Introduction to Data Collection Methods

Tutorial 1 of 5

Introduction

This tutorial is designed to introduce you to various data collection methods, including traditional and modern techniques. You will learn how these methods can be implemented in a web environment using HTML and JavaScript.

By the end of the tutorial, you will be familiar with:

  1. Traditional data collection methods
  2. Modern data collection methods
  3. How to implement these methods using HTML and JavaScript

Prerequisites: Basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript.

Step-by-Step Guide

Traditional Data Collection Methods

These include methods like questionnaires, interviews, observations, and document & record reviews. In a web environment, these methods can be implemented using HTML forms and JavaScript.

Form Methods

HTML forms can collect user input which can then be processed by JavaScript. Here's how to create a simple form:

<form id="myForm">
  <label for="fname">First name:</label><br>
  <input type="text" id="fname" name="fname"><br>
  <label for="lname">Last name:</label><br>
  <input type="text" id="lname" name="lname"><br><br>
  <input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

Then, you can use JavaScript to process the form data:

document.getElementById('myForm').addEventListener('submit', function(event) {
  event.preventDefault();

  var fname = document.getElementById('fname').value;
  var lname = document.getElementById('lname').value;

  console.log('First name: ' + fname);
  console.log('Last name: ' + lname);
});

Modern Data Collection Methods

Modern methods include web scraping, APIs, online surveys, and social media data mining. These methods can be implemented using JavaScript or server-side languages.

Web Scraping

Web scraping is a method used to extract data from websites. You can use JavaScript and a tool like Puppeteer to scrape web data.

const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

async function scrape() {
  const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
  const page = await browser.newPage();
  await page.goto('http://example.com');

  const result = await page.evaluate(() => {
    let title = document.querySelector('h1').innerText;
    return title;
  });

  console.log(result);
  await browser.close();
}

scrape();

Code Examples

Refer to the Step-by-Step Guide for code snippets and their explanations.

Summary

In this tutorial, we have covered traditional data collection methods using HTML forms and JavaScript, and modern data collection methods using JavaScript for web scraping. For further exploration, you could look into using JavaScript to interact with APIs, conduct online surveys, and mine social media data.

Practice Exercises

  1. Create an HTML form that collects a user's full name and email address, and use JavaScript to print the form data to the console.

  2. Write a JavaScript script using Puppeteer to scrape the title and first paragraph from a webpage.

Answers

  1. Here's the code for the first exercise:

    ```html













    ```

  2. Here's the code for the second exercise:

    ```javascript
    const puppeteer = require('puppeteer');

    async function scrape() {
    const browser = await puppeteer.launch();
    const page = await browser.newPage();
    await page.goto('http://example.com');

    const result = await page.evaluate(() => {
    let title = document.querySelector('h1').innerText;
    let firstParagraph = document.querySelector('p').innerText;
    return {title, firstParagraph};
    });

    console.log(result);
    await browser.close();
    }

    scrape();
    ```

Remember to practice regularly and to explore the documentation for any new tools or libraries you use. Happy coding!