SoftwareApplication
name: QANS
description: QANS (Questionnaire And Nomination Software) is a collection of software components to enable longitudinal research using sociometric (peer nomination, peer ranking) surveys.
description: QANS (Questionnaire And Nomination Software) is a collection of software components to enable longitudinal research using sociometric (peer nomination, peer ranking) surveys. This includes a personal-data subsystem, extensions/plugins to the online survey tool LimeSurvey, and an exporter for the answer data generated by LimeSurvey. Sociometric surveys are a standard and reliable method for assessing behaviors, relationships, status, and social networks within groups (e.g., classrooms, work units). In sociometric survey methodology, participants choose, vote for, or nominate others in response to specific questions. This makes sociometric survey methodology unique, and the collection of peer nominations cannot be handled by “ordinary” survey software. The QANS software is built to plan, prepare and administer a special kind of personalized questionnaires, where a respondent is asked to answer questions about other respondents that belong to the same, so called, reference group. As respondents are linked to the responses from others, it is possible to create, analyze and compare social networks for each of these questions. The specific use case in QANS focuses on bullying and social dynamics in general in Dutch schools. The core focus of the project was on the academic research that the Behavioral Science Institute of the Radboud University does on the social dynamics of classes of teenagers in high school. This by itself is done to increase the safety of teenagers, e.g. by informing policy makers and schools. However, as Dutch law stipulates that schools must monitor bullying behavior within the school, a core feature of the resulting software is to provides for the automated generation of reports for the school to aid them in monitoring, evaluation and even interventions to stop toxic behavior.
code repository: https://gitlab.socsci.ru.nl/qans/qans
author: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9984-2720
author: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8928-7831
author: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6311-1168
author: https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0069-5119
keywords: Peer Nomination
keywords: Sociometry
keywords: sociology
keywords: survey
keywords: questionnaire
license:
  creative work: creativeWork
    name: Apache-2.0

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9984-2720
type: Person
given name: Robin
family name: Richardson
name: Robin Richardson
affiliation: Organization
  name: Netherlands eScience Center

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8928-7831
type: Person
given name: Jaro
family name: Camphuijsen
name: Jaro Camphuijsen
affiliation: Organization
  name: Netherlands eScience Center

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6311-1168
type: Person
given name: Lourens
family name: Veen
name: Lourens Veen
affiliation: Organization
  name: Netherlands eScience Center

https://orcid.org/0009-0001-0069-5119
type: Person
given name: John
family name: Van Hal
name: John Van Hal
affiliation: Organization
  name: Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen