Questasy is a web application developed to manage the dissemination of data and metadata for survey projects. It was primarily developed for the LISS Data Archive, but was designed to be repurposed for other archives as well. The application has been operational since 2009 and its external web interface can be viewed at: www.lissdata.nl.

Questasy manages both metadata and data and provides an easy-to-use data entry module for administrators to create metadata. The external web interface allows researchers to browse and search the metadata and download datasets. The Questasy system also manages files, tracks downloads, and creates web pages for viewing documentation including studies, concepts, questions and variables. Due to the longitudinal nature of many of the LISS panel studies, the ability to track questions and variables throughout a study was a key requirement of the system. To support this, DDI 3 was chosen as the basis for the structure of the application, from the underlying database to the generated web pages.

This paper describes the main functionality of Questasy and how we designed and implemented the system.