Bespoke survey solutions

We’ve being doing this for a very long time.

If it’s not on the market, we’ll make it.

Creating a bespoke solution for your research project can be surprisingly cost-effective. It avoids buying expensive off-the-shelf products that – perversely – often mean compromising on what you are trying to do. Because we develop most of the software we use, based on our tried and trusted open-source stack, we are also free of any allegiances to particular software products or providers. It also means that, if required, we can integrate our solutions with your systems simply and swiftly.

We design software to meet your unique and specific requirements.

Alternatively, we can harness the power and flexibility of SCROLL, our cloud-based ‘Survey as a Service’ platform, configuring it precisely to deliver to your specification.

Whichever route you choose, GIDE’s multi-faceted team will bring their profound knowledge of technology, survey research and statistical methods to bear on optimising your enquiry. These skills, and the underlying economies of our approach, have won us repeat contracts in the public and private sectors, as well as with several global research institutions.

Data collection

GIDE has been programming and hosting online surveys, using our own Computer Aided Web Interviewing (CAWI) platform, since 1998. The whole system can also be run on a tablet – or from a USB stick – for offline face-to -face (CAPI) interviewing. Indeed, the system has grown to such an extent that even the most diverse and complex multi-modal collections can be run from the same source scripts and the collected data integrated and stored in the same database.

To support the core collection we can deploy systems for monitoring fieldwork targets, mass email and SMS reminders, panel administration, trade-off, online diaries, quota administration, operational dashboards and more.

We also have our own bulletin board and on-line focus group software which can be customised to your needs.

Our systems can also be used to integrate complex questions and methodologies into other interviewing software if you have problems providing a feature with your usual in-house systems.

In fact, we have developed such a wealth of knowledge and experience, meeting complex challenges, that we believe few can offer or match such an extensive range of technical services around data collection. Our products are now used to conduct surveys all over the world in many different languages.

Our expertise is wide ranging and we also provide consultancy services for UNICOM Intelligence (formally IBM SPSS Data Collection / Dimensions) and Blaise.

Data processing

GIDE is expert in data handling, transformation and restitution, in particular using XML and associated tools.

We have expertise in many programming languages and database formats so can pick the most appropriate tools for each job.

Whether you need to process a small amount of survey data or are wrestling with large complex data structures, we can help. For example, the online systems that we created for the UK Department for Education can generate ad hoc tables and reports from 25 million pupil exam records in just a few seconds.

We are also able to work with established survey data processing software, such as Quantum and UNICOM Intelligence (formally IBM SPSS Data Collection / Dimensions).

We continuously experiment with new technologies and bring the best of these to our work. One of our current development projects is in applying the latest advances from information science to the processing of Big Data.

Analysis and reporting

GIDE has developed its own powerful language for creating highly customised reports and a versatile tool for online cross tabulations. We also have many years of experience in producing high volume cross-tab reports with Quantum.

We are able to respond quickly to the most unusual or complex requests. That could mean a few cross-tabs and charts emailed to you in Microsoft PowerPoint® or a bespoke online reporting system, complete with segmentation models and key driver analysis.

Our team of statisticians works with SPSS®, SAS® and R, and is expert with methodologies applicable to survey data including multivariate and trade-off analyses.