[GRASS5] GRASS user online survey

Hello,

Moritz and I started another GRASS survey project. The survey will be a html
page with various choices (y/n, gradient (good -> bad) and lists) and the
option to add personal comments.

We would be glad to receive some input/recommendations etc. on the final
version. e.g.

- shall all modules be listed so that people can rate them. It might become
to long and people might abort the survey.

- adding a Programmers Survey ? How do we reach possible developers and ask
them why/why no contribution?

thanks Martin

Attached should be:
/grasssurvey_1510.txt

(attachments)

grasssurvey_1510.txt (5.72 KB)

Martin,

the survey would be very useful but what you have now is way too long and complex even
without the individual modules.
To get a reasonable response I suggest to simplify and shorten it,
maybe you can split it into two separate surveys. For the programmers survey
the developers list should be the best, but you could add people from the 2 GRASS
conferences who are not in the list but who have developed some capabilities.

Helena

Martin Wegmann wrote:

Hello,

Moritz and I started another GRASS survey project. The survey will be a html page with various choices (y/n, gradient (good -> bad) and lists) and the option to add personal comments.

We would be glad to receive some input/recommendations etc. on the final version. e.g.

- shall all modules be listed so that people can rate them. It might become to long and people might abort the survey.

- adding a Programmers Survey ? How do we reach possible developers and ask them why/why no contribution?

thanks Martin

Attached should be:
/grasssurvey_1510.txt

------------------------------------------------------------------------

GRASS user survey

Aim: retrieving informations about

GRASS USER COMMUNITY
* the size of the GRASS user community
* on which OS and which GRASS version?
* what kind of GIS user is using GRASS
* how is GRASS used (compared to other programs)?
* in which field (Geog.. Archael.. ., ecology, etc)?
* why is GRASS used (ideology, financial reasons, quality)?

INITIAL CONTACT WITH GRASS
* is the installation a problem?
* how is the documentation?
* intro to GRASS
* further lit. (modelling, NVIZ etc.)

USAGE OF GRASS
* Interface
* shell
* GUI
* in comparison to other programs
* what is pos./neg.

* GRASS DEVELOPMENT

Types of choice:

  A) yes or no
  B) gradient choice - ranging from 1 - 5 (very bad/no is not true -> very good/yes its true) C) usage gradient (never, sometimes, most of the time, always)
   D) lists

Questions:

Basic informations:

1 which country (list)
1b In which language would you like to see GRASS being translated (list)
2 GRASS usage since (0, <1 y, <2y, <5y,<10y,>10y)
3 how did you hear about GRASS?(colleagues, publications, by chance, articles, internet search, mailing list)
4 which OS? (MS Win, Mac OS, GNU/Linux, Unix)
5 which GRASS versions are running on your computer? (4.3.x, 5.0.x, 5.3, 5.7)
5a which version do you use for your every day work? (4.3, 5.0.x, 5.3, 5.7)
6 How many people in your organisation are using GRASS ? (0, <5, <10, <20, <50, > 50)
7 How many people in your organisation are using GIS/RS capabilities? (0, <5, <10, <20, <50, > 50)
8 Are you a user/contributor (User, ANSI-C; GUI, Doc., others)
9 Would you be interested in contributing to GRASS? (y/n)
9a what in particular (ANSI-C; GUI, Doc.)
9b why not so far (time, no GIS user so far, no interest, no idea how)
10 if contributed., since when (<1 y, <2y, <5y,<10y,>10y)
11 if contributed. but not active anymore, why? (time, no GIS user anymore, no interest)
12 in which field are you working with GRASS? (Geography, Biology, Archaeology, Mineralogy, Climatology, Geology, Astronomy, Land Use Planning, Transport, Other)
13 In what kind of institute (University, NGO, Public Administration, Private Company, Other)

GRASS Installation

* How did you install GRASS? (precompiled binary, rpm, deb, source snapshot, cvs) * do you consider lack of binaries as reason for not using GRASS? (gradient)
* If you are a MS Win user, do you consider the need to use cygwin as a major drawback? (gradient)

GRASS Documentation

Tutorials:
  1) sufficient informations? (gradient)
  2) well written? (gradient)
  3) found easily ? (gradient)
  4) like to contribute? yes=mail to ....

