A research call center is the operational unit for survey data collection from which outbound telephone calls on a computer-assisted telephone interviewing survey are made. It can exist in many forms, including (a) a large single-site operation with many hundreds of booths; (b) several linked smaller sites; (c) a spare office with a few desks and phones; or (d) a virtual site, where the interviewers log into a Web application and do all the dialing from their homes.

Gathering data via the use of computer-assisted telephone interviewing is not the only research activity that might take place at the research call center, but this is the primary activity of such a set-up. Other research-related activities may include the following:

• Taking inbound calls, either as a support for ...