Abstract

This article examines some advantages and disadvantages of conducting online survey research. It explores current features, issues, pricing, and limitations associated with products and services, such as online questionnaire features and services to facilitate the online survey process, such as those offered by web survey businesses. The review shows that current online survey products and services can vary considerably in terms of available features, consumer costs, and limitations. It is concluded that online survey researchers should conduct a careful assessment of their research goals, research timeline, and financial situation before choosing a specific product or service.

Introduction

The past decade has seen a tremendous increase in internet use and computer-mediated communication (Fox, Rainie, Larsen, Horrigan, Lenhart, Spooner, & Carter, 2001; Horrigan, 2001; Nie & Erbring, 2000; Nie, Hillygus, & Erbring, 2002). As an increasing amount of communicative activity takes place through this new medium, there has likewise been a significant increase in primary research on virtual communities, online relationships, and a variety of other aspects of computer-mediated communication (Flaherty, Pearce, & Rubin, 1998; Matheson, 1991; Nonnecke, Preece, Andrews, & Voutour, 2004; Preece, 1999; Preece & Ghozati, 2001; Walther, 1996; Walther & Boyd, 2002; Wood & Smith, 2001; Wright, 2000a, 2002a, 2002b, 2004). Studies of online populations have led to an increase in the use of online surveys, presenting scholars with new challenges in terms of applying traditional survey research methods to the study of online behavior and Internet use (Andrews, Nonnecke, & Preece, 2003; Bachmann & Elfrink, 1996; Stanton, 1998; Witmer, Colman, & Katzman, 1999; Yun & Trumbo, 2000).

The technology for online survey research is young and evolving. Until recently, creating and conducting an online survey was a time-consuming task requiring familiarity with web authoring programs, HTML code, and scripting programs. Today, survey authoring software packages and online survey services make online survey research much easier and faster. Yet many researchers in different disciplines may be unaware of the advantages and disadvantages associated with conducting survey research online. Advantages include access to individuals in distant locations, the ability to reach difficult to contact participants, and the convenience of having automated data collection, which reduces researcher time and effort. Disadvantages of online survey research include uncertainty over the validity of the data and sampling issues, and concerns surrounding the design, implementation, and evaluation of an online survey.

This article considers and evaluates the advantages and disadvantages related to conducting online surveys identified in previous research. In addition, it reviews the current state of available web survey software packages and services, various features of these software packages and services, and their advantages and limitations. The purpose of the article is to provide an overview of issues and resources in order to assist researchers in determining if they would benefit from using online surveys, and to guide them in the selection and use of online survey techniques. To facilitate these goals, which are both methodological and applied, the author draws on published research dealing with online survey methods, as well as his experience conducting more than 10 online surveys.

Advantages of Online Survey Research

Researchers in a variety of disciplines may find the Internet a fruitful area for conducting survey research. As the cost of computer hardware and software continues to decrease, and the popularity of the Internet increases, more segments of society are using the Internet for communication and information (Fox et al., 2001; Nie et al., 2002). Thousands of groups and organizations have moved online, many of them aggressively promoting their presence through the use of search engines, email lists, and banner advertisements. These organizations not only offer information to consumers, they also present opportunities for researchers to access a variety of populations who are affiliated with these groups.

Communication researchers may find the Internet an especially rich domain for conducting survey research. Virtual communities have flourished online, and hundreds of thousands of people regularly participate in discussions about almost every conceivable issue and interest (Horrigan, 2001; Wellman, 1997; Wellman & Haythornthwaite, 2002). Areas as diverse as interpersonal (Parks & Floyd, 1996; Tidwell & Walther, 2002; Wright, 2004), group (Hollingshead, McGrath, & O'Connor, 1993; Hobman, Bordia, Irmer, & Chang, 2002), organizational (Ahuja & Carley, 1998), health (Rice & Katz, 2001; Wright, 2000a), and mass communication (Flaherty et al.,1998; Flanagin & Metzger, 2001) have been studied using online surveys.

