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Bureau of Labor Statistics > Office of Survey Methods Research > Publications > Browse Research Papers

TDE AND BEYOND: DATA COLLECTION ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB

Louis J Harrell, Jr, Richard L Clayton, and George S Werking

Abstract

Electronic mail (E-mail) and WorldWide Web services are increasingly available within businesses and may be exploited for survey data collection. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has developed a prototype World Wide Web collection instrument for a pilot test of Web collection in the
monthly Current Employment Statistics (CES) survey. Respondents receive electronic mail requesting that they enter their data in a World Wide Web page. The data are immediately edited and transmitted to the survey agency's computer.
This paper reviews current Web features relevant to survey data collection, describes the prototype CES Web collection system versus Touch tone Data Entry (TDE), and identifies considerations in the development of a Web survey data collection system. The strengths and weaknesses of Web collection are compared to other automated collection methods in terms of quality, timeliness, and costs.