Main entry point

• Problem: You are currently viewing this page as a file NOT as a webpage.
• Solution: Enter http://-- your domain name --/WebTools/WebCAT/operation.html into the Address field in your browser.
• Stopgap: Click here to view this page from your http server so that CGI can be activated.
  • Drawback: Experiments created as "localhost" will not be viewable on any machine but your own.

Overview

1. select whether to start with the default settings, to modify a previous study, or to start with a template
2. supply the list of items to be sorted
3. determine how the categories will be set up
4. provide a description, instructions for your subjects, and enable/disable comments by the subjects

Page 1 of 4:
'Design options' and 'Other functions'

1. 'Create a new test' provides default values for the various options.
2. 'Edit an existing study' uses the values already entered as a starting point. (see Table for a list of potential side effects of editing.)
3. 'Use an existing template' uses values from an existing design and saves the modified form under a new name.

Other functions that can be accessed from the first setup page are found at the bottom of the page. If you use Netscape you will see 4 buttons but only the valid choices will be active. If you use Internet Explorer, you will see 3 buttons for each experiment; 'View results' and 'Delete' are mutually exclusive options. These functions include:

• 'View a design summary' accesses a list of the parameters that define the experiment. By printing this page, you can have a convenient page to insert in your experimental log.
• Selecting 'View subject interface' allows you to preview the subject interface or to perform the experiment. If you enter 'anonymous' as the subjectID, your results will not be saved. This feature gives you the opportunity to test what your subjects will see without contaminating the results with your own responses.
• after one or more subjects has done the card sort, the 'View results' button will cause a page of results to be displayed. The contents of the results page is discussed in more detail in the Results section.
• the last button in the 'Other functions' list allows you to 'delete experimental designs'. Only experiments for which no subject data has been collected can be deleted using this web page method. To delete experiments for which data exists, you will need to use a file browser such as Windows Explorer to locate the directory (/Experiments/). After you have deleted the directory and its contents, locate the directory (/Nursery/) and delete it too. The 'Nursery' location is used during design creation and modification and can be safely removed after the parallel entry in the 'Experiments' subdirectory has been deleted.

Page 2 of 4:
Items

• This version of WebCAT allows sorting of up to 75 items. Each item may be up to 30 characters in length. Special characters (e.g., '?', '!') are allowed; only double quotes ('"') are not permitted. Duplicates will be flagged. To include duplicates that make sense, add underscore ('_') characters, change the case of the item(s), or append a numeral (e.g., 'animal' and 'animal2'). If you decide to use true duplicates, the results will be accurate but your interpretation will be more difficult. Blank lines, leading white space and trailing white space will be removed. You may, of course, have spaces within an item's name.
• Select an order for presenting the items to your subjects. 'As entered' will display the items in the order you have entered them. 'Random' will show each subject a different order. 'Alphabetical' will show the list in ASCII-alphabetical order; that is, 'Zebra' would appear before 'ant' since upper case 'Z' is less than lower case 'a'.
  Note: the order of the items in the list you submit generates an identifying integer for computational purposes throughout WebCAT. E.g., if 'zebra' is the 7th item in the list, then 7 is the internal ID for that item. Manually reordering the items will cause incorrect results.

Page 3 of 4:
Categories

• Unspecified: This option allows subjects to create as many categories as they would like. You only need to enter the number of category bins to show upon initial display. The interface will provide the subject with a button for creating more bins as needed. Clicking the button causes one new bin to appear and shrinks the size of existing bins. The position of items already sorted will be preserved. The limit for the number of bins is #items - 1. For example, if there are 10 items and the initial number of bins is 4, the subject may create up to 5 more bins for a total of 9. At that point the button is grayed out.
• Specified: This option is the same as 'unspecified' except that the limit on the number of potential bins is pre-set. For example, if there are 10 items and the initial number of bins is 4 and the maximum number of bins is 6, then the 'create new category' button will gray out after 6 bins are displayed.
• Fixed: This is the special case in which the initial number is the same as the maximum number. No button is shown for creating a new bin.
  For any of the above design types, you may control your subjects' naming of category bins.
  • 'No' means that the interface will show a plain box. Subjects will not be allowed to provide names for the bins.
  • 'Allowed' means that the interface will display a bin and a label field into which your subject may enter text describing the items in the bin. The entry of text will be labeled 'Optional'.
  • 'Required' indicates that the category bins will be displayed along with a label field. In this case, the text field will be labeled 'Required'. Subjects will be prevented from submitting their results until the labels have been provided.
• Prenamed: The number of bins in this option is controlled by the number of labels that you type into the text area. Type one name per line and up to 30 characters per label. Blank lines will be removed, as will leading and trailing white space. Internal spaces and special characters (except for double quotes) are permitted. Subjects will not be able to create new categories in this mode.
  In the 'Prenamed' option, you may specify the order of presentation of category names. 'As entered' will display the categories in the order you have entered them. 'Random' will show each subject a different order. 'Alphabetical' will show the list in ASCII-alphabetical order; that is, 'Vegetable' would appear before 'animal' since upper case 'V' is less than lower case 'a'.

Page 4 of 4:
Description, Instructions, and Commenting

• Enter a description for your study. This information will be included in the Design Summary which you may print for your records. This field may be left blank.
• Enter instructions for your subjects. You may leave this field blank. The information will be inserted into the html page that your subjects will interact with. If you insert html markup (e.g.,
  ,

  ), the effects will be visible in the presented page.

  • If the checkbox regarding subject comments is checked, the subject interface will display a text area into which subjects may enter comments. If not checked, no text area is displayed. If you decide to ask your subjects to make comments, you might want to specify in the 'Instructions' the kind of information you would like to receive.
  • Select the fontsize and fontstyle option.