This topic requires serious debate. Cultural and technological change has made the web a possible and even desirable mode for complex social surveys, but the financial challenges faced by the Research Councils and the UK Government has accelerated this shift, creating an urgent need to explore both its potential and hazards for a range of studies. Yet while progress in carrying out large-scale complex social surveys on the web has been made, there is still no consensus about how this can best be achieved while maintaining population representativeness and preserving data quality.
To address this problem, the network will share and synthesise existing knowledge and catalyse discussion about future possibilities. We will draw on a wide range of institutions and experts from across the national and international survey research community; including representatives from academia as well as organisations with serious social survey delivery capabilities from government, the private and not-for-profit sectors. The network will host two conferences in 2013 and engage more widely with the international social research community through twitter tweet chats. It will also publish synthesis papers, blogs and an end of network report on its website.
The aim is to explore what is now possible in the UK, what could be possible in the future, to set out a research agenda to help us get there, and to recommend an infrastructure for enabling a transition to web platforms.
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