Events and activities

2019

Sixth International Workshop on Advances in Adaptive and Responsive Survey Design: From Theory to Practice, 4-5 November 2019

The sixth workshop on Advances in Adaptive and Responsive Survey Design: From Theory to Practice was held on 4-5 November 2019 at the US Census Bureau, Washington DC.  There were over 40 participants and 22 presentations at the workshop under the themes: Models for Measurement, Nonresponse and Cost; Paradata and Other Auxiliary Data; Design Features and Interventions; Applications and Implementations in Establishment Surveys; Incorporating Historical Data and Bayesian Methods; Applications and Implementations in Demographic Surveys; Survey Management and Future Opportunities.  Keynote Speakers at the workshop were: Thomas Louis, Professor Emeritus of Biostatistics, John Hopkins University and previous Associate Director for Research and Methodology and Chief Scientist at the US Census Bureau 2013-2015 and Mike Elliott, Professor in the Biostatistics Department and Research Professor at the Survey Research Center, University of Michigan.  View the presentations.

2017

Fifth International Workshop on Adaptive and Responsive Survey Design and final network meeting, 6-8 November 2017

There were 31 participants to the workshop at the University of Michigan from the United States, Italy, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Canada, and Sweden. The Leverhulme International Network grant hosted two invited speakers: Professor Paul Biemer from RTI International and Dr Peter Miller from the US Census Bureau. There were 14 presentations out of which 4 papers focused on Bayesian approaches to Adaptive Survey Designs.

Following the workshop, the BADEN partners had their final network meeting. The discussions revolved around the optimisation and prioritisation under a Bayesian framework with each member reporting on their case studies. In addition, future work was laid out beyond the grant focusing on prior elicitation, survey outcome variables, measurement error, change over time and optimisation. The partners decided to request a no-cost extension to the Leverhulme Trust until April 2018 to hold an additional BADEN meeting in the Netherlands on April 23-24 2018. The topics for this meeting are on the outcome and write-up of the case studies and the dissemination of software code for implementation at other agencies. Read the presentations.

Joint Statistical Meeting (JSM 2017) - 29 July- 03 August 2017

The intermediary network meeting and invited session were held during the 2017 Joint Statistical Meetings, Baltimore, Maryland on Sunday, 30 July 2017. 

The invited session was well-attended and a great success with positive feedback from conference participants. Read presentations from the invited sessions. 

Bilateral meeting, 2-3 March 2017

A bilateral meeting between The University of Manchester, Statistics Netherlands, University of Michigan, the US Census Bureau and RTI International was held at the RTI offices in Washington DC.

At this meeting, the theoretical paper on Bayesian estimation of design parameters and implementation was finalised (submitted to the Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology) and each country reported on progress made on their case studies for the second paper. A discussion was also held on the possibility of disseminating software code based on the theoretical paper for use by other statistical agencies. The meeting also included a discussion on the presentations to the invited session at the Joint Statistical Meetings to be held in Baltimore, 26 July-3 August 2017. Finally,  a discussion was held on the planning of the Fifth International Workshop on Advances in Adaptive and Responsive Survey Design to be held at the University of Michigan, 6-7 November 2017, which included a register of invited participants, the call for papers with topics of submission and invited speakers. 

2016

Intermediary Network meeting - 14-15 November 2016

The intermediary network meeting was held at the University of Southampton. At the meeting, we obtained updates on country case studies and discussed some initial results and findings from the first stage of estimating design parameters under the Bayesian framework: how to identify and weight the prior distributions for estimating the design parameters and the influence of the prior distributions on the posterior distributions. We are moving to the next stage of research which is on the optimisation and prioritisation of adaptive survey designs under the Bayesian framework.   A draft outline of the second network paper was written by Statistics Netherlands and distributed to the network partners.  We also discussed the planning of the Fifth International Workshop on Advances in Adaptive and Responsive Survey (ASD) to be held at the University of Michigan on November 6-7 2017 and the development of software tools in ‘R’ with a manual as one of the key outcomes of the project.

Bilateral meeting, 20-21 September 2016

An additional bilateral meeting between Statistics Netherlands, University of Southampton, Statistics Sweden and The University of Manchester was held at Statistics Netherlands.

At the meeting, the Statistics Netherlands team demonstrated the software application in ‘R’ for the Bayesian estimation of design parameters which will be used for each case study, starting with the implementation on the case study of Statistics Sweden based on the Swedish Labour Force Survey.  We also obtained updates on the first theoretical network paper from Statistics Netherlands.  We held extensive discussions on the case study from the University of Southampton based on the longitudinal dataset ‘Understanding Society’, where Bayesian modelling is applied for estimating response propensities using information from previous waves. 

