Future Trends

The future trend within information systems research is toward electronically based survey administrations. Included within this family of electronic administrations are Web-based or Internet, Intranet, and Extranet applications. Internet based survey data collection has a broad series of potential uses, with a wide variety of parameters that are subject to research management and control. Intranet applications enable collection of data within a restricted organizational setting. The use of such applications facilitates short, immediate, and frequent collection of data. Extranets applications enable organizations to solicit immediate feedback from customers, vendors or employees, using targeted samples or respondent communities.

Paper and pencil surveys are still available and attractive to those individuals, groups or organizations having limited technical knowledge, technology availability or other specialized contexts, which would make electronically based data collection difficult, costly or inefficient.

The future trend is toward the reduction of email surveys, except where short or simple administrations are required. The use of long email-administered surveys appears less likely to continue due to advances in the technology, increasingly uncomplicated survey design structures, ease of data collection and processing and proliferation of Web-based activities. Email surveys, while useful, do not permit the same degree of confidentiality as other Web-based methods. Additionally, the handling and analysis of data related to email surveys is far more time consuming and costly than electronic methods that enable direct data processing. As more individuals become computer literate, and as technology continues to proliferate — both hardware and software — the availability of Web-based designs and collection procedures to larger segments of the general population will increase. Postal mail surveys, a form of paper-pencil administration, will still be useful and efficient for specialized populations and applications. With the availability of Web-based administrations as the medium for data collection, researchers need to be conscious of the technical requirements for survey design, as well as, the parameters of the technology affecting administration, analysis and reporting.



Computing Information Technology. The Human Side
Computing Information Technology: The Human Side
ISBN: 1931777527
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 186

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