Incorporating and Managing Paradata Into Survey Operations for Quality Control and Cost Containment

• Activity Number: 208
• Type: Roundtables
• Date/Time: Monday, August 2, 2010 : 12:30 PM to 1:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Survey Research Methods
• Author(s): Cheryl Landman*+ and Andrea Piani
• Companies: U.S. Census Bureau and U.S. Census Bureau
• Keywords: paradata ; surveys ; costs ; quality

Abstract

Managing survey operations in an electronic environment provides opportunities and challenges. One such opportunity is the potential to collect paradata,or measures of survey progress,costs,and quality.This roundtable will focus on building real-time systems to manage these performance indicators. Some key questions to be considered include: What paradata are being collected and used in "real time"? How are these data being used? What technologies are being used for building,displaying and monitoring paradata? What is the development process? Are these built on a database or streamed from multiple sources? In addition,we would like to discuss the potential for more sophisticated displays of paradata during data collection that might facilitate quick decisions during the data collection period,potentially including changes to questionnaires, samples, modes,or interviewing methods.