Option I - High Degree of Administrative Control

Each respondent would be sent an email directing them to a website to take the survey. They would also be provided with a unique PIN code and/or password to enter the website.  Respondents would take the survey and submit their responses for compilation.  This option is great for controlling access to the survey and ensuring that only authorized people are allowed to participate. It also ensures that each person only participates once. The only downside for this option is that people might be concerned about the anonymity of their responses. This is the recommended option.

Option II - Low Degree of Administrative Control

This option reduces the anonymity concern of respondents. It entails setting up a website for survey administration and emailing all potential participants with a URL link to the website.  This can be done by the client or by S&A. Respondents would be allowed to enter the website without a PIN or a password. The downside to this method is "ballot stuffing". A respondent could concievably take the survey multiple times. Usually companies which are confident that their employees will not do this about their employees and/or don't care about "ballot stuffing"  select this option. "Cookies" can be used to prevent "ballot stuffing" but they can only work well under certain scenarios (see Additional Features below). Your S&A consultant can help with deciding if "cookies" are right for your computing environment.

This option can be further modified to include the ability for respondents to go back and modify their responses. When a respondent begins the survey, he or she will be automatically provided with a unique PIN code which they can use to re-enter the survey.

Additional Features

• Cookies - A cookie is a piece of text that a Web server can store on a user's hard disk. Cookies allow a website to store information on a user's machine and later retrieve it. They can be used to restrict a respondent from using the same machine to respond to the survey twice. It still doesn't prevent someone from going to another computer to respond again. At the same time, if the same machine is being used by more than one person, the latter respondents will be prevented from accessing the survey. Yet another restriction is that the browser/machine you are using should support "cookies" and have them enabled.

• Required fields - Some questions may be set up to be compulsorily filled out. The respondent will not be allowed to proceed further without filling out those questions. This feature could be used to ensure that some or all demographic variables get filled out.

• Database enabled - Database enabling the survey gives respondents the ability to complete the survey in multiple sittings. Using a unique PIN number they can go back to the survey and pick up where they left off.

• Logical branching - Branching based the selection of a particular answer to a previous question can be easily incorporated into the survey.

• Multiple languages - S&A supports a wide range of languages. Please check with your S&A contact to see if your language is supported.

• Customized e-mail - S&A can handle all the communcation with your respondents. Simply provide us with a list of the respondents' names and their e-mail addresses and we can handle the rest. This would include pre-survey communication, survey invites, reminder e-mails and thank you notes.

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