The principles of the questionniare documentation are:
- Maintain and do not alter the semantic meaning of the questionnaire.
- Do not correct the questionnaire.
- Only record what is contained within the questionnaire.
- Do not allow the data recorded (i.e. the variables) to inform the metadata archiving.
In general, all of these principles should be adhered to. However, the complex nature of archiving questionnaires, particularly where these pre-date general use of databases, means this is not always possible. Therefore the principles are in order. You can break principle 4 to preserve principle 3, etc.