Creating a question bank in a SurveyPak You can create a bank of questions in Snap which can be saved and used in more than one survey. These are known as SurveyPaks. Snap 10 comes with a single SurveyPak which combines frequently used questions and their translations. You can use these questions in any survey. You can also create SurveyPaks containing questions specific to your organisation, which you can then re-use. This worksheet shows you how to use a question from Snap’s reference SurveyPak and how to create a new SurveyPak and store your own questions in it. Background SurveyPaks are made up of notes and questions (known as variables) grouped into orange books called topics. You can also group them into sections or questionnaires. You can have multiple languages in a SurveyPak, and have different language versions of a question. SurveyPaks are viewed in the Reference window and are stored in a .wdf file. Snap supplies a SurveyPak containing demographic questions in eight languages. These are in three areas: About You (describes the respondent) Your Household (about the respondent’s house and neighbourhood) Your Employment (about the respondent’s employment history) You can add the questions individually to a survey, add a whole section (including title and instructions) or create a survey that contains all the questions in a section. You can create your own SurveyPak by adding questions or sections from an existing survey. You can also import surveys into a SurveyPak. When you open them, the Survey constructor starts. Summary of steps This worksheet describes how to: Step 1: Use a question from an existing SurveyPak Step 2: Create a new empty SurveyPak Step 3: Add variables to the SurveyPak Add a language to a SurveyPak so you can add translated questions to it Edit a variable in a SurveyPak Step 1: Use a question from an existing SurveyPak Open the survey that you wish to add the question to. Open the Reference window by clicking on the main program toolbar or select File | Reference. The Snap reference SurveyPak is opened by default. It is called snReference. If it is not visible, you need to find it. Click the button at the end of the pathname to see recently used SurveyPaks. Click [Browse…] to search for it in your filing system. Close all other windows except for the Questionnaire window. Select Window | Tile so that the two windows are arranged side by side on the screen. Double-click a topic to display its contents. Select the variable that you wish to use. The text is displayed in the bottom part of the window. If it is not visible, click the Show/Hide Preview button . Drag the variable from the SurveyPak into the questionnaire. As you drag the cursor over the questionnaire it changes from to one of these three alternatives: insert the new item before this item. replace this item with the new one. insert the new item after this one. When you release the mouse button, the new variable is dropped in the position indicated by the cursor. Step 2: Creating a new SurveyPak Select File | New… | SurveyPak. The New SurveyPak dialog appears. By default, the new SurveyPak will have a name based on your most recently opened SurveyPak and will be stored in the same directory. Click the [Browse…] button to choose a new name and/or directory. Select the default language for your survey. Change the suggested name of the initial topic folder. Click [OK]. The Reference window will open and display your new, empty SurveyPak. Step 3: Adding a question to your SurveyPak Click on the Reference window toolbar. Edit Mode appears on the title bar to show you have changed to editing the SurveyPak. Drag the variable(s) from the questionnaire window to the place where you would like to store it in the SurveyPak. These can be notes or/and questions. The SurveyPak window changes to show the new variable. The changes will be saved automatically. You can now use the variables in other surveys. Adding a translated question to your SurveyPak If you have a survey in multiple languages, you can add the different versions of the question to your SurveyPak. You must first add the extra languages to your SurveyPak. Click on the Reference window toolbar to enter edit mode if Edit Mode is not already displayed on the title bar. Select Add Language from the drop-down language list. If the drop-down list is not visible, expand the Reference window by dragging the sides. The Define Language dialog appears. Select the language you wish to add. Specify the reading direction layout if necessary. (Check for Right to left layout, clear for left to right. European languages are left to right.) If you are adding a new version of an existing language (for example, the child’s version of an adult survey), type the language name as it appears in the questionnaire. Click [OK] to return to the SurveyPak. Drag the item(s) from the questionnaire window to the SurveyPak. The question will be added to all the languages in the SurveyPak. Check your question has imported by selecting the language in the drop-down list. If there was not a translation for the question already in the questionnaire, you will see the words (Undefined in language). You can edit the question by double-clicking it to open the Variable Properties dialog. You can change: the Label (the name that appears in the SurveyPak the Text (the question text) the codes for multiple choice questions. Click [OK] when you have made your edits. If you add the question to a survey, it will add the appropriate version of the question to the languages that are in the survey and the SurveyPak. Conclusion This worksheet has described how to use a question in an existing SurveyPak in your questionnaire. It then described how to create your own SurveyPak and add questions to it. It explains how to create multi-language SurveyPaks. For more information about creating SurveyPaks, see Using SurveyPaks to store and re-use variables and surveys. For more information about using SurveyPaks see Putting questions from the Reference window into a survey. For more information about running a survey in multiple languages, see the worksheet Creating a new language edition of your questionnaire. If there is a topic you would like a worksheet on, email to snapideas@snapsurveys.com.