Blaise Tools

Blaise Tools

The tools listed below have been developed by Blaise users to supplement the Blaise system and are available to others without charge. These products are made available as an "as-is", "use at your own risk" basis, with no warranty of any kind.
No support from the developers should be expected. One avenue for questions and comments is the
Blaise discussion forum. (The old site can be found here).


Playback Audit Trails
A tool to "play back" Blaise audit trails and view Blaise questions, response options, and data and keystrokes entered. Its core components are:
  • Play Back: reads the Blaise datamodel file and a Blaise audit trail file (ADT) and presents the questions and either the final answers or keystrokes entered at the question.

  • Recover: rebuilds the Blaise database (BDB) or a section of the BDB from the final values in one or more Blaise ADTs.
  • Recover & Run Blaise Dep: Rebuilds a BDB or section of a BDB from the final values in a Blaise ADT file and uses the Blaise Data Entry Program (DEP) to review the rebuilt BDB.
  • Validation: Allows the user to check the validity of a Blaise Audit Trail File.

Developed by the Survey Research Center, University of Michigan.
Download
(Users need to read the readme.txt file on renaming files, then follow the instructions for installation in Appendix A of the Users Guide.)


Processing Audit Trail files
"Reporting on Item Times and Keystrokes from Blaise Audit Trails" is the title of a paper presented at the 7th International Blaise Users Conference (Washington DC, 2001).
The program ADT_Report.exe was created to transform the information in audit trail files into a more useable format.

Developed by the Survey Research Center, University of Michigan.
Download

TestNote
An application to support systematic testing of Blaise questionnaires by providing a fast, structured process for testers to document their work. Developed by Westat.
Access

WesAudit
An application for accessing and summarizing Blaise audit trail data, It helps
  • organize, simplify, and enhance use of audit trail files,
  • facilitates ad hoc review of individual case files in development, debugging, or problem reporting situations and
  • provides a standard way to extract summary information for statistical analysis and reporting.

Developed by Westat.
Access


WesRandR
For randomization and rotation of survey items in Blaise, commonly used techniques to address potential order
effects in survey questions. WesRandR automatically generates ready-to-run randomization or rotation code for questions in a Blaise datamodel. Developed by Westat.
Access

Westat download page
More tools and documents are available on the Westat download page:
Access