How to build an effective panel management software?

 How to build an effective panel management software?

Panel management software has many uses and paramount importance in researchers' lives. Depending on perspective, researchers can use such software for different purposes such as: self-efficacy (empowerment), quality assurance or recruitment automation. When it comes to research fields that are dealing with recruiting participants for experiments (e.g., psychology, social sciences, economics) the panel management software is an essential part of research practice. A well designed panel can significantly reduce time spent on coordination efforts between the researcher and participants. This reduces the overall costs which results in attractive incentives for panel members to participate in experiments conducted by academic institutions or commercial enterprises.  

The essay is structured into two main parts - key aspects of an effective panel management software followed by a list of essential components that have to be considered by software developers.

An effective panel management tool should also provide researchers with an access to comprehensive participant profiling. Participant data collected through the panel research platform, which adds an additional layer of security and privacy protection for both researchers and participants. Moreover, this data can be used in the future to better tailor advertising materials to suit participants' interests or demographic characteristics. Researchers are also able to use panel management software as a recruitment tool for their studies by either directly posting links on research projects or publishing calls for participation on available study portals.

Panel management software should enable the researcher to easily upload questionnaires onto their survey platform which will then be distributed among participants who fit certain criteria (e.g., age, gender). For example, researchers can set up their panel to recruit participants across multiple locations or even globally. This leads to more demographic diversification of the study sample which results in better generalizability of findings .

It is also worth mentioning that panel management software should provide users with a variety of payment options (e.g., PayPal), thus allowing them to choose the way they want to get paid for participation (e.g., more survey points that can be exchanged for specific goods or services rather than cash). Researchers are able to send incentives directly through their panel management software platform and automatically record each transaction. This allows both sides (researchers and respondents) to automatically track who took part in a particular experiment and how much is due to them.

After the experiment is completed, researchers receive all data collected directly onto their research management software (e.g., SPSS or STATA) and can then run statistical analyses on it without needing to retype any information that was gathered from participants. Moreover, panel management software has a built-in automated data export feature which allows users to download raw data in a format of their choice .

Exclusive list of components that should be considered by community panel management tool developers: - A variety of payment options - Incentive distribution - Participant profiling - Easy participant recruitment system - Customizable study design senders- File storage system - Customer support