QMd

GitBook for the QMd Project

What is QMd?

QMd (see GitHub) is a user friendly MEAN stack powered web data collection application originally developed by a team at the University of Western Australia (UWA) to aid in Q-Sorts to aid in Q-methodology research in the field of social sciences and psychology.

QMd offers a range of features, tailored to suit the needs of the UWA social sciences department, that existing solutions currently do not provide:

  • Handling of multiple Q-sort surveys running simultaneously, with separate personal links (routing) for different surveys

  • Dynamic adjustment of the display grid (both in terms of Horizontal-X axis scaling as well as adjustment of kurtosis) as well as statements.

  • Drag and drop functionality for sorting statement cards into the Q-sort grid.

  • Registration details and follow-up questionnaire for participants

  • Encrypted cloud-based storage of all data with:

    • Support for Mongo DBaaS (Database as as cloud) cloud database storage providers (Mongo Atlas, mLab, etc.)

    • The ability to view, edit and delete survey data through the application

    • The ability to view, export (screenshot) and delete user data through the application

  • Supports deployment to PaaS (Platforms as a Service) such as Heroku, IBM Cloud, Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud.

For a more detailed explanation of the full feature set of QMethod please read our breakdown here.

Requirements

Setup of QMd is easy and for a basic installation, there are no specific software requirements. See the basic deployment guide for more information.

For those seeking more control over their QMd deployment and the ability to customise and tailor QMd to their specific needs, command line interfaces for managing the web server can be installed to interface with the web application with files from your local machine (PC), and first-party applications exist for managing the database data directly from your remote database. See the advanced deployment guide here.

For users, QMd, as an online web application, is mainly limited by Browser Compatibility. The user will require a PC with an internet connection, as well as a modern web browser from one of at least the following:

  • Chrome 45+

  • Firefox 38+

  • Edge 12+

  • Internet Explorer 10+

  • iOS 9+

  • Safari 9+

  • Android 4.4+

  • Opera 30+

License

QMd is licensed under the CC Non-Commercial-BY 4.0 License. QMd is free to use for non-commercial purposes, and you may reference portions of our open-source code as long as proper credit is given.

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