QANS

In the social sciences and educational practice, peer nominations are a common and reliable methodology to assess behaviors, relationships, status, and social networks in groups (e.g., classrooms). Recently, peer nomination methods have become completely computerized, with many advantages for data collection, processing, analysis, storage, and reporting. However, existing software programs are expensive and not sufficient to handle the complexities of peer assessments. They require advanced knowledge, are time consuming, and have limited functionalities for privacy protection, question specifications, and data processing. Therefore, many researchers have to hire RSEs to program their assessment and pre- and post-process the data. QANS is a newly developed survey builder, administrator, and database that overcomes these limitations. In this project we: (a) improve QANS’ workflow technologies and software practices, (b) make QANS sustainable and user friendly, and (c) add functionality for automatic data visualizations and classroom reports. This will strongly benefit research and educational practice.