When using the on-line tabulation system with the IHIS in a lab setting, the variables created by all the users in that setting seem to be shared–in a common list of created variables. How is the common list determined? By the users on our particular university site? How long are the variables kept?
Created variables are shared by all users of the IHIS online data analysis tool. They are retained until the underlying dataset is updated (which generally happens at least once a year). We do not recommend user’s expect their created variables to be accessible for any future visits as any user can choose to overwrite an existing created variable with a new created variable of the same name. This also means that in your lab setting, if all users are creating the same variable, they will each need to create a unique variable name so as to avoid overwriting each other’s variables.
I hope this helps.