When using GemsTracker, it helps to understand the meaning assigned to the following terms.

An answer is a filled in survey, coupled to a respondent through a token.

Groups are security elements that are used to assign page access rights to groups of users. Groups are also used to assign surveys to certain users; e.g. to respondents or general care staff.

A commonly used alternative name for respondents.

Questions means questions in a survey.

A reception code is e.g. OK or an error code that signals that all is well or e.g. that a respondent is no longer participating, a track is stopped or a token should not be answered or was answered incorrectly.

A reception has a success code of true or false. By default OK is the only reception code with a success code set to true, but more success codes can be created. A survey needs to have a success code for a token, the track the token belongs to and the respondent the track belongs to in order to be answerable by a respondent or a staff member.

Alternative name for a reception code for a respondent.

Respondents are people about whom or for whom surveys must be answered.

A results is the answer to a single question in a survey, that is deemed to be the result of that survey. These results are stored in GemsTracker for quick display of these results

A round is the use of a survey within a track. A single survey can be presented to the respondent over many rounds, or just once, or not.

For a respondent to be able to take a survey, he or she needs a token. A tokens is created for each round for each respondent whose group is activated for a track.

A source is a source of surveys and answers to those surveys, e.g. a Lime Survey Installation containing one or more surveys.

Staff members are users that can login in GemsTracker and can have special rights to edit and change respondents, answer surveys or change parts of the setup. Typically they can include health care professionals, administrators, data managers, researchers and security auditors.

A survey is a questionnaire in Lime Survey or some other survey source. Surveys are assigned to respondents using one or more rounds in a track.

See round.

A track contains one or more rounds of surveys.

Respondents are assigned to tracks manually by the users or through code written specifically for a project.

A token is an identification relating a single respondent to a single survey instance for a single round in a track assigned to that respondent.

Tokens have valid from and optional valid until dates that define the period in which that survey can be answered for that respondent. These dates can be edited manually through the interface, but are usually determined by calculation rules set for the token's round in the track editor, specifying the valid from date e.g. through a date answer to an earlier survey in the track or through the valid from or until date of an earlier token or using some other date.