American Association for Public Opinion Research 71st Annual Conference (AAPOR), 12-15 May 2016

The intermediary network meeting and invited session were held during the 71st Annual AAPOR Conference, Austin Texas.

The invited session was held on 15 May 2016. The session was well-attended and a great success with positive feedback from conference participants. View the presentations from the invited session.

Bilateral meeting, 21-22 March 2016

A bilateral meeting between The University of Manchester, Statistics Netherlands, University of Michigan and the US Census Bureau was held at the US Census Bureau in Washington DC.  

At this meeting, each network member reported on their case studies and discussed the presentations for the invited session at the 71st Annual AAPOR Conference, Austin Texas in May 2016. We also discussed the first theoretical network paper led by Statistics Netherlands on the general Bayesian framework paper titled:  A Bayesian Analysis of Design Parameters in Survey Data Collection.  We heard from the University of Michigan on their research related to response propensity modelling for daily survey response monitoring under a Bayesian framework. Whilst visiting at the US Census Bureau, we also heard talks from members of staff on adaptive design applications for both the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and for the US Decennial Census. It was very interesting to hear about some of the problems encountered when transforming research into practice.   

2015

Fourth International Workshop - 9-10 November 2015

We held our Fourth International Workshop on Advances in Adaptive and Responsive Survey Design at The University of Manchester, UK.    

There were 40 participants to the international workshop from the following countries:  United States, Italy, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Germany, Canada, Norway, Sweden and Australia. The Leverhulme International Network grant funded two invited speakers: Professor Rod Little from the University of Michigan and Professor Carl Sarndal from Stockholm University.  Additional funds were obtained through the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods to fund Professor Roger Tourangeau from Westat, United States.  In addition, Professor Peter Lynn from the United Kingdom was also funded form internal funding. There is no doubt that the participation of these leading and prominent professors greatly enhanced the quality of the discussions and feedback on the papers that were presented at the workshop. View the agenda and presentations. 

Panel session - October 2015

The Principal Investigator successfully proposed an invited panel session to the 71st Annual American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) conference, Austin Texas, 12-15 May 2016. 

Intermediary meeting- 10-11 September 2015

The Intermediary meeting with all partners was held at Statistics Sweden in Stockholm.

At the meeting, the US Census Bureau partner presented an overview of a study comparing the many indicators presented in the literature that have been used for adaptive survey designs. Initial results show that many of these indicators measure the same thing, eg variation in response propensities, which is indicative of a lack of representativeness. Each of the partners then presented their institutional case study for the elaboration of the Bayesian framework for adaptive survey designs. These case studies will form the basis of the work within the network. Discussions were held about collaborations, the possibility to share data and proposed papers for the first network dissemination at the 71^st Annual American Association of Public Opinion Research (AAPOR) Conference in May. CBS Netherlands partners provided an overview of the first theoretical paper on Bayesian Adaptive Survey Designs which was widely discussed. Finally, all partners discussed planning for the 4th International Workshop: Advances in Adaptive and Responsive Survey Design to be held at The University of Manchester (9-10 November 2015).

Bilateral meeting - 28-29 May 2015

A bilateral meeting between CBS Netherlands, University of Manchester and Statistics Sweden was held in the Netherlands.

At this meeting, theoretical topics around the Bayesian framework for adaptive survey designs were widely discussed and clarified. The framework is decomposed into three separate components: modelling design parameters (response propensities, cost functions); learning and updating posterior distributions of design parameters based on information coming in from the current survey; optimisation of quality and cost criteria that also have probability distributions. In addition, the different types of adaptive survey design strategies handled by partner institutions were classified: (1) predetermined strategies (eg. recruitment letters, mixing data collection modes); (2) follow-up strategies (eg. interventions during data collection, stopping criteria); (3) hybrid of both strategies. Other discussions related to partnerships and PhD students, joint research and possible sharing of data. The first theoretical paper is led by researchers at CBS Netherlands.

Kick-start meeting, 26-27 February 2015

The kick-start meeting was held at the United States Census Bureau in Washington DC.

At this meeting, each partner provided a presentation on their institutional state-of-the-art. In addition, a research agenda for the network was widely discussed and was finalized in April 2015. The research agenda document is in Appendix 1 of the BADEN 2015 annual report. View the presentations.