Access to Unique Populations

One advantage of online survey research is that it takes advantage of the ability of the Internet to provide access to groups and individuals who would be difficult, if not impossible, to reach through other channels (Garton, Haythornthwaite, & Wellman, 1999; Wellman, 1997). In many cases, communities and groups exist only in cyberspace. For example, it would be difficult to find a large, concentrated group of people conducting face-to-face discussions of topics such as cyber-stalking, online stock trading, and the pros and cons of virtual dating. While people certainly discuss such issues among friends, family members, and co-workers, few meet face-to-face in large groups to discuss them. One advantage of virtual communities as sites for research is that they offer a mechanism through which a researcher can gain access to people who share specific interests, attitudes, beliefs, and values regarding an issue, problem, or activity. For example, researchers can find a concentrated number of older individuals who use computers on the Internet-based community SeniorNet (Furlong, 1989; Wright, 2000a, 2000c). In contrast, with traditional survey research methods it may be more difficult to reach a large number of demographically-similar older people who are interested in computers.

Another example is the case of individuals with diseases or conditions, such as HIV, eating disorders, and physical disabilities. Individuals with these conditions and diseases are often difficult to reach because they are stigmatized offline. Health communication researchers have been able to go online to study these populations, including examining how features of the computer medium help people cope with the social stigma of their condition (Braithwaite, Waldron, & Finn, 1999; Wright, 2000b). More generally, the Internet enables communication among people who may be hesitant to meet face-to-face. For example, individuals with unpopular political views may hesitate to express themselves openly, and groups of individuals such as Arab-Americans may feel uncomfortable talking about anti-Arab sentiment in public places (Muhtaseb, 2004). These individuals and groups often can be reached on the Internet in larger numbers than would be possible using face-to-face research methods.

Time

A second advantage is that Internet-based survey research may save time for researchers. As already noted, online surveys allow a researcher to reach thousands of people with common characteristics in a short amount of time, despite possibly being separated by great geographic distances (Bachmann & Elfrink, 1996; Garton et al., 2003; Taylor, 2000; Yun & Trumbo, 2000). A researcher interested in surveying hard-to-reach populations can quickly gain access to large numbers of such individuals by posting invitations to participate to newsgroups, chat rooms, and message board communities. In the face-to-face research environment, it would take considerably longer-if it were possible at all-to find an equivalent number of people with specific attributes, interests, and attitudes in one location.

Online surveys may also save time by allowing researchers to collect data while they work on other tasks (Llieva, Baron, & Healey, 2002). Once an invitation to participate in a survey is posted to the website of a community of interest, emailed to people through a listserv service, or distributed through an online survey research service, researchers may collect data while working on other projects (Andrews et al., 2003). Responses to online surveys can be transmitted to the researcher immediately via email, or posted to an HTML document or database file. This allows researchers to conduct preliminary analyses on collected data while waiting for the desired number of responses to accumulate (Llieva et al., 2002). First generation online survey researchers often used email-based surveys, which involved creating online survey forms using word processing software, and later used products such as Macromedia's Dreamweaver. Researchers had to "cut and paste" responses from the email responses into statistical software programs such as SAS and SPSS. More recently, online survey creation software packages provide a variety of templates to create and implement online surveys more easily, as well as to export data to statistical software packages. Moreover, a number of online survey services provide survey design assistance, generate samples, and analyze and interpret data. Some of the newer software packages and web-based services are detailed below.

Cost

Online survey researchers can also save money by moving to an electronic medium from a paper format (Bachmann & Elfrink, 1996; Couper, 2000; Llieva et al., 2002; Yun & Trumbo, 2000). Paper surveys tend to be costly, even when using a relatively small sample, and the costs of a traditional large-scale survey using mailed questionnaires can be enormous. The use of online surveys circumvents this problem by eliminating the need for paper and other costs, such as those incurred through postage, printing, and data entry (Llieva et al., 2002; Watt, 1999; Witmer et al., 1999). Similarly, conducting online interviews, either by email, or in a synchronous "chat" format, offers cost savings advantages. Costs for recording equipment, travel, and the telephone can be eliminated. In addition, transcription costs can be avoided since online responses are automatically documented. Newer online survey creation software and web survey services costs can vary from very little to thousands of dollars depending upon the types of features and services selected; however, this is relatively inexpensive compared to the cost of traditional paper-and-pencil surveys.

Disadvantages Associated with Online Survey Research

As discussed above, online surveys offer many advantages over traditional surveys. However, there are also disadvantages that should be considered by researchers contemplating using online survey methodology. Although many of the problems discussed in this section are also inherent in traditional survey research, some are unique to the computer medium.

