Open Source Survey Software

Abstract

One of the significant advances in software design afforded by the internet has been the open source movement, an effort to collaboratively create software and make it widely and freely available to the online community. Although the open source movement started with Unix-like computer operating systems, it has expanded to include a wide variety of software programs, including tools to publish and analyze online surveys. This article introduces the open source movement and then profiles three leading open source survey programs: php Easy Survey Package (phpESP), PHP Surveyor, and the Moodle course management system.