UserGuides:Surveys:CreatingNewSurveys

MethodBox allows you to add your own survey data and metadata which you can allow other users to search and download.

Adding a new survey
Go to the Data Sources tab and click the Create a new survey button in the sidebar. A survey has to belong to a survey type. You can either select an existing one from the drop down list or add a new one. Give your new survey a meaningful title and a full description so that you and other users can search for it. You control who can see the datasets (and can therefore download the variables) belonging to this survey. If you want to share with groups then you get a section where you can choose which groups to share with. Click on Create to add the new survey. Once it is created you can add datasets to it.

Adding datasets to a survey
Click on the Add a dataset to this survey button. Choose a CSV/Tab delimited or Excel spreadsheet file which contains the variables for this dataset. It is 'difficult for MethodBox to determine the type of file you are uploading so please select the file type from the drop down. Enter a meaningful title and description and click on Upload and Save. If you have notifications switched on then you will receive an email when the data has been uploaded and is ready for searching. Note that until you add metadata all that will be searchable is the variable title.

Updating dataset data
Go to the page for the dataset you want to update. Easiest way to find the dataset is to look at the My Surveys tab from your profile and find the one which the dataset belongs to, click on the survey link and then from that page click on the link to the dataset on the Child datasets part. You could also search for the survey. On the dataset page click the Upload variable data button, select a dataset just like when adding one for the first time, add a reason for updating and click Update data file. MethodBox will then show you any new or removed columns.

Adding metadata to a dataset
Go to the page for the dataset you want to add metadata for. The metadata formats are described in detail on the Design page. Click on the Upload variable metadata button, select the metadata file, choose the format from the dropdown, enter an update reason if appropriate and click on Upload metadata file.