meaning: The Macer View/8

	The Macer View
	Comment and analysis from Tim Macer Number 8, November 2004

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The Macer View

Busting the IT bottlenecks: Researchers should look to technology to improve access to information

Rather like building new roads, automating research processes one by one - as many research units have been forced to do, over the years - can often mean the traffic jams simply shift elsewhere. For agencies, the speed gains of internet research can often get lost in the time it takes to get good email samples ready in sufficient quantity. While building online consumer panels is the way forward for many, off-the-shelf tools to help do this are still rare. Indeed, the whole area of sample preparation in agencies frequently relies on a labyrinthine chase through Excel, Access and sundry hand-crafted utilities. It makes the support for panel management in GMI and NEBU come as welcome relief, and Jambo’s consolidated database approach an intriguing one. In this, one database serves both to hold existing survey data and provide a sample source for future interviews.

Translations

Why should entering multiple foreign language translations be such a big deal for many systems? For an elegant solution, take a look at how Askia does it: exporting all the English text into an Excel spreadsheet for you to email to multiple translators, then import again when done. It’s simple but effective.

That is as nothing compared to the chaos of moving whole questionnaires from one firm’s CATI or CAPI system to another. With ASK-ML’s apparent demise, and no support for question logic in Dimensions Data Model or triple-S, we must pin our hopes on the emerging but still largely unproven QEDML, or alternatively on increasing web-enablement in CAI packages like VOXCO.

Dissemination

Having got the data and churned out the tables, turning it into something presentable for the client to receive or circulate on a regular basis can be excruciatingly time-consuming. Initiatives such as Reportal, built into Confirmit, or slick web-publishing with analytics, as in Cobalt Sky’s Vector, or the complete hands-off production of charts and PowerPoints in E-Tabs Enterprise, are rare in acknowledging today’s urgent need to give actionable research data as wide an audience as possible.

Rapid dissemination of results can be a common bottleneck, clientside. Tools that make it easier for internal research teams to shed their duties as research librarians, can make an enterprise more research literate and more research appreciative too. Client-centric analysis tools such as Espri or Mtabs, or the library capabilities of Research Reporter often raise the level of discourse between insight managers and internal clients to a level where new research briefs become more sharply focussed, and ultimately, the results even more insightful.

Feeding research data into corporate database remains a surprisingly tortuous affair. It is not being helped by a recent proliferation of proprietary portals and online tools from agencies. It is still remarkable how many data providers remain in ignorance of triple-S, despite this standard being around for over a decade now. It can ease data from supplier to consumer, and now, thanks to XML, is now even simpler to implement. But then, the smartest route from A to B is often not the one that everyone takes.