Manual pages:
  1) sufficient informations? (gradient)
  2) well written? (gradient)
  3) found easily? (gradient)
  4) like to contribute? yes=mail to ....

GRASS usage

* Do you use GRASS for:
raster (usage gradient)
vector (usage gradient)
3D analysis (usage gradient)
visualisation (NVIZ) (usage gradient)
modelling (usage gradient)

Raster (skip if you do not use this format)

* which other GIS software packages do you use for this purpose and how often ? (ArcView, ArcInfo, ArcGIS, ERDAS, ErMapper, IdRisi, etc) (usage gradient)

please rate modules:

# list modules (gradient)
# please write why bad or what can be improved

* which functionalities are missing in GRASS ?

Vector (skip if you do not use this format)

* which other GIS software packages do you use for this purpose and how often? (ArcView, ArcInfo, ArcGIS, MapInfo, etc) (usage gradient)

please rate modules:

# list modules (gradient)
# please write why "bad" or what can be improved

* which functionalities are missing GRASS ?

Visualization (NVIZ) (skip if you do not use this format)

* which other GIS software packages do you use for this purpose and how often ? (List of other visualisation/GIS software - which one?) (usage gradient)

please rate modules:

# list modules (gradient)
# please write why bad or what can be improved

* which functionalities are missing GRASS ?

3-D (skip if you do not use this format)

* which other GIS software packages do you use for this purpose and how often ? (List of other visualisation/GIS software - which one?) (usage gradient)

please rate modules:

# modules listed (gradient)
# please write why bad or what can be improved

* which functionalities are missing GRASS ?

Modelling (skip if you do not use this format)

* which other GIS software packages do you use for this purpose? (List of other GIS with modelling capabilities - SAGA GIS, ArcInfo, ... (?) ) (usage gradient)

please rate modules:

# list modules (gradient)
# please write why bad or what can be improved

* which functionalities are missing GRASS ?

general

* For what purpose did you use other software packages ? (list of software packages, see above)
* landscape analysis (gradient)
* raster image analysis (gradient)
* modelling (gradient)
* visualis. (gradient) * mapping (gradient) * digitizing (gradient)

* in which field would you like to see GRASS being improved? * raster (gradient)
* vector (gradient)
* visual. (gradient)
* modelling (gradient)
* mapping (gradient) * digitizing (gradient)

GRASS GUI

GUI of 5.7
* is it intuitiv (gradient)
* do you like the GIS Manager GUI (combination of d.m and tcltkgrass) ? (gradient)
* what can be improved?

GRASS scripts

* do you know about GRASS scripts? (y/n)
* Have you use GRASS scripts already? (y/n)
* Do you know how to write GRASS scripts yourself? (y/n)

Last but not least

Why are you using GRASS? (ideology (Open Source), financial reasons, functionality, able to create own functions)

Have you used other programs in combination with GRASS? (PostgreSQL, R, Gstats, QGIS)

Dear Helena, Dear all,

On Fri, October 15, 2004 16:38, Helena said:

Martin,

the survey would be very useful but what you have now is way too long and
complex even
without the individual modules.
To get a reasonable response I suggest to simplify and shorten it,

We will do that, but we would like to receive a bit more feedback
concerning the information the developers would like to get out of such a
survey.

maybe you can split it into two separate surveys. For the programmers
survey
the developers list should be the best, but you could add people from the
2 GRASS
conferences who are not in the list but who have developed some
capabilities.

I am still not sure a developers survey would be very useful. If it is
about actual GRASS development issues, than only those developers who
actually work or have worked on the GRASS code can say something
reasonable. And quite frankly this is a very limited number which already
discusses the issues on the mailing list, so I don't think a survey is
really necessary.

If it is about more general issues such as "why don't you develop for
GRASS" than we would have to touch people who are not part of the GRASS
community because they have some problems with GRASS development. But how
to reach these people ?

Moritz