online panel

Online panels are a form of access panel.{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|loc=Online panel research: history, concepts, applications and a look at the future}} The ISO standard ISO 20252 defines it as "a sample database of potential respondents who declare that they will cooperate for future data collection if selected".{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|loc=Online panel research: history, concepts, applications and a look at the future}} Panel members are typically recruited through an agency campaign, often with some kind of incentive, or appealing to those who simply wish to share their opinion.{{sfn|Gideon|2012|p=|loc=E-Mail Surveys}} Online panel data (OPD) is widely used in market research.{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|loc=Online panel research: history, concepts, applications and a look at the future}} Other fields that contain prominent usage of online panel data include psychological, social, and medical research, as well as electoral studies.{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|loc=Online panel research: history, concepts, applications and a look at the future}}

Online panels were first utilized in academic journals in the late 1990s, though similar ideas had been proposed in the 1980s. Usage has steadily increased since this time, with one analysis putting their prevalence at 14.3% of their dataset of the empirical articles published in 2017.{{Cite journal |last1=Porter |first1=Christopher O. L. H. |last2=Outlaw |first2=Ryan |last3=Gale |first3=Jake P. |last4=Cho |first4=Thomas S. |date=January 2019 |title=The Use of Online Panel Data in Management Research: A Review and Recommendations |journal=Journal of Management |language=en |volume=45 |issue=1 |pages=319–344 |doi=10.1177/0149206318811569 |issn=0149-2063|hdl=1805/20617 |hdl-access=free }}{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|loc=Online panel research: history, concepts, applications and a look at the future}} They were formerly called discontinuous access panels; the usage of the word "panel" in this context is a non-standard meaning relative to its typical survey usage (which aim to measure the same variables using the same group of people at different times).{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|loc=Online panel research: history, concepts, applications and a look at the future}}

There are several types of online panels:

• General population panels, which can include hundreds of thousands of participants and are typically used for studies of the general population{{sfn|Gideon|2012|p=|loc=E-Mail Surveys}}{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|loc=Online panel research: history, concepts, applications and a look at the future}}
• Specialty panels, in which the participants are selected due to a specific commonality they share, like owning a specific product or being a member of a specific demographic{{sfn|Gideon|2012|p=|loc=E-Mail Surveys}}
• Proprietary panels, a sub-type of specialty panels focused on specific companies, also called client panels or insight communities{{sfn|Gideon|2012|p=|loc=E-Mail Surveys}}{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|loc=Online panel research: history, concepts, applications and a look at the future}}
• Census balanced samples, panels designed to reflect the population's demographic proportions{{sfn|Gideon|2012|p=|loc=E-Mail Surveys}}
• Election panels, panels of those eligible to vote in political elections before and after elections{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|loc=Online panel research: history, concepts, applications and a look at the future}}

An example is the German Internet Panel, which studies the economic and political attitudes of its participants. This panel is unusual in its inclusion of people who previously had little internet access.{{Cite journal |last1=Blom |first1=Annelies G. |last2=Gathmann |first2=Christina |last3=Krieger |first3=Ulrich |date=November 2015 |title=Setting Up an Online Panel Representative of the General Population: The German Internet Panel |journal=Field Methods |language=en |volume=27 |issue=4 |pages=391–408 |doi=10.1177/1525822X15574494 |issn=1525-822X}} Another is Amazon's MTurk, which includes as one of the tasks assigned to its crowdsourced workers OP participation.

Online panels are a useful way to keep costs down but to also reach a high number of people, which makes them ideal for either pilot studies or scale development. They are also used to solve a sample frame problem in surveys where e-mails would otherwise be used, where there is no otherwise complete e-mail list of the target study population.{{sfn|Gideon|2012|p=|loc=E-Mail Surveys}} The speed of data collection and sampling efficiency are also common reasons for their usage.{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|loc=Online panel research: history, concepts, applications and a look at the future}}

While popular, their usage has attracted criticism. Data quality issues are a concern with online panels, including "panel conditioning" of the respondents.{{sfn|Callegaro|Manfreda|Vehovar|2015|p=|loc=Online Panel Data Quality}} Many studies are also ambiguous and do not clearly report if they used panel data. There are also ethical concerns due to the usage of incentives in attracting the respondents, and the fact that though many OP respondents are paid workers many studies do not report their pay, or if paid far under the minimum wage.

One problem with online panels is that they are not well suited for evaluating services that are offline alternatives, as the users of these services would be unlikely to be selected for an online panel.{{sfn|Poynter|2010|p=}} One analysis found that an online panel was biased in a way that reflected Internet demographics, with women, the elderly, and the uneducated being less represented in the sample; the analysis found that this sample was biased and statistical weighting could not overcome the issue.{{sfn|Gideon|2012|p=|loc=E-Mail Surveys}}

• Computer-assisted telephone interviewing
• Computer-assisted personal interviewing
• Questionnaire construction
• Paid survey

{{reflist}}

• {{Cite book |last1=Callegaro |first1=Mario |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=votgAwAAQBAJ |title=Online Panel Research: A Data Quality Perspective |last2=Baker |first2=Reginald P. |last3=Bethlehem |first3=Jelke |last4=Göritz |first4=Anja S. |last5=Krosnick |first5=Jon A. |last6=Lavrakas |first6=Paul J. |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-118-76351-3 |language=en |access-date=2024-08-31 |via=Google Books}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Callegaro |first1=Mario |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=A_0aCAAAQBAJ&dq=%22online+panel%22&pg=PA1972 |title=Web Survey Methodology |last2=Manfreda |first2=Katja Lozar |last3=Vehovar |first3=Vasja |publisher=SAGE Publications |year=2015 |isbn=978-1-4739-2729-2 |language=en |access-date=2024-09-01 |via=Google Books}}
• {{Cite book |last=Gideon |first=Lior |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LmZ1uZ7Pd7gC&dq=%22online+panel%22&pg=PA321 |title=Handbook of Survey Methodology for the Social Sciences |publisher=Springer Science & Business Media |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-4614-3876-2 |language=en |access-date=2024-09-01 |via=Google Books}}
• {{Cite book |last=Poynter |first=Ray |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MSj2xBDkaA8C&dq=%22online+panel%22&pg=PT94 |title=The Handbook of Online and Social Media Research: Tools and Techniques for Market Researchers |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-470-97137-6 |language=en |access-date=2024-08-31 |via=Google Books}}

Category:Survey methodology