Rank Order

Another important type of question concerns rank ordering of items, in terms of preference, necessity, or some other criterion. The markup presented here allows respondents to rank order the choices given on the screen.

General Form

The general form of the markup is as follows:

    <rank order>    <text [text of the question] >    <option [ties/noties]>    <list /choice1/choice2/choice3/choice4 ----->    </rank order> 

<rank order> is the required keyword for rank order question markups.

<text [text] > the text of the question follows the questions, and is placed in brackets.

<option [ties/noties]> is designed to specify whether you want to allow tied values in this rank ordering sequence.

<list /././....> specifies the choices which you want to specify for the rank ordering. Each of the choices must be clearly separated from another using a forward slash (/).

</rank order> closes the markup.

Example

    <rank order>    <text Which present would you like best?>    <option ties>    <list /car/computer/diamond ring/vacation>    </rank order> 

where the type of question is presented in the top line, followed by the question, and after that, a list of the choices that the system will then present for rank ordering. After interpretation by the system, the survey respondent will be presented with output similar to the following:

Which present would you like best?

car	{ }
computer	{ }
diamond ring	{ }
vacation	{ }