FAQs About Our Online Panels and Communities

How and where do you recruit members for your panels and communities?

Socratic uses a very broad, multi-source approach to recruiting for any one type of panel. Typically, we will use our relationships with various publications, networks, organizations, etc. to recruit people who are highly likely to be interested in the topics we will be researching. Invitations to join our panels will generally come from the sample source partner itself (for example, when we are recruiting for our "Mothers with Children" panel, invitations may be sent from Working Mothers Magazine, among others.)

Socratic Technologies does not purchase lists for email recruitment purposes.

What are your opt-in procedures for people joining a community or panel?

All Socratic managed panels employ a triple-opt-in procedure. First, people are invited to join a community or panel. These invitations may be mailed, posted on Web sites, placed as advertisements (both in publications and online) or completed using the telephone.

The first level of opting-in consists of the recipient linking to a specific Web survey that has been produced for the purposes of 1) informing people of our research and contact policies, 2) providing information on the topics and types of research we do and 3) asking profiling questions that will be used to pre-identify topics that will be relevant to them.

The second level of opting-in is accomplished by having them complete the profiling survey itself including name, address and working email address and a range of panel-specific qualifying questions.

The potential panelist then completes the third and final opt-in phase by clicking a box that specifically asks them to signify their willingness to join the panel. A confirmatory email is sent thanking the panelist for their registration and to make sure that the person filling out the registration is indeed the true owner of the email address.

Every time a panelist or member is contacted with a survey invitation (or any other form of community communication), we offer the opportunity to "opt-out" from further participation.

How does your firm comply with the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, COPPA, HIPPA, and other data privacy laws?

Socratic Technologies Inc. complies fully with all U.S. data privacy laws. In addition we are a registered Safe Harbor company, indicating our willingness to comply with the U.S. Department of Commerce program bridging U.S. and European Union Data Privacy Protection Act statutes.

We firmly believe that CAN-SPAM is a good thing for the research industry. If researchers are in compliance with the published codes of ethics of any of the large national or international research associations, they should have no fear of CAN-SPAM. In short, all of our panelists and invitees have one of the two major permission-based contact conditions: 1) they have either opted-in with our network for contact or 2) there is an existing business relationship that can be demonstrated for purposes of contact. We have prepared a white paper on the specific formats to which email invitations must comply in order to be in keeping with CAN-SPAM requirements. You can download that paper by clicking here.

We have a highly structured approach to complying with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which forbids the collection of personally identifiable data from children under the age of 13 without explicit parental approval. We keep no data on children under the age of 13 and do not accept registries in any panel of persons below this age. When conducting research with this age group, we never recruit children directly. All invitations go only to parents, who must evaluate the invitation to participate and who then, in turn, must volunteer their child's participation. Parents are free to observe the interview and may, opt-out at any time.

We comply with the Healthcare Information Privacy Protection Act (HIPPA) by conforming to secure data collection and storage standards and only reporting data in the aggregate.

How do you ensure that your samples consist of people who actively participate in research?

Socratic Technologies regularly removes people from our panels and databases if they have not responded to a certain number of survey invitations. Normally, we allow someone to miss three surveys before we remove them from our database. In some very unique areas, the number of missed surveys may be as high as six before we no longer invite them.

What are the typical response rates for survey invitations?

Each community has varying levels of interest in the topics we research. Some panels have extremely high response rates (e.g. over 80%). Typical response rates average about 38% for all panel areas. Response rates (for profiled panelists) are calculated by taking the number of people invited less any bounce-backs or bad addresses, divided into the number of people who attempt to take the survey. Not everyone who attempts the survey is qualified and some people drop out mid-way through the survey. In the case of "mid-terms," we will send up to two reminders and allow them to pick up where they left off in the survey. Our conversion rates of mid-termed respondents can be as high as 65%.

What types of compensation do you offer your panelists for taking surveys?

Most of our surveys are done using the "individual pay-per-complete" model wherein each panelist is rewarded for each survey taken. In some cases, we will use a sweepstakes model with a chance for all completers to win a much larger prize. Most community Web sites have an "online incentive banking" area, where respondents can see what electronic payments and gift certificates they have earned. In some cases, Socratic will send checks to panelists; these are sent within six weeks of completing the survey for which the incentive is being offered. Total cash and prize offerings paid by Socratic amount to more than $1,000,000 per year.

How do you count and profile the people in your panels and communities? How do you determine how many are available for surveys?

Socratic counts the number of people available for survey work based on several levels of profiling and strength of relationship. In our formal panels, the numbers of people counted include only those who have triple opted-in (first by responding to various invitations to join, second by filling out a profiling survey and third by finally agreeing to join the community).

In addition to formal panels, we also have engaged a large network of communities (people who read magazines, visit Web sites, belong to professional organizations, members of clubs, alumna of universities, etc.) from whom we may invite additional people for specific surveys with niche populations. All community members have an existing relationship with the affinity source and can be screened and profiled on an ad hoc basis.

