comment on proposed XHTML Module: XForms Basic

This idea will be wonderful for people who do social science
research on the internet, like me.  I am already pretty far into
JavaScript (and less far into PhP), but if this had been
available when I started I might never have had to learn it.
(But, on the other hand, maybe it was good that I did.)

One suggestion - although I don't know how hard it would be to
implement - is that you extend the repetition model just a bit.
Suppose I want to do a questionnaire with many items, one per
screen.  I could trick your current model by using the add and
remove elements of the repetition model.  You could make this
easier with a combination of the two called "replace".  If
"replace" could then go through a list - or, better still, a list
with its order randomized - then someone could present a
questionnaire with one question per screen, or with questions
composed of a small number of elements in different
combinations (such as a conjoint analysis).

Probably the researcher would still have to resort to some other
method such as JavaScript or PhP, but not always.  Your new
system would be especially helpful for students just getting
started doing web research.

Jon
-- 
Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania
Home page:            http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~baron

Received on Thursday, 4 December 2003 15:49:00 UTC