Survey Informatics: Ideas, Issues, and Opportunities

Abstract

As with many other data-driven fields, survey methodologists are turning more and more to the use of technology to improve their practices in terms of higher quality data, quantity and throughput in data collection and data analysis. Overall, this development within the field of survey methodology to embrace technology offers not only an important opportunity to expand the reach of products from computer science to improve the world around us, but also a key opportunity to develop a synergistic relationship between these two valuable scientific disciplines to jointly improve our understanding of both fields and their practices. That is, as survey methodologists employ technological advances in their operations, new problems will arise that will also be of interest to computer science in general and informatics in particular, both from a purely theoretical perspective, as well as a practical application perspective to a wide range of domains. As such, we explore novel opportunities for collaboration between survey science and computer science in an emerging area of research we call Survey Informatics. In this talk, we will outline (1) examples of how computer science research might further benefit survey methodology, beyond simply adopting new software or hardware in their practices, and (2) how survey methodology research can benefit the study of computer science. We will also provide suggestions for immediate opportunities for joint work under this new area of Survey Informatics.