Rasch measurement software...

FACETS enhancements, changes and bug fixes

"We can invent faster than others can copy." Ray Kroc, founder of McDonald's

For latest bug reports and work-arounds, see problems.htm

Recent updates to FACETS program

Facets 3.64.0 - 6-18-2008
1. Complete details and pictures of 27 enhancements and bug-fixes at Facets 3.64.0 PDF
2. Point-measure correlation and its expectation
3. Compatible with Excel 2007 .xlsx data files
4. Totalscore=Yes is now the default
5. Table 13 DIF now shown with d.f. and probability
6. "Partial Credit" items can be graphed with relative or absolute measures
7. Minor changes to improve appearance, operation and documentation

Facets 3.63.0 - 1-2-2008
1. Complete details and pictures at Facets 3.63.0 PDF
2. Faster convergence (around two iterations through the data less)
3. Direct data input from SAS, SPSS, STATA as well as Excel
4. ASCII=Y or N or W: to output prettier tables with line-drawing characters
5. Windows Vista-compatible: installation and Help display
6. Table 5 summary statistics: report with two decimals (one decimal previously)
7. Table 6 bug fix: on column selection for the "rulers"
8. Explicit "D" code in Labels= for dummy facets
9. T3onscreen=, Tables=, T8NBC= for more control over production and display of Output Tables
10. Residual output file: field selection
11. Anchor file: with all current specification settings
12. Graphing: option to display Legends
13. Graphing bug: empirical category and option frequencies displayed correctly
14. Minor changes to improve appearance and operation

Facets 3.62.0 - 6-12-2007
1. Complete details and pictures at Facets 3.62.0 PDF
2. Excel Bias/Interaction Plots:Absolute measures (baseline + bias/interaction), Relative bias measures (bias only relative to overall), Relative bias t-value (significance relative to overall), Pairwise measure bias differences and significances, Average observed rating
3. Output score files to SPSS and to Excel
4. Output residual files to Excel and SPSS
5. Faster analysis (disk input-output and screen writes)
6. Control buttons in Facets main Window:"Pause/Resume" and "Finish iterating" buttons
7. Bigger datasets: Facets has successfully analyzed datasets with 500,000 elements and 100,000,000 data points
8. Barcharts=: no, most important, all
9. Labels=: Explicit dummy facet code, "D"Anchors all the starting values at 0
10. Models= ?,?,?,R8KModels specification: Addition of "K" to indicate that intermediate unobserved categories are to be kept in the category hierarchy
11. Tables=: Suppress Table Output from the main analysis - use the pull-down menus instead
12. T4max=: Specify maximum number of residuals to be reported in Table 4.
13. Vertical=SL displays the category labels in Table 6Vertical= 1C displays a count of the element numbers in Table 6
14. Yardstick=: location of extreme elements (at end or by measure), end is the default
15. Edit initial settings:Option for computation of empirical curves. Computation can take a long time if dataset is large.Option for displaying iteration bars. Iterations can slow down some Unicode versions of Windows.
16. Short-cut keys: revised model-checking short-cut keys to remove conflicts with Windows defaults
17. Short-cut keys: All short-cut keys documented
18. Font menu - to simplify changing display fonts in Facets Window
19. Edit Template from Edit menu streamlined
20. Cancel button merely exits from current dialog box. Facets remains active.
21. Files menu: More options on program launch
22. Iteration progress bar: shown in color.Multiple ==== are written in one operation to prevent writing to the screen slowing down the computation.
23. Facets Window: Red for warning messages
24. Facets Window: only most unconverged elements shown to speed up screen display output.Largest score residualLargest score residual percentLargest logit change
25. Bias/Interaction dialog box: Better control over bias/interaction Tables and Excel plots from Output Tables menu
26. Modify specifications dialog box: Change facet positive and negative orientation (Positive=, Negative=)Change standard error reported, model or real (SE=)Bug fix: Umean= and Uscale= malfunction.Now accessed from all Table dialog boxes
27. Table 14: more than 1000 pairwise comparisons. Please request explicitly from the Output Tables menu due to memory and speed constraints.
28. Table 2: Unobserved models not reported
29. Table 2: Rating scales listed in order
30. Table 4. Standardized Residual: 1 decimal place
31. Table 6:Vertical=SL displays the category labelsVertical= 1C displays a count of the element numbers
32. Table 6: Non-extreme categories shown next to extreme categories
33. Table 6: Rating scale identification below rulers
34. Table 6: Fewer overflow lines
35. Table 6.0.0: Improved subset reporting
36. Table 6.1: Rescaling of numerical bar charts for consistency across facets
37. Table 13: Bias/interaction direction reported explicitly
38. Table 13: Facets names in bias/interaction report
39. Table 14: Heading shortened:
40. Graph file: headings and range
41. Typographical error "xstop" to "stop"
42. Bias sign inconsistencies:always: positive / negative resolved:Bias= only for Tables 12 and 13.
43. PROX estimation: Don’t estimate the rating-scale structure during PROX: it proved detrimental
44. Data file message: Corrected instructional message:Data file not found - please re-enter
45. Stop statement: Unexpected, very rare, program stop removed. Now Facets always exits gracefully.
46. Undefined facet: Table 7 on the Output Tables menu no longer crashes if there is an undefined facet.
47. Real standard error: Documentation corrected for the Real S.E.
48. Subset detection: further unusual designs correctly diagnosed