In our panel description materials we show both the total size of the community from whom we are recruiting panelists and the stable size of the panelists who have opted-in and who have been fully profiled. For information regarding each type of panel and community click here.

Do people absolutely know that they are opting in for research?

Yes. In addition to very detailed information given at the time of the triple-opt-in registry, each panel and community has their own, dedicated Web site that provides more information, program details and the ability to update profile information. There are also numerous ways that panelists can contact us, by either phone or email. We respond to most emails within several hours.

How frequently does your company update panelists' profile information?

Basic profiling data is updated on a continuous and ongoing basis, but is always verified on an annual basis. In addition, we offer our panelists online profile data update functionality that allows them to update their own profile data, including contact information, on a 24/7 basis.

What standard profiling data do you collect for your panels?

Each community will have both standard demographic and/or firmographic data profiling as well as unique points of information that are specific to the niche community being assembled. Standard data points for most consumer-based panels include: Age, gender, locale, household information (such as size of family, number of children), marital status, income, employment status, and educational background. Business-based panels capture: Industry, Standard Occupational Code (SOC), size of firm (employees and income), decision-making authority within the work place and use of various business-related technologies.

How do you detect and block poor quality responders and potential cheaters?

Socratic has led the research industry with technological innovations which are used to detect and eliminate people within our panels who attempt multiple registries or who show signs of undesirable response patterns within their survey answers. The solutions we have built will flag patterns (e.g. straight-lining, Christmas treeing, etc.) as well as multiple response attempts-upon which we then will eliminate the person's data in real time so as not to skew any results we are reporting to our clients. Dr. William MacElroy, has written articles, spoken at several conferences and has consulted with many companies on techniques and technologies that can be used to eliminate these threats to research integrity. [MacElroy, W. (July 2004). How to catch a cheat. Quirk's Marketing Research Review, Volume XVIII, Number 7. p46.]

What assurances of privacy and confidentiality do you offer panel members?

Our privacy policy insures that all panels and all associated surveys are being managed and conducted by Socratic Technologies, a research-based consultancy specializing in the business-to-business and consumer technology sectors.

Our guarantee states that: All surveys are being conducted for market research purposes only. No one will ever try to sell our panelists anything as a result of membership in the panel or as a result of participation in one of our surveys. None of our panelists' personal information will ever be released to anyone without explicit, written permission. All panelists' answers will be kept strictly confidential. All answers will be combined with hundreds of other participants' answers and only reported in aggregate.

You may read our full policy by clicking here.

How are your survey invitations managed?

We have developed proprietary software that allows us to control where, when and how we deploy a sample. We begin with a database search to determine all the people who might be potential matches for the sample criteria we are attempting to achieve. People who have been polled recently, or who have been interviewed on a similar topic within a certain period of time are eliminated from the consideration set. A random sample of approximately three times the expected number needed to complete is then selected from the remaining pool.

When the sample has been prepared, our software automatically creates individual invitations that will send individuals to a Web-based survey site which will verify that the person invited is the person responding. Invitations are generally sent in waves allowing for some latitude to collect opinions from late responders. Waves may be sent randomly or targeted to specific sample requirements (country, time zone, demographic characteristics, work hours, etc.) Online reporting is available to review real time data as surveys are completed. If issues in screening criteria, response rates, mid-terminates or other problems arise, they can be quickly detected and corrected.

Up to two reminders may be sent to the initial random sample to encourage participation. People who pause surveys mid-way through are sent a reminder with a link to pick up the survey where they left off.

What security steps do you take to avoid server problems and protect against unauthorized access?

Socratic Technologies has one of the industry's highest ratings for server up-time (over 99.8%) with multiple, redundant fail-over systems in place both in terms of Internet connections and database backup. Even if one T1 line or database server should go down, others will pick up without loss of data. Server uptime is monitored 24/7 in case of a need for emergency intervention.

We also have a state-of-the-art firewall and data security setup that has multiple layers of protection against unauthorized access.

What controls do you use to ensure that panelists are not overused or abused?

All of our panelists are tracked according to the number of invitations they receive, the number of times they participate, the topics in which they have participated and any other restrictions that they may request in terms of limited number of contacts. We set parameters for each person's contact rate such that no person should be contacted more than 10 times per year, and usually not more than twice during any one month. As each sample request is processed, we review the number of panelists available for invitation and how many are "blocked" due to recent participation.

Conversely, we also take efforts to either have our members invited to participate in a survey or receive some form of community message every four to six weeks in order to ensure we keep them interested in the panel community as a whole.

What national and international privacy and confidentiality standards does your company subscribe to?

In addition to being a registered Safe Harbor company, Socratic Technologies Inc. subscribes to the Interactive Marketing Research Organization's (IMRO) code of ethics. Those standards can be reviewed by clicking here. We are a corporate member of the Council on Marketing and Opinion Research (CMOR), the Marketing Research Association (MRA), and the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF).

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