ABSTRACT
Online panel research is a research method that brings together a group of online research participants (or respondents) to answer questions on various topics over a period of time. The participants are pre-recruited and profiled: they volunteer to take part in surveys and provide demographic (and possibly lifestyle) information when they enrol for the panel. Some type of remuneration might be offered, which can include cash payments, entry into competitions, charitable donations, discount vouchers or gifts. There are various terms that can be used to describe this type of research including online panels, custom online panels, internet access panels, customer advisory panels, web panels and proprietary panels. Online research communities (Chapter 44) also recruit members for research purposes over an extended period of time, but differ in that they concentrate on qualitative methods and view individuals as community members, rather than as research participants.
