Research project: one database or several

[hannah]

I'm a bit of an access novice and I've had a wee search around these posts
but I apologise if my question has already been covered elsewhere.

I'm trying to build a database to hold questionnaire responses for my
research project. There are 11 different questionnaires (each goes to a
different sector e.g. the government, fishermen, farmers etc) and my question
is whether (and how) I put these questionnaires into one database or make a
separate database for each questionnaire type? The only thing the
questionnaires really have in common is country (e.g. pulling up all the
questionnaires relating to Scotland) but I'm not sure how to base a link on
this or whether I should try. Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Cheers
Hannah

 

[John W. Vinson]

I'm a bit of an access novice and I've had a wee search around these posts
but I apologise if my question has already been covered elsewhere.

I'm trying to build a database to hold questionnaire responses for my
research project. There are 11 different questionnaires (each goes to a
different sector e.g. the government, fishermen, farmers etc) and my question
is whether (and how) I put these questionnaires into one database or make a
separate database for each questionnaire type? The only thing the
questionnaires really have in common is country (e.g. pulling up all the
questionnaires relating to Scotland) but I'm not sure how to base a link on
this or whether I should try. Any advice would be very much appreciated!

Cheers
Hannah

You might want to take a look at Duane Hookum's "At Your Survey":
http://www.rogersaccesslibrary.com/Otherdownload.asp?SampleName='At Your Survey 2000'

It allows multiple questionnaires in a single database, which would almost
certainly be your best tack.

 

[Frank H]

Typically you would put all of the records in one database, and add a field
to your table to categorize each record as desired. e.g., a field named
SurveyType could hold values like "government" one record, and "fishermen" in
another record, etc.

The biggest issue at the outset is getting the database "normalized".
Unfortunately is requires some detailed knowledge of what you need to do, and
how you need to use the data to recommend anything specific. Try reading up
on database normalization.

 

[John... Visio MVP]

Hello Hannah,

I provide help with Access, Excel and Word applications. I specialize in
specila projects like yours. I would like to offer to work with you to put
together the database you need. My fee would be nominal. Contact me if you
would like to work together on your project.

Steve
(e-mail address removed)

These newsgroups are provided by Microsoft for FREE peer to peer support.
There are many highly qualified individuals who gladly help for free. Stevie
is not one of them, but he is the only one who just does not get the idea of
"FREE" support. He offers questionable results at unreasonable prices. If he
was any good, the "thousands" of people he claims to have helped would be
flooding him with work, but there appears to be a continuous drought and he
needs to constantly grovel for work.

-- This post was shortened, not to show a little respect to stevie, but in
response to a public request made by John Vinson. I tend to show stevie as
little respect as possible.

John... Visio MVP