Open Probability-Based Panel Infrastructures

Open Probability-Based Panel Infrastructures

Marcel Das, Arie Kapteyn and Michael Bosnjak

Book (chapter)

The Palgrave Handbook of Survey Research (Palgrave Macmillan)

2018

Increasingly, survey data are collected over the Internet, which greatly eases the process of data collection, but also often makes it harder to know how samples have been drawn and consequently what valid statistical inferences can be made. Probability-based survey panels that collect high-quality, representative data on the Internet are still relatively rare. Most of those that do exist share three common characteristics: openness in terms of being accessible for academic researchers from any substantive area to field primary studies and to use the data collected, probability-based sampling and therefore optimized for yielding unbiased population estimates in the respective countries, and transparency in terms of the processes by which these infrastructures have been built and are being operated.