Client Guide: Getting Started Conducting a Survey in the UAS
Thank you for your interest in the UnderStanding America Study at the USC Dornsife Center for
Economic and Social Research! We are very excited at the prospect of working with you.
The UAS provides a unique survey environment. It is not only a longitudinal study (in addition to a large collection of cross-sectional data) but also a full-service survey research and data collection operation. Our probability-based methodology supports academic and government studies. Participation rates are in the 65%-80% range, depending on how long the survey is in the field.
Every project is different, but this page is intended to give you an overview of the process and
milestones of a typical project. Though not intended to be exhaustive in nature, you will
get an idea of what kind of services we offer, how we can assist you during survey development and programming, what to expect while your survey is in the field, and what happens after data collection has been completed.
Use the Overview tab to get a high level view on what is involved in collecting data in the UAS. A detailed client roadmap is available for download here. A high level description of the UAS is located in the UAS Brochure. The UAS ESOMAR Profile is available for download here.
General information on the UAS's services and pricing structure is available on the General Pricing Structure tab. To get a quick sense of cost use the Calculator tab. For further pricing details, please contact us at uas-l@maillist.usc.edu.
The below outlines the main steps involved in collecting data in the UAS. You may also download the UAS Client Road Map (link downloads pdf) for a checklist and details.
The main steps are:
- You provide us with information about the proposed project.
- A brief description of the research question(s), including whether you will conduct methodological experiments or include visual displays.
- The survey draft or a description of the survey.
- An estimate of how long the survey takes to fill out (in minutes) if available. (We can provide an estimate, if not).
- Your target population, and desired sample size.
- Prevalence of non-standard target population, if relevant, and known.
- Project deadlines or a tentative time frame for obtaining final data for analysis.
- Any additional services that would be useful for UAS to provide, such as formal questionnaire development (e.g. qualitative testing), analysis, or report writing.
- Develop the survey instrument:
- For the first step of survey implementation, you will provide your survey draft and work with our survey programmers to develop an initial implementation of your instrument in our system. All surveys within the Understanding America Study are programmed using Nubis. Nubis is a complete data collection tool developed in house at the Center of Economic and Social Research at the University of Southern California. UAS surveys are developed in Nubis with accessibility in mind (see the UAS Accessibility Description for details).
- Once the survey has been programmed, your UAS contact will provide you with the details needed to test this initial implementation of your survey (typically just an URL). UAS staff will test the survey also, but we strongly encourage you to carefully verify that the survey is functioning in accordance with your expectations (feel free to solicit input from others, for example in your research team who are familiar with project aims). Although we of course take every care to implement your survey exactly as you specified it, the ultimate responsibility for ensuring the well-functioning of the survey lies with the client.
- When you are at a point that you feel happy with the survey, we can provide you with a set of test data. We strongly recommend that you carefully look at this data set, so that you can verify that, for example, variable names are in accordance with your preference, and your specified skip patterns are providing the data that you need. Moreover, it will help you gain an understanding of how the data will be formatted and allow you to start creating code to be used during data analysis process. Once the survey is in the field, changes to the instrument may result in loss of data and time.
- Translate the survey instrument:
UAS surveys are administered in the respondent's choice of Spanish or English. For the translation work we collaborate with trusted specialists to ensure high quality translations that preserve survey constructs across languages, and are consistent in nature across UAS surveys. This ensures our Spanish speaking respondents have a consistent experience across different surveys. Whether translation is necessary for your project will depend on your sample criteria. - Human subjects approval:
Approval from the USC human subjects committee (IRB) is required before data collection can commence. UAS staff will submit the survey for approval on your behalf and acts as an intermediary between you and the IRB. Typically, IRB approval takes about a week. Depending on what you tell us about the finality of your pre-programming draft, we can seek to obtain IRB approval while the survey is being programmed. This avoids delay, but does require that the survey specification that you provide for programming is close to final. For example, if several new questions are added during the survey implementation phase, we would need to request an IRB modification for the changes. - Fielding the survey instrument:
Once you have signed off on the survey instrument and test data, and IRB approval has been obtained, the survey is ready to go into the field, i.e. to be administered to the UAS respondents. Your UAS contact will verify your sample selection needs (e.g. everyone in the UAS, or only respondents aged 50 or older, or some other group). You may also indicate whether collected data should be embargoed for a period of time.
The survey will go into the field as soon as possible, once all conditions have been met. Typically, this is within a few days of satisfying all conditions, but the exact time will depend somewhat on any other surveys slated to be administered. Your UAS contact will give you an estimate of the start date, and then notify you when the survey has begun. - During fielding:
During the time the survey is in the field, we can provide you with intermediate data sets in a variety of manners:
- By asking us for a data set, e.g. by emailing the survey programmer. We usually provide data as a STATA or CSV data set. Should you need another format, please just let us know.
- By signing up for the UAS Data Dissemination web site (free of charge). The web site provides access to all UAS data sets (except a few where the data is under embargo), which will allow you to combine your data with data collected in other surveys. More importantly, we will be able to give you access to your own survey and its data. Data sets are generated overnight, so you will be able to obtain a new data set every day if you wish. Moreover, you will be able to access a variety of supplemental data including timings, demographics on survey non-respondents, and platform information (e.g. device or browser used).
- After survey completion:
At any time during fielding you can indicate to us that you wish to take the survey out of the field. A natural time is once the targeted number of respondents has been reached, but if needed this can also be done before or after that (e.g. for contractual reasons).
Once the survey is out of the field, we will provide you with the following data:
- A final data set including weights (in STATA or CSV, or in another format if requested)
- Timings data listing how long respondents took to answer the survey as a whole as well as for single questions
- Demographics of non-respondents
- Platform related information
- Metadata (survey codebook, screenshots, etc.)
- Dissemination of results:
In the case that you disseminate results based on the data you collected in the UAS, e.g. via a publication or presentation, we would love to hear this from you. This will allow us to update our list of publications using UAS data.
As a recommendation for when you are referring to UAS data, we suggest the following text:
"The project described in this paper relies on data from survey(s) administered by the UnderStanding America Study, which is maintained by the Center for Economic and Social Research (CESR) at the University of Southern California. The content of this paper is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of USC or UAS."
The Understanding America Study has a simple pricing structure for surveys which is based upon the estimated time a survey takes to complete and the size of the sample. We can help you make an estimate of survey length based upon a draft of the questionnaire.
Basic pricing plus $2000 handling:
- $3/per study participant/per minute for the first 500 completes
- $2.50/per study participant/per minute for any participant beyond 500 completes
Our team of experts is available for numerous services which may include additional cost , including but not limited to: Questionnaire development and design, analysis, report writing, human subjects research advice, application development, visual displays, graphical interface, sample management design. These are priced based upon time estimates of our programming and research staff.
For pricing of complex study designs (e.g. EMA, passive data collection, or linking to non-UAS data sources), please contact us to discuss costs for your project at uas-l@maillist.usc.edu.
To get a quick estimate of conducting a basic survey in the UAS, please fill out the first two boxes below and click 'Calculate'. For further pricing details, please contact us at uas-l@maillist.usc.edu.
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