The program is a questionnaire shell program that permits the user to setup, administer and score questionnaires via a computer. Up to 50 questionnaires can be stored in the system, with a maximum of 500 items per questionnaire, and a maximum of 60 scales and 60 items per scale within each questionnaire. You enter the items, response format, and score key for a questionnaire, then you can administer it. It is scored automatically, allowing you to view/print the respondent's scores, and export data for a particular questionnaire to an ASCII data file (includes raw and scored item data, plus scale scores, plus 4 fields of demographic information per candidate).

This was only ever meant to be a "quickie" utility - and not really a standalone item. However, I've tried to make it reasonably standalone so that you do not need my physical presence to use it in a flexible fashion! I apologise for some of the screens - no time to perform the radical software surgery required. Anyway - it is proven and tested for several years now on a variety of questionnaires and uses - so it is fairly robust I think. Anyway, there is plenty of inbuilt error checking.  The software is 32-bit - written in Visual Basic 4 no less! It's old Windows software - but it is still functional - and does a reasonable job when money and resources are tight.

Download and Installation Information
Click here to download the zipped installation program file. The zipped file is 3.6Mb in size and is named qshell22.zip. The file should be copied into a temporary directory, then unzip it. Then from within WINDOWS (95 and above including XP), choose RUN, then type pathname wherever you have stored the files + SETUP.EXE and OK. The installation routine will install the necessary files into an optional directory C:\Program Files\AUTOQUES (it will create it if it does not already exist) and place an icon + description into the Programs menu on the START menu. The application is sized for 800 x 600 and above resolutions. This was originally written 9 years ago now - and looks it! But it works and is back here by popular demand ...  A 30-page Acrobat pdf program documentation file provides walk-through help on how to use the software (and includes the login passwords). It can be downloaded here.
 
(7th July, 2006) A recompiled executable file (using VB-6) might be required to work in some XP environments. I am unclear which ones - mainly because in XP environments where MS Visual Studio has not been installed, the original program installation works fine, and the newer executable crashes with an "Unexpected error number 429 has occurred. Activex component can't create object" error message! Anyway, you can try this new version if the initial installation reports "Not enough memory". The file is available here (in zipped form - about 93k ). This has to be the very last update (more like a kind of software sticking plaster) of the software - I can only do so much to keep this whole package working! Just unzip and copy this file to the directory where you have installed QSHELL22 .. (maybe the default c:\program files\autoques, or maybe you've installed it in the c:\program files\autoques subdirectory ). Then just copy this qshell22.exe program over the top of the existing one. Now, when you run this software, the new version number  2.4 will appear on all relevant screen headers - just so that you know you are running the correct version.

It's tempting to think about producing a completely new version of this software - but with so many web-enabled survey applications, I'm not sure these kind of standalone or network style apps are useful anymore.