Rotator Survey Frequently asked questions about the handling of time

Rotator was designed with continuous surveys in mind, namely surveys in which the same questionnaire is applied on multiple periods. For instance, you could apply your survey on JANUARY, FEBRUARY, MARCH, etc. Or you could apply it on 20015, 2016, 2017, etc. Each of these periods is called "WAVE". If your questionnaire is going to be applied just once, you may skip the step "Periods", however, if the same questionnaire (with or without modifications) will be applied several times, you may want to add these periods now.

Concepts for newbies
  • 1.What is a wave of time in a survey A wave is each of the cycles of a continuous survey where data is collected and analyzed. For example, if you apply the same questionnaire on every month and then analyze that piece of data, each month will be a "wave". Thus this survey will have 12 waves at the end of the year. Please have in mind that the words "WAVE", "PERIOD" and "TIME" have exactly the same meaning within the software.
  • 2.What is an "Ad-hoc" survey? An ad-hoc survey is a type of survey in which the questionnaire is applied just once. This type of survey has always a single wave (Only one period). An Ad-hoc survey might be transformed into a continuous survey if you wish to reapply the same questionnaire again. If your survey is Ad-Hoc, you may ignore the step "Periods" and move forward.
  • 3.What is a continuous survey? A continuous survey is a type of survey in which the same questionnaire is applied several times during a year, or if it is applied yearly. A continuous survey has more than one wave and it can grow (in waves) as large as required. Some authors name this type of survey as "Longitudinal Surveys" or sometimes; "Cross-sectional surveys".
  • 4.What is a continuous Survey type "PANEL"? Rotator uses the concept of "Panel" to classify the type of continuous surveys in which surveyed subjects are always the same. There are consumers panels, distributors panels, smokers panels, professionals panels, etc. For this type of surveys, the system requires you to import a unique Excel file with the sample of subjects to be interviewed.
  • 5.What is a continuous Survey type "PULSE"? A pulse is a continuous survey in which different people are surveyed on each wave (Mobile sample). Pulse is the continuous survey most applied by researchers, they are normally used to measure products penetration, opinion of presidential candidates, etc. For this type of surveys, the system requires you to import an Excel file with the sample of subjects to be interviewed on each wave.

Functional questions, for all users.
  • 1.How many waves of time does Rotator support? The limit of waves depends on the type of software license that you have. To check these limits check the Site of the product and look for the section "Buy".
  • 2.What happen when you add a new wave of time? When you add a new wave of time, Rotator expands its database and creates a new tab for each wave; these tabs can be seen at the step "Data" of Activity 3.
  • 3.Can I modify my questionnaire wave after wave? Yes, Rotator is flexible; you can add questions, delete questions, add choices, modify texts and codes whenever you want, and even with data loaded. Remember that after you make any change, you have to compile your model and check the quality control screen.
  • 4.Can I define my survey as "Ad-hoc" and then change it to "Continuous" later on? Yes. Most of the users do that.
  • 5.I have created several individual "Ad-hoc" surveys. Can I join them into a unique survey with several waves of time? If each survey was modeled separately (from scratch) probably choices codes and variables codes are different, in this case it will not be possible (easy) to join several surveys. But, if you have used the same Model to load each wave (by erasing the old data), you can join them for sure. Use the option "Reconstruct history" located at the top menu of the initial screen of the system.