During the first three years (2013-2015), the panel was reserved for the sole use of the teams of the DIME-SHS consortium. This pilot study was a necessary step, in order to implement the methodology and the IT tools, and to experiment and assess the system.

A first sample of about 1,000 panel members was recruited in 2012 for this pilot phase. Different contact modes were tested (mail, face-to-face, phone), as well as the effect of vouchers as incentives. In addition, the implementation of questionnaires on tablet, the length of surveys, the conditioning and professionalization of the respondents and the ways to limit attrition were subject of experimentation during the pilot phase

The calls for projects were open to the entire national and international scientific community  since 2015.
 

For further information on the pilot study, please see: Anne Cornilleau, Anne-Sophie Cousteaux, Stéphane Legleye, Nirintsoa Razakamanana and the ELIPSS team,  Bilan du pilote de l’Etude longitudinale par internet pour les sciences sociales (ELIPSS): 2012-2015, Report of the project realised for the Commission Démographie et questions sociales du CNIS, septembre 2015, 45 p.

The target population consists in all individuals living in private households in metropolitan France, aged from 18 to 75 when entering the panel, having sufficient command of the French language to answer self-administered questionnaires.
The French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) drew a random sampling of 4,500 households from the 2011 census data. Among the eligible persons in the household, one person was randomly selected to participate in the panel.

The sample was divided into a main sample of 3,500 households and a reserve sample of 1,000 households. The exploitation of the reserve sample provided a size of more than 1,000 panel members, which could not be reached after a full exhaustion of the main sample.

Recruitment of the panel for the pilot phase was conducted in two steps.

The exploitation of the main sample (3,500 addresses) was carried out from June 2012 to February 2013. The recruitment process involved three contact modes. An invitation letter to participate was sent by post. This first contact was part of the experiment: half of the invitation letters included a gift voucher of 10 euros and half of the letters were sent without an incentive. Then postal and telephone reminders were implemented. After a call for tenders, the survey institute TNS Sofres was selected to exploit face-to-face the addresses that had not been contacted yet and to convert the refusals of the households which had declined to participate during the first step.

From January to April 2013, 1,000 addresses of the reserve sample were exploited by phone and face-to-face by TNS Sofres.
This procedure enabled the recruitment of 1,039 persons who agreed to participate in the panel. Two years after the first survey, 900 panel members still remained.

For further information, please see: Anne Cornilleau, Anne-Sophie Cousteaux Stéphane Legleye, Nirintsoa Razakamanana and the ELIPSS team, Le recrutement du panel ELIPSS, Project outcomes achieved with the financial support of the INPES under Grant No. 060 / DAS-12, June 2014, 38 p.

To be a part of the ELIPSS panel, selected individuals signed an agreement governing the conditions of participation in the surveys and the usage of the touchscreen tablet. Once the agreement was signed and returned, a tablet was sent to each panel member. The home screen of the tablet includes the ELIPSS application to complete the questionnaires.

By entering the panel, panel members were offered training by phone on the handling of the tablet and on the ELIPSS application. Moreover, they were familiarised with the different types of questions occurring during fieldwork due to the first survey, which was administered from December 2012 to March 2013.

All along their participation, panel members were in regular contact with the panel managers, particularly if they had any questions on the survey or if they still had difficulties with the usage of the tablet. They could also find information on the website dedicated to panel members: elipss.fr.

To increase the panel’s size, a new recruitment was decided in 2016, aiming at a total sample size of 3,500 panelists. 

Following the pilot study’s take-aways, fieldwork was exclusively conducted in face-to-face by Ipsos. The study’s field was identical to that of the pilot, save for the superior age limit, increased to 79 in order to take into account pilot panelists’ ageing. The sample, containing 9,000 addresses (6,000 for the main sample and 3,000 for the reserve) randomly drawn in 2014’s census, produced a 32% final response rate.  

As for the pilot phase, respondents were offered a digital tablet in order to answer surveys, as well as an internet subscription.

This enlarged panel had 3,500 participants in September 2016. In September 2019, when the time had come to launch a new phase of the ELIPSS panel, around 2,400 panelists were still present.

For further information: Pilorin Thomas, Retour d'expérience sur la deuxième vague de recrutement du panel ELIPSS, Report written for INSEE, January 2018, 20p.