Telephone
I&S' Field Director has 23 years experience in telephone field operations. We maintain a ratio of one supervisor per ten interviewers.

All interviewers receive extensive written and oral training on how to conduct both paper and CATI surveys. Interviewers are trained to handle interviewing so it is pleasant, respondent experience. This helps reduce refusal rates. In addition, all interviewers assigned to a study receive an extensive briefing on how to conduct the survey.

Ongoing monitoring conducted on all interviewers, with a minimum of 10% of all interviews monitored on a daily basis.

Production reports are reviewed on a continual shift basis by supervisors to ensure that study requirements are met and adjustments made as necessary. Project staff review the production reports daily and provide clients with ready feedback on study progress and, if necessary, alerting clients to potential problem areas that need to be addressed.

Mail
I&S conducts a variety of tests on client or client supplied databases to ensure accuracy and completeness. We often go beyond client specs to test for such things as duplicate addresses, respondents, occasions, and other factors. Mail can be internally CASS and NCOA Certified to obtain Postal Service discounted postage rates.

Before mailing, test batches are runt to ensure accuracy of printing (this becomes more important as customization of questionnaires and letter increases). Output is checked periodically to ensure continued accuracy as procedures warrant (e.g., different print runs, use of different data bases, etc.).

Editing requirements are established in advance, and revised as necessary to achieve client objectives. Returned questionnaires are revised for usability (completeness based on client standards), dated, numbered and scanned via electronic optical scanning technology. Scanning is faster, more accurate and lower cost than standard data entry techniques. Editing instructions are programmed to alert the data entry operator to potential errors so that proper editing can be made to the data. All data entered is 100% verified for accuracy.

Tabulations/Reports
I&S has written, standardized tabulation specifications. Detailed tabulation specifications not covered by I&S' standards are provided to I&S' trained data processing personnel by experienced I&S Project Mangers. Utilizing I&S standards and custom specifications, I&S's data processing personnel define all data outputs.

All data is checked for internal consistency (e.g., skip patterns). Marginals are used to check the data output to ensure accuracy of definitions. Data tables are checked for accuracy and understandability both by I&S's data processing staff and I&S Project Managers.