Study participants need access privilege to
	questionnaire.php, administrators and the super administrator need to access administration.php.
- In order to use other languages than english or german, add the language to the end of the includes/constants.inc/$aL
	array. Add folders with instruction translations in the adminInstructions and questInstructions/template 
	project folders. Please be so kind and publish your advances with this open source project!
- Change the access privileges of the backup directory so the script has full access. ("chown -RL 777 backup" 
	UNIX command. Depending on the system settings "chown -RL 755 backup" may suffice.)
	(Hence, you should move backup files from that directory to a safe place after backup for security reasons.)
- Adapt the database name, database user, database password as well as the super Administrators login and password
	in includes/constants.inc
- Use administration.php as super administrator to initialise the tables of the database (top table of that page).
- Read all contents of all information pages available from 'information' links on administration php. This will 
	give you information about how to use the formsforsorting script.
- When a project is set up, duplicate the "template project" folder in the "questInstructions" folder, rename the
	new folder after the projects english name and adapt the instructions to the project settings. Test the project 
	using questionnaire.php, and adapt the layout settings of viewpoints and facets to avoid the necessity to scroll
	within the questionnaire as far as possible. Facilitate orientation on the tables through column coloring. 
	When the project runs well send study participants that link.
- If you need to change the look according to some style, try to adapt the styles/*.css files.
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To do list (May 17th, 2008):

- The employment of XHTML objects (Java, movies etc) still needs to be tested
- Item and category permutation partially rely on PHP's "shuffle" function. Since the algorithm of "shuffle" is 
	unknown it is not yet safely known if "shuffle" and hence permutation is capable of producing EVERY possible 
	combination. If not, with high numbers of participants this may lead to problems and another algorithm should
	be introduced in facet.class->permuteCategories().
- Questionnaire and administration layout could possibly be improved
- Just two languages are supported at present. Please help us!
- The wording of existing instructions, buttons and links should be tested with a large number of participants.
	Best instructions for the many sorting variants offered still need to be written and tested.