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"DatStat Illume is the best off-the-shelf research solution to support scientifically sound research. DatStat Illume has improved our efficiency 87% and enabled us to offer quick, flexible, and cost-effective research services to University researchers."
– Eileen Harwood | Director of Data Collection and Support Services Center | University of Minnesot
University of Minnesota - Data Collection and Support Services Center
The Data Collection and Support Services Center takes their customers’ projects personally. Being limited with costly phone- and paper-based methods, the support center sought out a scientifically sound and secure online data collection and management tool to better serve University researchers.
Phone- and paper-based methods were restricting the center from going into new areas of data collection and essentially reducing support effectiveness and negatively impacting customers’ success.
With many customers to serve, staff was bogged down with the clunky, inflexible CATI system—in-design and in-progress survey changes were time-consuming and discouraged.
Custom-built solutions took many months—even a basic solution for a single customer. This prolonged the research cycle and was not scalable or cost-effective.
Monotonous, research-related data collection lead to high turn-over in the support services center, and was viewed as a costly trouble spot by University staff.
DatStat Illume delivers a breadth of capabilities including advanced customization, multiple question types, real-time data validation, respondent accessibility, and real-time data access.
With the CATI system based on the technology, only a programmer could set up and make changes. With Illume’s flexible, intuitive interface, the entire staff can now fully service their customers, and in new ways customers hadn’t considered.
From online screening and participation management to facilitating school-based studies, DatStat Illume’s quick customization and endless flexibility meets the expansive and varied needs of University researchers and eliminates the need for custom-built solutions.
Augmenting their historical list of research methods, inspired UMN support staff continuously push DatStat Illume’s capabilities to offer creative and flexible solutions to meet and exceed their customers’ expectations.
Online tools for participant screening and scientifically sound data gathering have helped investigators shorten the research cycle by months while the cost savings has enabled them to increase their audience reach 10-fold.
The turnaround for research setup was reduced from months to weeks, an 87% improvement in staff efficiency and research preparation/management.
Removing custom-built solutions reduced research setup time from about 6 months to less than 2 weeks and saved tremendous upfront costs.
Viewed now as experts, support staff turnover lowered from 50% per year to just 10%, a 40% increase in retention—HR costs are now spent rewarding rather than recruiting.
