LimeSurvey files for CORE instruments

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Created 21/3/20, tweaked 22/3/20.

Like Qualtrics files, this is something I’ve been meaning to do for ages but has been precipitated by hearing of therapists moving from face to face work to online work because of the coronavirus pandemic and wanting to have safely confidential ways to offer online completion of measures they were using on paper before.

So far I think the option that will be most feasible for small practices or single handed practitioners will be Google forms (though I’m a bit reluctant to push more of us into the grip of the Google empire).

Another option, but probably only for larger practices who can afford some IT support or large services, is to use online survey software and I’m mounting LimeSurvey templates in line with my preference for Open Source software. Qualtrics is a commercial equivalent of LimeSurvey.

I have (laboriously!) created forms for the CORE-OM, CORE-10 and the YP-CORE. There are four versions of each as I’ve made up forms with the full headers of demographic information, probably more suited to research as I am guessing that practitioners using these in routine practice won’t want or need to get clients to repeat those so there are also forms with minimal headers: ID and date (and “assistance given” for the YP-CORE). For each of those there are forms that allow the person completing the form to omit items and forms that force completion of all items (or opting out completely). Practitioners who generally encourage or insist upon completion of all items should probably use the latter forms for continuity with their previous data.

LimeSurvey is hugely powerful (and completely free and open source, and has run faultlessly on my server for several years now for research collaborations I have with Latin America). But it is sometimes complex for administrators but not the people completing the forms. One complication is that it stores forms (“surveys” in its terminology) by a six digit number, I’ve kept those as I don’t know if it gets unhappy if they are changed, hence the numbers below. It also offers three (actually more, but three that might be useful to CORE users) export formats. These are its main format for transferring surveys between LimeSurvey installations: lss files; xml format and a PDF format. About the XML I quote

queXML is an XML description of a questionnaire. It is not suitable for backing up your work done so far in LimeSurvey as it cannot export conditions, or all question types. Exporting a questionnaire to queXML allows you to create PDF documents that can be printed, filled then scanned and processed using queXF software.

https://manual.limesurvey.org/Display/Export_survey#Export_queXML_format_.28.2A.xml.29

That links with their PDF exports which are designed to be scanned with that that queXF software which is an Open Source scanning system. They come as a zip with the PDF and the necessary file to bind that into the queXF system. I haven’t tried it and can’t see any immediate likelihood that I will. Let me know if you have experience of queXF, whether with CORE instruments or other measures/surveys.

All this means that there are three sets of files: lss, xml and pdf

If you need the short forms (SF/A and SF/B) or, by any chance, the GP-CORE in English, either make them yourself or contact me again. Similarly, if you need them in any of the approved translations, contact me … and if you need a translation not on the approved translation lists then, guess what … contact me!

I have given up on my usual downloads via a WordPress plugin (currently Download Monitor from Never5 as, as previously with this plugin and with every other download plugin I’ve used, it is now malfunctioning. Practically the only reason I was using it was that it enabled me to get people to tick the copyright licence conditions on the CORE instruments before downloading. I think it’s time I gave that up but please respect that these are copyright measures and so it’s illegal to change the content or otherwise abuse them, see https://www.coresystemtrust.org.uk/copyright.pdf. I would really appreciate it, particularly at this early stage, if anyone actually using the forms tells me, as I’d like to know about any issues and to be able to celebrate that doing this was worthwhile!

If you click on the links for the lss and xml files your browser will probably show you the xml structure inside them (the lss are also xml in structure). Alternatively, it may immediately offer you the option to download rather than showing you the guts of the files. If it shows you the guts, you can then download that file using your browser’s download option, or you can go back and select download for the link rather than just clicking to open. These are browser configuration issues: sorry!

LimeSurvey lss files

LimeSurvey xml files

LimeSurvey pdf files (for queXF scanning option)

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