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the
website for the only open survey interchange standard |
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What is
Triple-S
?
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Triple-S is a language for
describing survey metadata – that is, data about the survey data:
question and response texts, the location of individual data items
within the record, valid ranges for responses, and so on. |
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| So it’s another spec language, like Quantum or Snap? |
| Yes and no. It does the same job – describing the data for a
survey – and the information is stored in a text file, but Triple-S
files aren’t written by spec writers: they’re normally generated
automatically by a program. |
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| What’s the point of that, then? |
| The point is, that if one program (say
BellView) can translate into Triple-S format,
and another program (say Merlin) can translate from Triple-S format, then the survey metadata can
be translated from one language program to the other automatically
– without the need for a specwriter to do the job manually. |
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| So who owns the
Triple-S
standard? |
| Nobody does – it’s a public standard. The
Triple-S
Group (who designed the standard and publish it for general use)
consists at present of three survey software program developers –
Geoff Wright (formerly of PTT, now working for Arbitron UK), Steve
Jenkins (Mercator) and Keith Hughes (Merlinco). |
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| And what’s in it for you? |
| Our original motivation was that we were fed up with writing
imports from each others’ packages, and having to change the
import each time the competitor changed his syntax. Now the standard
has been adopted by more than 50 software producers worldwide, we
want to bring it into line with the XML metadata exchange format
which looks likely to will become the standard for Web data
interrogation and extraction over the next few years.
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| And what’s in it for me? |
| If you – or your customers – use more than one kind of survey
software, then check the survey software suppliers support Triple-S:
if they don’t, tell them about us and tell them to get in touch!
If you have in-house systems which handle survey metadata, then get
in touch with us yourself, and we will help you implement
Triple-S in your systems. |
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www.triple-s.org |
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Frequently
Asked
Questions |
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Please
contact
the
Triple-S
group
if
you
have
any
questions |
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