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The Survey Development and Documentation System

The Survey Development and Documentation System. Rick Downs U.S. Census Bureau. What is SuDDS?.

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The Survey Development and Documentation System

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  1. The Survey Development and Documentation System Rick Downs U.S. Census Bureau

  2. What is SuDDS? The Survey Development and Documentation System (SuDDS) is a database tool for developing specifications and documentation for computer-assisted interviewing (CAI) instruments programmed in CASES or Blaise. SuDDS also serves as an interactive tool to track changes made to the specifications and to these survey instruments.

  3. What SuDDS can do for you SuDDS streamlines and consolidates the survey development process by providing a flexible environment to store information related to specifications, documentation, and change requests.

  4. SuDDS Features • Survey instrument specification • Survey instrument documentation • Generate CASES code directly from specification • Diagnostic tools • Multiple language support • Various Reports • Change requests • Items booklet • Interviewer instruction manual • Research recommendations • Keywords

  5. SuDDS Features (continued) • Comprehensive change request system • Detailed CASES instrument specifications • Full or partial specification replication • Specification archiving and version control • Importation of existing specifications • A suite of Blaise instrument specifications covering all areas of instrument coding

  6. SuDDS Challenges • Users’ unfamiliarity with similar products • A majority of users coming from a word processor specification environment • Conducting both individual, “hands on” instruction and classroom training • No pre-existing standard for Blaise specifications • Worked with instrument authors to create specification requirements and review specification prototypes • A “suite of specifications” rather than a single specification • Visually representing specification structure/flow • Represent the survey on the screen with a tree control and in specifications in an outline format

  7. SuDDS Challenges (continued) • Extensive documentation requirements • Currently SuDDS’s database has 440 fields in 53 tables • A complex specification development environment • Specification object editor implemented with 16 windows • Editor windows are customizable • Transitioning from CASES to Blaise means thinking in universes instead of gotos • Collect “traditional” flow/skip information in Blaise specifications

  8. SuDDS Future Direction • Generate Blaise code directly from the specification • Interface with other Census meta-data applications • Enhanced diagnostic tools: • Generate testing scenarios • Flow analysis • Path analysis • Interface with Blaise and CASES data extraction applications • Generate SAS code directly from the specification

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