Sampling Issues

When conducting online research, investigators can encounter problems as regards sampling (Andrews et al., 2003; Howard, Rainie, & Jones, 2001). For example, relatively little may be known about the characteristics of people in online communities, aside from some basic demographic variables, and even this information may be questionable (Dillman, 2000; Stanton, 1998). A number of recent web survey services provide access to certain populations by offering access to email lists generated from other online surveys conducted through the web survey service. Some offer access to specialized populations based on data from previous surveys. However, if the data were self-reported, there is no guarantee that participants from previous surveys provided accurate demographic or characteristics information.

Generating Samples from Virtual Groups and Organizations

Some virtual groups and organizations provide membership email lists that can help researchers establish a sampling frame. However, not all members of virtual groups and organizations allow their email addresses to be listed, and some may not allow administrators to provide their email addresses to researchers. This makes accurately sizing an online population difficult.

Once an email list is obtained, it is possible to email an online survey invitation and link to every member on the list. Theoretically, this can give researchers a sampling frame. However, problems such as multiple email addresses for the same person, multiple responses from participants, and invalid/inactive email addresses make random sampling online a problematic method in many circumstances (Andrews et al., 2003; Couper, 2000). One solution is for researchers to require participants to contact them to obtain a unique code number (and a place to include this code number on the online questionnaire) prior to completing a survey. However, requiring this extra step may significantly reduce the response rate. Another solution that some newer web survey programs offer is response tracking. Participants are required to submit their email address in order to complete the survey. Once they have completed the survey, the survey program remembers the participant's email address and does not allow anyone using that email address access to the survey. This feature helps to reduce multiple responses, although someone could potentially complete the survey a second time using a secondary email address (Konstan, Rosser, Ross, Stanton, & Edwards, 2005).

Generating a Sample from an Online Community

Establishing a sampling frame when researching an online community presents a number of challenges. Unlike membership-based organizations, many online communities, such as community bulletin boards and chat rooms, do not typically provide participant email addresses. Membership is based on common interests, not fees, and little information is required when registering to use these communities, if registration is required at all. Some researchers attempt to establish a sampling frame by counting the number of participants in an online community, or the published number of members, over a given period of time. In either case, the ebb and flow of communication in online communities can make it difficult to establish an accurate sampling frame. For example, participation in online communities may be sporadic depending on the nature of the group and the individuals involved in discussions. Some people are "regulars," who may make daily contributions to discussions, while others only participate intermittently. Furthermore, "lurkers," or individuals who read posts but do not send messages, may complete an online survey even though they are not visible to the rest of the community. The presence of lurkers in online communities appears to be highly variable (Preece, Nonnecke, & Andrews, 2004). Studies have found that in some online communities lurkers represent a high percentage (between 45% and 99%) of community members, while other studies have found few lurkers (Preece et al., 2004). Because lurkers do not make their presence known to the group, this makes it difficult to obtain an accurate sampling frame or an accurate estimate of the population characteristics.

As internet communities become more stable, some community administrators are beginning to compile statistics on their community's participants. Many communities require a person to register with the community in order to participate in discussions, and some communities are willing to provide researchers with statistics about community membership (at least in aggregate form). Registration typically involves asking for the individual's name, basic demographic information such as age and gender, and email address. Other community administrators might ask participants for information about interests, income level, education, etc. Some communities are willing to share participant information with researchers as a validation technique by comparing the survey sample characteristics with those of the online community in general. Yet, because individuals easily can lie about any information they report to community administrators, there is no guarantee of accuracy.

When possible, using both online and traditional paper surveys helps to assess whether individuals responding to the online version are responding in systematically different ways from those who completed the paper version. For example, Query and Wright (2003) used a combination of online and paper surveys to study older adults who were caregivers for loved ones with Alzheimer's disease. The researchers attempted to assess whether the online responses were skewed in any way by comparing the responses from both subsamples. While no significant differences between the two subsamples were found in this particular study, real differences in responses between Internet users and non-Internet users might exist in other populations. This may make it difficult to assess whether the observed differences are due to factors such as participant deception or actual differences due to characteristics associated with computer and non-computer users.