Facets 3.61.1 - 7-4-2006
1. Bug fix: input from Excel 2002 & 2003 spreadsheets (winexcel.exe interface routine)

Facets 3.61.0 - 5-10-2006
1. Enhanced: Total score (includes extremes) option: Totalscore=Yes
2. Enhanced: reliabilites reported based on both model and real standard errors
3. Enhanced: Excel plots - better chart names. more robust version: please report Excel problems - but first see Excel problems.
4. Enhanced: inter-rater agreement: omit self-agreements when one rater rates same situation several times
5. Precaution: process hex code "A0" as blank
6. Precaution: set option selection windows topmost temporarily
7. Precaution: detect invalid model weights: reports Error 60
8. Precaution: detect non-numeric element labels in data: reports Error 23
9. Precaution: Dvalues=: imputes "*" at end of specification list, if needed
10. Precaution: Dvalues=: imputes facet count, if Dvalues= specified before Facets=
11. Help: How to construct score-to-measure tables
12. Help: Error codes updated

• 3.60.0 1-2006 Very minor bug fixes: Close window on top. Consistent numbering of subsets. Definitely does not run on Windows 3.1 nor 95.
• 3.59.0 11-2005 Output of Winsteps-compatible control and data files. Residual-percent on iteration report.
• 3.58.0 8-2005 Defaults: usort=u, bias=ability. Table 7: more reliability summary statistics. Table 14: target listed first. Excel data file: columns allowed to right of responses. Miscellaneous minor reporting enhancements and minor bug fixes. Has a "subscript" bug in processing Dvalues=
  
• 3.57.0 4-2005 Graphs: smoothing of empirical curves. Graph of item randomness. Added control variables: Negative= opposite of Positive=. Centered= opposite of Noncentered=
  
• 3.56.1 3-2005 fix progam failure when reporting disconnected subsets
• 3.56.0 2-2005 correct the estimation of unanchored steps when some steps are anchored, Table 8 - display without Umean=, Table 8 - correct horizontal displacement of graphs, Graphs: empirical ICC and empirical category probabilities.
  
• 3.55.1 1-12-2005 late binding of Excel to make Excel-version independent; allow more than 32,000 iterations; exit/restart corrected
• 3.55.0 1-2005 Excel bias plots, DVALUES= in labels; Change of unexpected on screen; Font on main screen - change if selected; correct examples: pt-biserial=y; correct Minifac "readme"; Observed score in Table 14; Bias direction example in Help File; numeric overflow counting data records; no extra information prompt option; correction to group number display; link 16000 subsets; fix overflow problem in barcharts; tested with 10,000,000 observations AND 200,000 elements
• 3.54.2 11-2004 Table 4 input form correction
• 3.54.1 10-2004 Graph background color user-settable. Runs under Windows 98. All output Files and Tables on Output menu. Umean= set from Output menu. More output file format options. Better access to template file.
• 3.54 9-2004 Table 4 and Specifications on output menu. Corrections to umean/uscale for interactions.
• 3.53 9-2004 Graphs of empirical ICCs shown with upper and lower confidence bands. Subset resolution by means of "subset" menu entry. Data simulation.
• 3.52 7-2004 Dvalues= for constant data facets: "Close output window" prompt: correction to "unspecified element" count: Scale name in Table 7 instead of "S.1"
• 3.51 6-2004 Make "Real" fit statistic match Winsteps, and RMT.
• 3.50 4-2004 Read in Excel data files directly. All output files from pull-down menu. Improved Query=y processing. Corrected values for extreme observations in residual file.
• 3.49 1-2004 Empirical ICCs, Query=Yes now XP compatible, more decimal places in fit computations, bias/interactions added to post-analysis pull-down menus.
• 3.48 10-2003 Score files from pull-down menu. Graphs: binomial, Poisson and title correction.
• 3.47 9-2003 Discrimination estimates. More output from pull-down menus.
• 3.46 8-2003 Graphs under Windows 2000 and XP
• 3.45.2 6-10-2003 Table 6.0.0 Disjoint subset listing to output file, not screen
  6-04-2003 correction to point-biserial with weights or replications
• 3.45.1 4-28-2003 Windows compatibility and Ctrl+C copy of screen text
• 3.45 4-12-2003 Correction to default file locations; some tables also by Tables menu; additions to Edit menu
• 3.44 3-5-2003 Bug correction for more than 32000 elements in facet. Remove category residual convergence rule.
• 3.43 1-24-2003 Table 14 pairwise bias/interaction report
• 3.42 1-6-2003 Most-recently-used files in "Files" menu
• 3.41.2 12-10-2002 Minor additions to program User Manual. Interrater: observed and expected agreement per rater.
• 3.41.1 11-25-2002 Overcome Text Editor problem with some customized versions of Windows 2000
  Improve Inter-rater agreement %: observed and expected;
• 3.41 11-1-2002 Correction to Poisson discrimination computation; Inter-rater agreement %: observed and expected; improved disconnected subsets detection with group anchoring; fix bug in "exit and restart".
• 3.40 8-7-2002 Exact agreement percent for inter-rater=. Example kcta.sd added.
• 3.39 7-1-2002 Colorize the graphs
• 3.38 3-13-2002 "Graph menu" of Category probability curves etc.
• 3.37.1 - 2-13-2002 Show multiple digit expected scores on Table 7 ogive.
• 3.37 - 11-01-2002 Distribution by Winsteps.com, no longer MESA Press
• 3.36.4 - 6-22-2001 Show "Facets" not "Form1" on task bar.
  
