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FAQs

Frequently Asked Questions About CASES

Here are some questions (and answers) that we frequently get from organizations:

1. What are the basic steps in CASES data collection?

2. What types of data collection does CASES handle?

3. Why should I use SDA for survey documentation and analysis?

4. What language does CASES use to develop a questionnaire?

5. What are the limits on the number of variables, questions, or cases?

6. Are there any restrictions on designing the screens I want?

7. Does CASES have automatic dialing?

8. Does CASES have automatic scheduling?

9. Can I collect hierarchical or rostered data with CASES?

9. Is there a demo available?

Still have more questions? Contact us.

1. What are the basic steps in CASES data collection?

There are five steps in collecting data with CASES:

A. Instrument creation: designing, testing, and modifying a computer-based questionnaire

B. Case creation: defining each case to be processed, including pre-existing data such as a "case      ID"and "telephone number "

C. Data collection:  administering the questionnaire and managing the production process 

D. Second stage processing:  checking, coding or modifying data after initial entry (optional but      recommended)

E. Generation of output files: creating data and documentation for analysis and dissemination

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2.What types of data collection does CASES handle?

CASES is designed to handle many types of data collection including:

A. CATI - Computer-Assisted Telephone Interviewing 

B. CAPI - Computer-Assisted Personal Interviewing 

C. CASI - Computer-Assisted Self Interviewing 

D. CADE - Computer-Assisted Data Entry (for data already recorded on paper)

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3. Why should I use SDA for survey documentation and analysis?

There are many reasons for using SDA for your survey documentation and analysis tasks. 

A. Frequencies and cross tabulations are generated very quickly (in a few seconds)

B. User interface does not require learning a "language"

C. Other procedures include comparisons of means (with complex standard errors); comparisons of      correlations; correlation matrix; regression (ordinary least squares); and list values of individual      cases

D. SDA can read and write data description (or meta-data) for SDA, SPSS, Stata and DDI.

E. SDA creates codebooks in two formats:  plain text for printing and HTML files for the web

F. SDA is provided at no extra cost to ACS members who also use CASES.

Go to the SDA Website for further information.

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4. What language does CASES use to develop a questionnaire?

A CASES instrument (or questionnaire) is written by a designer in a general-purpose Questionnaire language (Q language) in a standard format using any text editor.

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5. What are the limits on the number of variables, questions, or cases?

The limit on the number of all items in an instrument is 15,000. An item is one of the following:

A. A question 

B. A non-input variable. A non-input variable gets a data value by means other than answering a     question. Examples of non-input variables are date or time variables whose values are     determined by reading the system clock, or historical data that is read into the data file at case     creation time. 

C. An item that contains only instructions and logic, and does not use any data space. One of these      types of items may contain hundreds of lines of instructions.

D. The limit on the number of cases in a single study is several million.

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6. Are there any restrictions on designing the screens I want?

The designer has complete control over screen design.  Among the features are screen colors, user-defined windows, and a choice of simple questions or complex forms with multiple answer fields and free cursor movement.  The graphical version also features multiple font selection and various graphical controls such as radio buttons and check boxes for inputting data.

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7. Does CASES have automatic dialing?

Automatic dialing in CASES is accomplished via the external call mechanism.  Upon request, we will provide both the source code for a sample external program for dialing a modem and sample instrumentation which demonstrates how it is used.

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8. Does CASES have automatic scheduling?

CASES includes an optional automatic call scheduling system which allows cases to be prioritized or scheduled for interviewers based on user-defined parameters.  Interviewers may also request a specific case at any time.

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9. Can I collect hierarchical or rostered data with CASES?

CASES software includes capabilities for handling hierarchical or rostered instruments, in which one or more series of questions and/or commands are executed for each member of a set of related objects.  CASES permits the instrument designer to create multi-level, parallel hierarchical structures.

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10. Is there a demo available?

We don't release a demonstration version of our software. Interested users may visit CSM for a demonstration or we will be happy to help arrange a visit with another current user. Some screenshots are available here.

 

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