Other Sampling Concerns

Although some studies of online survey methods have found that response rates in email surveys are equal to or better than those for traditional mailed surveys (Mehta & Sivadas, 1995; Stanton, 1998; Thompson, Surface, Martin, Sanders, 2003), these findings may be questionable because non-response rate tracking is difficult to ascertain in most large online communities (Andrews et al., 2003). One relatively inexpensive technique used by market researchers to increase response rates is to offer some type of financial incentive, e.g., a lottery. Individuals who participate in the survey are given a chance to win a prize or gift certificate, and the winner is selected randomly from the pool of respondents. However, this technique is not without problems. Internet users frequently encounter bogus lotteries and other "get rich quick" schemes online, so a lottery approach to increasing response rates could potentially undermine the credibility of the survey. In addition, offering a financial incentive may increase multiple responses to the survey as participants try to "stack the deck" to increase their chances of winning (Konstan, et al., 2005). Straight incentives such as a coupon redeemable for real merchandise, i.e., books, may be more effective and more credible.

Self-selection bias is another major limitation of online survey research (Stanton, 1998; Thompson et al., 2003; Wittmer et al., 1999). In any given Internet community, there are undoubtedly some individuals who are more likely than others to complete an online survey. Many Internet communities pay for community operations with advertising. This can desensitize participants to worthwhile survey requests posted on the website. In short, there is a tendency of some individuals to respond to an invitation to participate in an online survey, while others ignore it, leading to a systematic bias.

These sampling issues inhibit researchers' ability to make generalizations about study findings. This, in turn, limits their ability to estimate population parameters, which presents the greatest threat to conducting probability research. For researchers interested only in conducting nonprobability research, these issues are somewhat less of a concern. Researchers who use nonprobability samples assume that they will not be able to estimate population parameters.

Many of the problems discussed here are not unique to online survey research. Mailed surveys suffer from the same basic limitations. While a researcher may have a person's mailing address, he or she does not know for certain whether the recipient of the mailed survey is the person who actually completes and returns it (Schmidt, 1997). Moreover, respondents to mailed surveys can misrepresent their age, gender, level of education, and a host of other variables as easily as a person can in an online survey. Even when the precise characteristics of a sample are known by the researcher, people can still respond in socially desirable ways or misrepresent their identity or their true feelings about the content of the survey.

The best defense against deception that researchers may have is replication. Only by conducting multiple online surveys with the same or similar types of Internet communities can researchers gain a reliable picture of the characteristics of online survey participants.

Access Issues

Some researchers access potential participants by posting invitations to participate in a survey on community bulletin boards, discussion groups, and chat rooms. However, members of online communities often find this behavior rude or offensive (Hudson & Bruckman, 2004), or consider this type of posting to be "spam" (Andrews et al., 2003). A community moderator may delete the unwanted post, or the researcher may be inundated with emails from irate members of the community. Researchers using email invitations to participate in a survey may face similar rejection. An unwanted email advertisement is often considered an invasion of privacy. The invitation for the survey may be deleted, or the researcher may receive email from participants complaining about it.

Some participants in Internet communities actually welcome studies by researchers, especially when members are interested in how their community is perceived by others. With some diplomatic dialogue initiated by the researcher, it is often possible to work with web community administrators and participants when proposing a study idea (Reid, 1996). This is a more ethnographic approach. Although accessing some online communities can be extremely challenging, seeking permission from the community and taking time to explain the purpose of the study might help a researcher to gain access. Nonetheless, it may take a long time before receiving a response to a request, and community sponsors may reject the researcher's request despite his or her attempts to convey the possible benefits of the study for the community (Andrews et al., 2003). Researchers might apologize in advance for the potentially unwanted posting, with an explanation of the importance of conducting the research and possible benefits to members.

Researchers can foster "good will" between themselves and community participants by offering to provide information about the results of their study to the community. One way to do this is to create a study report, highlighting the most interesting results to the online community audience, post it on a web page, and have community administrators post a link to the page on the community web site. Study results should be presented so that audience members can understand them. For example, the author of this article created a summary of research findings for the SeniorNet community after completing a study of social support among participants (Wright, 2000a). SeniorNet administrators created a special link to this web page so that the participants in the study (as well as other SeniorNet members) could learn about the results and their possible implications.

