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*** an announcement from The Association for Survey Computing.
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AUTOMATICALLY BETTER? THE IMPACT OF AUTOMATION ON THE SURVEY PROCESS
26TH APRIL 2000 - IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON
SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT AND CALL FOR PAPERS
The next ASC one-day meeting will be held on Wednesday 26th April 2000 at
our usual venue - Imperial College, London. The title will be `Automatically
Better - The Impact of Automation on the Survey Process' and we will focus
on developments in recent years which have reduced the amount of manual
input into the survey process. There will also be an opportunity to debate
the costs and benefits of this rush towards automation and to anticipate
what further developments might be in the pipeline.
Automation has affected every part of the survey process. Survey design,
sampling, respondent selection, fieldwork administration, data capture,
quality control, coding, editing, analysis, reporting and dissemination have
all been influenced by technological change. The conference will assess
these developments from the perspective of the research commissioner, the
survey professional and the user of research findings, and will attempt to
assess who have been the winners and losers in all this change and to
comment particularly on the consequences for the quality of the products
which are delivered.
The type of developments that will be considered include
* the move towards CAPI and the implications for routing, edit and range
checking
* the development of automated tools for building CAI instruments and
issues for analysis and testing of routing structures
* the use of bespoke components to construct questionnaires
* the facility to generate personalised questionnaires
* the possibility for increased complexity as a result of CAPI (e.g.
randomisation of questions, sample segmentation)
* the use of large volume high speed lasering and scanning techniques
* the use of standard reporting built in to the survey design
* the widespread networking of software packages and the impact on the
role of the computing professional
* the automatic generation of survey documentation
* the move towards electronic methods of data capture and dissemination
* the disappearance of the traditional paper questionnaire
and much more.................
This conference will interest survey directors, managers, researchers and
users who need to be aware of the impact of these changes on the survey
process and outputs.
The keynote speaker for the Conference will be Laurance Gerrard of Maritz
TRBI.
If you would like to submit a paper for inclusion in the programme please
send a brief abstract (approximately 250 words) to Diana Elder at PO Box 60,
Chesham, Bucks, HP5 3QH or e-mail: [log in to unmask] by 15th December 1999.
Potential exhibitors or those wanting more general information should also
make contact at the same address.
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This message has been sent on behalf the ASC by:
Randy Banks ([log in to unmask]) tel: +44 (0)1206 873067
Chair, Association for Survey Computing fax: +44 (0)1206 873151
Institute for Social and Economic Research (ISER)
University of Essex
Colchester, Essex
United Kingdom CO4 3SQ http://www.asc.org.uk
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