Developing a Visualization Tool for Archived Social Science Research Data

When researchers access electronically-archived datasets, is the information readily comprehensible? For survey research, this is often not the case. When online surveys use skip patterns, the path respondents take through the survey will vary depending on how each question is answered. Such skip logic programming is not always obvious when looking at the linear version of the survey instrument. Using the Workforce Issues in Library and Information Science (WILIS) surveys as test cases, a schema was designed to visualize the flow and logic of complex surveys. Wireframes were created to illustrate the schema's potential use as an analysis tool within the open-source Dataverse Network maintained by the Odum Institute for Research in Social Science. Focus groups were used to explore responses to the survey visualization tool by researchers