It is important for researchers to include contact information, information about the study, and something about their credentials when creating an invitation to participate in a survey. In addition to being a requirement of most institutional research review boards in universities in the United States, this helps to enhance the credibility of the survey and it can create opportunities for email interaction between the researcher and participants. This is valuable, especially when participants have questions. However, as Andrews et al. (2003) point out, providing researcher contact information has its downside. Researchers can sometimes become the targets of abusive individuals who resent the invasion of privacy when they encounter an online survey. Hate email or worse types of abuse can occur if some individuals on the Internet find online surveys offensive. A man once called the author's home phone number repeatedly and left threatening messages on his voice mail after obtaining the number from his department secretary (the department number appeared on the informed consent for the online survey). While such incidents tend to be rare, the possibility of irate responses is something to consider.

The above does not necessarily constitute an exhaustive review of the advantages and disadvantages of conducting online surveys, although it represents experiences encountered by many researchers, and points to factors that should be taken into consideration in deciding to use and designing an online survey. The next section surveys current web survey software packages and online survey-related services available to researchers who may be interested in conducting online survey research.

Current Web Survey Software Packages and Online Survey-Related Services

As noted above, today's researchers have help with online survey work. There are currently dozens of online survey software packages and web survey services available to researchers willing to pay for them. Table 1 lists 20 of the more prominent packages and services, along with their web addresses.

The author examined each of the websites for these 20 online survey product and service companies in order to assess current features, pricing, and limitations, as well as to identify current trends in the online survey product and services market. Table 2 presents a comparison of features, pricing issues, and limitations of the 20 online product and service companies.

This is not, of course, an exhaustive list of online survey software and service businesses. However, it represents a good cross-section of the types of online survey products and services currently available to researchers. The following sections consider some of the current features of online survey products and services, pricing issues, limitations, and the implications of using these products and services for online survey research.

Current Features

Survey Creation Software vs. Expanded Services

The businesses listed in Tables 1 and 2 offer researchers two basic options for creating and conducting online survey research. One option is the online survey software packages, which are computer programs that researchers use to create and conduct online surveys on their own computer and server. The companies that offer such packages also provide options for customer support, server space for the online survey (in some cases), and several data tracking and analysis options. Other companies offer a wider range of services for conducting online surveys, including research design, online questionnaire development, sampling and data collection services, and data analysis and interpretation services. The major features and problems with each option are discussed below.

Purchasing Software Option

Some companies (see Table 2) require customers to purchase online survey creation software. Owning the software enables researchers to create multiple online surveys of any length as opposed to being charged per survey, per time period (e.g., by the month), by number of responses, by survey length, or by some combination of these options. Many of these companies also offer customer support, including help with design, data collection, participant tracking, and data analysis. One disadvantage of owning the software is that customers have to pay to upgrade software. Given rapid advances in software development, this software may be outdated in a relatively short period of time. Customers who have purchased software receive discounted upgrades, however. An example of this option is EZ Survey, which allows researchers to run the software on their own computer and a server of their choice. This may be an attractive choice for researchers who have access to free server space on their university or research organization server.

Online Questionnaire Features

The businesses listed in Tables 1 and 2 offer a wide array of options for creating online surveys, including many different templates to help first-time web survey researchers. Each of the online survey products reviewed offered some type of online form to collect data from participants. A "form" is an interactive type of web page that allows Internet users to send information across computer networks. After completing an online survey, participants click on a "submit" button on the webpage. This transmits the survey responses to the researcher. Online survey questions are the same types as on a traditional paper/pencil questionnaire, only the participants submit the information over the Internet rather than return questionnaires in person or by mail. Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripting, a type of computer language that is run on the Web server where an online survey is housed, tells the server how to process information that is submitted.

Most Internet users are quite familiar with Web forms since search engines, including Yahoo! and Google, are sophisticated forms. Writing scripts for processing forms can be done manually, but this type of work can be cumbersome for a busy researcher, especially one who is not technologically proficient. All of the reviewed companies offering online survey products provide a variety of useful questionnaire options, and a user-friendly process to develop online questionnaires.

The businesses listed in Tables 1 and 2 typically offered a range of question types, although the number of options varied from business to business. Basic question options usually include Likert-type scales, semantic differential scales, checklists, textboxes (for qualitative responses), drop-down menus (for nominal or categorical items), and filter questions (to tailor surveys to individual characteristics of survey respondents). In addition, the majority of the reviewed products offer randomized answer choices for participants, so as to vary the order of question responses and thus reduce question order bias.

