Survey and Statistical Computing 1996

Proceedings of the second ASC international conference.

Edited by Randy Banks, Joan Fairgrieve, Laurange Gerrard, Terry Orchard, Clive Payne and Andrew Westlake. ISBN: 0 9521682 2 7, xii+464 pages.

Contents

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In 1992, the Association for Survey Computing (then the Study Group on Computers in Survey Analysis (SGCSA)) organised its first international conference to celebrate its first twenty-one years. Four years on, there have been many advances in information technology which have had major impacts on the field. In preparing to celebrate our first quarter century, the ASC committee thought it would therefore both be apposite and beneficial to organise a second.

The aim, once again, was to offer a forum in which the topical issues across the field as a whole could be considered, and a Scientific Programme Committee (SPC) was established to put together the programme. The members of the SPC were:

• Randy Banks, Chair (University of Essex)
• Kathy Brooks (Forvus)
• Joan Fairgrieve (Edinburgh University)
• Laurance Gerrard (MORI)
• Jean Martin (ONS)
• Terry Orchard (Consumers' Association)
• Clive Payne (University of Oxford)
• Beverley Charles Rowe (Independent Consultant)
• Andrew Westlake (Survey and Statistical Computing)

The SPC decided to retain the model of the 1992 Conference of a three day event with invited speakers addressing plenary sessions on the first and last days, and the middle day devoted to contributed papers presented to one of four parallel sessions: Survey Data, Survey Analysis, Survey Results and Survey Software. These Proceedings contain all papers presented to the Conference, and closely follows its structure.

Invitations were extended to seven respected and representative figures to address the plenary sessions. Their papers, included in the order in which they will be presented, form the first part of this volume. These include strategic discussions of organisational change in response to IT developments, a critical appraisal and study of the take up of computer aided data collection, a discussion of the relevance and systemisation of survey meta-data, a reflective discussion on the concepts behind and practice of opinion polling and an exploration of the balance which must be struck between demands for greater data availability and the protection of respondents.

A call for papers to be presented to the parallel sessions was put out, and the contributions selected by the SPC form the second part of this volume. These are grouped by stream and, once again, included in the order in which they will be presented. The Survey Data section, dealing with the 'downstream' aspects of the survey process, includes discussions of a World Wide Web-based survey question bank, sample maintenance, computer assisted coding and computer-aided data collection, which forms a substantial sub-stream in itself. Under the Survey Analysis heading will be found discussions on imputation and weighting, statistical modelling and multi-dimensional scaling, longitudinal analysis software and the analysis of open-ended questions. Papers in the Survey Results section, which deals with dissemination and presentation issues, address documentation, the use of internet resources, the impact, role and use of desktop software, electronic fiche, stated preference data and offer two case studies as well as an update on the development of the Triple-S data interchange standard. Topics covered by papers in the Survey Software section, which is concerned with technological infrastructure itself, range from the modelling the questionnaire design process to the internet, and include discussions on software systems and applications as well as one paper on the maintenance of data quality in developing countries.

As even this brief and inadequate summary makes clear, the forty-nine papers which make up this collection are many and varied in their foci and vantage points. Taken as a whole, however, they represent not only the state-of-the-art in the application of IT to organisational and analytical aspects of survey research, but provide critical commentary on the use of the end products, as well as salutary lessons, based on hard experience, in their implementation. In comparison to the 1992 papers, they also provide a daunting reminder of just how much things have changed over the past four years. More generally, this volume will be of relevance to the survey practitioner, theoretician and managing director alike.