• 3.35 & 3.36 - 3-19-2001 Miscellaneous minor bugs. Improve convergence.
  
• 3.34 - 1-28-2001 - Bugs with very large analyses.
  
• 3.33 - 10-27-2000 - Tabs in specifications treated as blanks.
  Greater Windows-NT compatibility. Kernel32 fix.
  Faster convergence.
  
• 3.32 - 9-4-2000 - Speed-up and bug-fixes.
  
• 3.31 - 8-31-2000 - Transported to Windows-native environment (95/98/2000/NT). Now supports millions of elements and data points.
  Some user interaction through pull-down menus.
• 3.22 - 11-23-99 - Fair score = Mean for fair scores based on means of facets.
  Fair score = Zero for fair scores based on origin of logit scales.
• 3.21 - 10-24-99 - bug fix for hang-up when consolidating subsets.
• 3.20 - 3-3-99 - various bug fixes.
  Facform 1.40 - $Separator= allows variable width fields with blank and ; separators.
• 3.17 - 12-3-98 - allow R1 scales, fix anchor problem for scales with missing categories
• 3.16 - 10-16-98 - 32,000 capacity.
  Beeps: Default is BEEP=NO, user specifies BEEP=yes
  Table 7: print values for all elements if displacement column is displayed
• 3.15 - 8-17-98 - Table 8: Average expected measures for rating categories
• 3.14 - 6-24-1998 - Table 6: yardstick = (column, lines/logit, ylow, yhigh),(...)
• 3.13 - 6-11-1998 - Improved reporting of file opening problems
• 3.12 - fix some network drive problems.
• 3.11 - allow Tab-separated output files; fix ogive graph problem
  Facform 1.39: all Tab-separated input files - $T command.
• 3.09 & 3.10 - bug fixes, especially "Not DOS CRLF" message.
• 3.08 - up to 32,000 groups allowed
• 3.07 - improved diagnosis of input file problems
• 3.06 - Fair average uses mean facet measures, not zero facet measures.
• Rating category probability curves and expected score ogive plotted
• Graphfile= writes curve point coordinates to disk file (for your own plotting routine)
• Improved subset detection algorithm [has yet to fail to correctly detect disjunctions in data design]
• Improved convergence control for pathologic data designs
• Rating scale category fit statistics
• Simplified installation under Windows 3.1 and Windows 95/98

Note: Undocumented feature in many earlier versions:
You can control the size of changes in the measure estimates at the end of each iteration:
Press + during iteration to increase size of changes.
Press - during iteration to decrease size of changes.
With Windows version, use Estimation pull-down menu.

Recent updates to FACFORM program

• 1.64 01-02-2002 Problem with \\ in file names; only show ignored labels once
• 1.63 11-8-2001 $BATCH=YES for batch file processing
• 1.62 10-27-2001 start in initdir + filename missing "\"; cancel did not work from some boxes
• 1.61 - 06-22-2001 - Call Facets from Facform correctly
• 1.6 - 04-30-2001 - Increase to millions of elements. Improve menus.
• 1.51 - 11-7-2000 - Bug with results of operators, e.g,: 1*4=0 .
  

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