Some products support multiple language versions of an online survey and versions for visually impaired respondents. Additionally, some products offer more complex question-type options, such as multiple response matrices and the ability to use multimedia, i.e., asking participants to respond to a video or audio clip. A multimedia video or audio clip can be used to jog the memories of respondents or as a reference point for participant responses. For example, researchers who want to measure participant perceptions of a political candidate's positions on foreign policy could include a video clip from a recent speech. Multimedia can also be useful when targeting low literacy populations, since video and audio messages guide participants through an online survey. However, including multimedia can increase download times and may be frustrating to participants who must download media players or other types of programs in order to participate in the survey (Andrews et al., 2003). Taking the use of multimedia a bit further, the technology exists to easily construct a web page that uses video and/or audio clips as stimuli for online experimental and quasi-experimental designs. It is also possible to develop computer scripts that randomly send participants to one of several other web pages. Each web page could contain a different audio and video stimulus, enabling the random assignment of participants to different levels of an independent variable. All respondents (regardless of which condition they were assigned to) could then be linked to an online questionnaire containing dependent variable measures. Researchers who are interested in more sophisticated designs such as these would probably benefit from selecting a business that offers a greater degree of consulting and technical support.

Data Collection and Analysis Features

In addition to helping researchers create online surveys, most of the reviewed businesses offer features that aid the data collection and analysis processes, as well as customer support. These range from basic features to more in-depth involvement by company consultants. Basic survey process features include tracking of survey respondent email, email response notification, real time tracking of item responses, and the ability to export survey responses to statistical software packages such as SAS and SPSS. In addition, most of the reviewed companies offer a required answer feature, which prevents survey data submission unless certain items are responded to. This reduces missing data, especially for key survey measures. Most online survey companies offer a redirect feature to display a "thank you for participating" web page, or any web page a researcher chooses, after a participant submits the data to the researcher. Other basic features include the ability to share data with other researchers, enabling research teams with members at different locations to share survey results.

Although most of the reviewed companies offer free technical support, researchers are generally charged a fee for extensive consultations and/or training. For example, SurveySite offers consultation throughout the entire survey research process, including method design, questionnaire creation, data collection, data analysis, and interpretation of results. Zoomerang offers access to tailored email lists and multisource recruiting for sampling, allowing researchers to target specific demographic groups within a population of interest. Other companies will help researchers collect data by advertising the survey on certain websites. Some companies offer other types of features to aid with the survey research process. For example, EZ Survey offers a free sample size calculator, and businesses such as SurveyMonkey offer pop-up advertising to aid in recruiting participants. Some companies, such as InstantSurvey, unsubscribe respondents from an email list after they have completed a survey, which may help to reduce multiple responses from the same participant.

Several of the companies offer researchers even more sophisticated options for conducting survey research. Perseus can conduct mobile surveys, using wireless handheld devices like Palm pilots. Data are sent through wireless technology to a server (similar to other online survey forms) where the information is posted to a database file. Mobile Internet surveys offer a number of advantages to researchers. Using a wireless device (as opposed to a laptop computer), researchers can bring a survey to otherwise inaccessible populations in the non-virtual world, such as patients in a busy healthcare setting, individuals in rural settings, or socioeconomic groups that do not have access to computers or the Internet. This allows researchers to conduct face-to-face interviews with participants while using the wireless device to store and transmit responses to the survey to a database. In addition, some companies, such as Perseus, have the capability to merge computer technology with traditional survey methods. They offer telephone survey capabilities where participants use a touch tone phone to enter responses.

Other companies, such as KeySurvey and SurveySite, provide the ability to conduct online focus groups. The Internet allows researchers to include participants from multiple geographic locations in the same focus group. Participants view the same video, audio, and/or text in real time from remote locations. Researchers can interact with participants via chat room applications or webcam and audio teleconferencing technologies. Real-time computer applications are important in focus groups because researchers want participants to interact with the focus group facilitator and with each other at the same time. The responses of one participant can trigger ideas and responses among other participants, leading to richer results. These qualitative focus groups are often used as a precursor to developing a quantitative survey to reach broader numbers of individuals.

