Survey Center
"CPRC - A research organization dedicated to helping people change their behavior for living longer, healthier lives"
 Survey Management
The SRC has a custom built Survey
Management System (SMS). The SMS operates in a client server
windows environment, and has been approved by the University of
Rhode Island as an invention suitable for development as a
marketable product. The SMS services the more complex
demands of longitudinal tracking of mixed mode (telephone and mail)
data collection, as well as individualized mail survey production,
CATI, computerized OCR data entry, and individualized intervention
report production . This system has been developed using
POWERBUILDER and has a Microsoft SQL server database engine.
It has all the capability of a fully functional CATI system, but
also allows more direct access to the database, necessary for
projects with complex tracking, interactive report production, and
project monitoring requirements. This system is in its third
generation. The SMS system integrates on-screen questionnaire
viewing with direct key data entry of responses, quality control
procedures (valid range checks, programmed control of acceptable
entries, inconsistency checks, etc.). and sample management.
Direct key entry of data substantially reduces the likelihood of
interviewer error in recording a respondent's answers. The
sample management components of the CATI system allow up to the
minute reporting capabilities of aggregated (and individual) sample
dispositions and study progress for all waves of on-going data
collection. The data management components of the CATI system
create analysis ready data files, requiring very little data
cleaning, that are available for preliminary analysis at any time
during the course of the study. The SMS is cost efficient
because it eliminates cost of printing survey questionnaires and
most subject tracking materials. In addition, it does away
with the costs of key punching the data. The SMS is
operated on a dedicated LAN, which backs up all data sets to tape
each evening. As an additional precautionary procedure copies
of study data sets are electronically transferred daily to the URI
mainframe for off-site storage. The CPRC can also conduct
surveys using traditional paper and pencil methods, and in addition,
the CPRC is licensed for a 12 station CATI system, operated on CI3
CATI produced by Sawtooth Software. Contact the Survey Center at:
Find out more about the Survey Center:
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