Glossary
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An ellipsis of three dots is used to fill in a space within a question, regardless of the size of the space shown in the questionnaire. See Transcribing guidance for further details.
Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children.
In-house purpose built software for documenting questionnaire metadata using the DDI standard.
1970 British Cohort Study.
Breadcrumb
Navigational aid which appears at the top of a web page to show the current location and provide links back to each previous page.
CAI
Computer Assisted Interviewing.
CAPI
Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing.
CATI
Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing.
Cohort & Longitudinal Studies Enhancement Resources.
A list of categories which the respondent can chose from in order to answer a question.
Concatenate
To link text or words together in a chain. See Concatenating statements and Concatenation in question literals for examples.
A type of construct that narrows down who answers a question, usually based on a response to a previous question(s).
A type of element that has a position. It includes: sequences, loops, conditions, statements and questions.
Date mask
The format that a date is expected to be entered as. It can include a partially completed date. See Transcribing guidance for an example.
The Data Documentation Initiative (DDI) metadata standard. A set of specifications used to document social science studies data in a standardised way.
A variable that is created from one or more already existing variables by following some sort of calculation or other data processing technique. For example, each respondent’s estimated annual income from savings and investments could be derived from several reported income variables.
Element
Refers to an Archivist element, which is a component used to build the questionnaire in Archivist. See Questionnaire Elements for further details.
Generic date
Most common date response domain used. See Date and Time Answers for further details.
Generic text
Most common text response domain used. See Text Answers for further details.
Generic time
Most common time response domain used. See Date and Time Answers for further details.
HASSET
Humanities And Social Science Electronic Thesaurus. Used as a basis for the topic controlled vocabulary. See Topics for further details.
Hertfordshire Cohort Study.
Text contained within a question, which gives further information to the respondent about how to answer a question. It can be directed to the interviewer or interviewee.
Instruments
Most commonly the questionnaire used to collect the respondents answers. This could also be a test or form. See the controlled vocabulary Collection Methods for further details.
The name assigned to an Archivist element.
A construct used to enter a series of repeating questions, or a set of questions which cannot be entered as a grid due to not having overarching question text.
Millennium Cohort Study.
MeSH
Medical Subject Headings. Used as a basis for the topic controlled vocabularies. See Topics for further details.
Metadata
Metadata is data about data. It provides three main functions: context, discoverability and action. See the introduction to CLOSER Discovery for further details.
National Child Development Study.
MRC National Survey of Health and Development (1946).
ONS
Office for National Statistics. Used as the basis for the topic controlled vocabulary. See Topics for further details.
Other
A type of text response domain which is used when the text answer is an addition to those which have already been provided. See Text Answers for further details.
When a question item is entered, it must then be positioned within the flow of the questionnaire. This is done through the question construct.
A question grid contains an overarching question and sub-questions with the same response domain. These are all contained within one construct, along with any instructions and headings. Single-column grids are entered as question items.
A question item contains a single question along with the response domain answer and any instructions.
The format in which the answer to a question is provided.
Scale
A scale has two meanings in the CLOSER wiki. It is a response domain which has a continuum containing both extremes of the same spectrum (see Code Lists for further details). It is also a collection of related questions that measure an underlying concept (see Scales for further details).
A type of control construct which groups the other constructs together. It is usually a section heading.
Sledgehammer
Proprietary software used to produce DDI Lifecycle compliant dataset metadata. See Document a dataset for more information.
A type of construct which contains additional text, that does not contain important context to be part of the question literal nor does it meet the criteria of an instruction.
Sweep
A round of data collection in a particular longitudinal study, also known as a wave.
Southampton Women's Survey.
A controlled vocabulary listing the topic areas covered by the studies. CLOSER Discovery maps each question and each variable to a topic, so they can be used to search or refine results. See Map Questions, Variables and Topics for more information.
Understanding Society: The UK Household Longitudinal Study.