ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors describe the process of collecting data from users directly. The data is categorized as active data, as the user is required to participate in the data collection process. The rating system comes in two main varieties, one that allow the user to provide responses in the form of a star rating, while the other show previous user ratings. The process of gathering statistics and presenting them to the user in star form will be discussed at the end of the chapter. As star ratings are commonplace on websites such as Amazon and eBay, many vendors offer free and open-source star rating solutions. To ensure the results for a single star rating are returned, the articleid variable is passed that contains the ID of the article the people are interested in.