Pricing

Costs of survey products and their services vary. In general, the more features and services needed from a web survey company, the more it will cost. However, it is a "buyer beware" situation. Basic features can be purchased for a relatively small amount of money. For instance, SurveyMonkey provides authoring tools, server space, and simple automated survey analysis for about $20 a month ($240 per year); however, there are limitations, such as the limitation of 1000 responses per month. SurveyMonkey charges an additional 5 cents per survey response over the 1000 response limit. Moreover, paying more does not necessarily mean more services. Other businesses, such as KeySurvey, charge substantially more ($670 per year for a basic subscription) for products and services similar to those offered by SurveyMonkey. Other companies charge researchers by the survey. Companies that charge less typically do not recruit participants for customers and do not provide consultation throughout all stages of the research process. However, for many web survey researchers, these basic, less expensive approaches may be sufficient, especially for those experienced in conceptualizing survey projects, data analysis, and interpretation of results. In general, if sample generation or help with analyzing data is not needed, then businesses that include these services in the price should be avoided, or else these services should be negotiated out of the price. Pricing for the businesses reviewed here varied considerably even though they offered similar products, features, and services. For example, SuperSurvey offers products, features, and services similar to SurveyMonkey for $500 to $2000 per business quarter (depending upon number of users and number of responses desired), as opposed to only $20 a month.

As previously stated, while most companies offer free technical support, researchers are generally charged extra for extended training and consultation. In some cases, consultation can be expensive. For example, Perseus charges $2000 per day for personalized training, but also offers discounts for group consultation and training. Moreover, many of the reviewed business websites offer educational discounts for academics, including discounts on software, as well as consultations and other support services. For example, Zoomerang offers educators one year access to their online web survey creation services, server space for surveys, and customer support for around $350 (about $100 less than the regular price for service). Other business, such as Perseus and SurveyCrafter, advertise educational discounts on a wider variety of services. Researchers should inquire about these special discounts since they may help to reduce the overall cost of purchasing web survey software or services.

Limitations

As noted above, there may be limitations associated with using web survey products and services. Some specific limitations include issues of time, space, and number of responses allowed for a given price. For example, companies such as SurveyMonkey and SuperSurvey will host an online survey for a set amount of time. If a researcher wants to keep a survey on the company's server for an extended period of time (such as more than a year), this costs extra. In addition, some companies often charge more for longer surveys and for a number of respondents exceeding a certain amount (generally over 1000). Purchased software, in contrast, generally does not have space or response number restrictions.

There are also generally limitations to the amount of free customer support a researcher can obtain. Customer support may be available for minor technical problems and customer questions, but customers are generally charged extra for extended consultations and training. Typically, minor questions can be answered for free via telephone, email, or chat applications, but a researcher may be charged for extensive training, such as learning advanced web page creation techniques or data analysis instruction. Researchers who use a company's email lists to generate a sample are limited by the quality of this type of sampling frame. In cases where a company uses the same lists again and again for different clients, the individuals who receive the advertisements about a survey on these lists may become weary of being targeted by multiple surveys, and this could negatively impact response rates.

Implications of Using Web Survey Products and Services

Current web survey products and services have greatly facilitated the process of creating and conducting online surveys. Researchers can save considerable time by utilizing the products and services that are offered by many of the businesses highlighted in this article, compared to the time that it would take most researchers to create an online survey themselves using a web authoring program, thanks to a variety of attractive features offered. The cost of these products and services varies depending on the types of features and services a researcher desires. As with purchasing any product or service, researchers should assess their research needs, budget, and research time frame, and comparison shop when deciding on which business to use.

As we have seen, however, these products and services are not without limitations. While attractive, features of the surveys themselves (such as multimedia) and the services (e.g., using company email lists to generate samples) offered by web survey business can affect the quality of data in a variety of ways. Furthermore, using these products and services does not necessarily circumvent the disadvantages of online surveys, including issues related to sampling frames, response rates, participant deception, and access to populations. In short, researchers should view current web survey products and services as another research tool that-like the online survey itself-has its own unique advantages and disadvantages.

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and insightful suggestions for improving this manuscript.

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About the Author

Kevin B. Wright (Ph.D. University of Oklahoma 1999) is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at the University of Oklahoma. The majority of his research has focused on computer-mediated support groups and health outcomes for people with health concerns, interpersonal communication issues within the context of computer-mediated interaction, and online survey methodology. More information is available at: http://www.ou.edu/cas/deptcomm/facpages/wright.html
Address: Department of Communication, 610 Elm Avenue, Room 101, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019 USA