What is Respondent Driven Sampling ?

Respondent-driven sampling (RDS), combines "snowball sampling" with a mathematical model that weights the sample to compensate for the fact that the sample was collected in a non-random way. More.

Data Requirements for RDS Analysis

While data requirements for RDS analysis are minimal, there are three pieces of information which are essential for analysis (RDS analysis CANNOT BE PERFORMED without these fields for each respondent):

• Personal Network Size (Degree) - Number of people the respondent knows within the target population.
• Respondent's Serial Number - Serial number of the coupon the respondent was recruited with.
• Respondent's Recruiting Serial Numbers - Serial numbers from the coupons the respondent is given to recruit others.

References

• Heckathorn, Douglas D. 1997." Respondent-Driven Sampling: A New Approach to the Study of Hidden Populations." Social Problems.
  • The original article in which RDS was introduced
    
  
  
• Heckathorn, Douglas D. 2002." Respondent-Driven Sampling II: Deriving Valid Population Estimates from Chain-Referral Samples of Hidden Populations." Social Problems.
  • Article extending the RDS method to include calculation of standard errors and post-stratification to control for differences in network size and clustering across groups
  
  
• Salganik, Matthew J. and Douglas D. Heckathorn. 2004." Sampling and Estimation in Hidden Populations Using Respondent-Driven Sampling." Sociological Methodology.
  • Article showing through both analytic means and simulations that the RDS population estimator is statistically unbiased
  • Outstanding Article Publication Award of the Mathematical Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association
  
  
• Heckathorn, Douglas D. 2007." Extensions of Respondent-Driven Sampling: Analyzing Continuous Variables and Controlling for Differential Recruitment." Sociological Methodology.


• Wejnert, Cyprian and Douglas D. Heckathorn. 2008. "Web-Based Network Sampling: Efficiency and Efficancy of Respondent-Driven Sampling for Online Research." Sociological Methods and Research.
  • This Article presents WebRDS as an online sampling method, compares RDS estimates to institutional data, and provides a test of several assumptions associated with RDS.
  
  
• Volz, Erik and Douglas D. Heckathorn. 2008. "Probability Based Estimation Theory for Respondent-Driven Sampling." Journal of Official Statistics.
  • This paper introduces the RDS II estimator.
  
  
• Wejnert, Cyprian. 2009. "An Empirical Test of Respondent-Driven Sampling: Point Estimates, Variance, Degree Measures, and Out-of-Equilibrium Data." forthcoming: Sociological Methodology.

Downloads

• Estimation of important population parameters such as
  • Population proportions of user defined groups
  • Average personal network sizes 
  • Homophily
  • Measures of statistical significance for population estimates
• Data display and editing
• Export of analysis results to formatted html
• Data visualization and graphics
  
• Analysis of groups defined by a breakpoint of a continuous variable
  

RDSAT 7.1 User Manual

Manual Supplement:
• Graphing Recruitment Chains with NETDraw
  

• How to Cite RDSAT: 
• Volz, E.; Wejnert, C.; Cameron, C.; Spiller, M.; Barash, V.; Degani, I.; and Heckathorn, D.D. 2012. Respondent-Driven Sampling Analysis Tool (RDSAT) Version 7.1. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.
  

RDSAT Download Options:

RDSAT v7.1 Beta is now available for Windows 32-bit, and Windows 64-bit, Mac, Unix, and Linux operating systems. There are several download options, depending on your operating system, and system configuration. 

RDSAT was developed in JAVA, and can be run on any machine which has a JAVA Runtime Environment installed on it. For users who have a recent JAVA Runtime Environment (v.1.6 or greater), you may download option #1 below. If you do not have the JAVA Runtime Environment, you have two options: Get the latest JAVA RE from http://java.com/en/download/manual.jsp, and then download option #1 below. Or, you may download option #2 below, which includes a JAVA runtime; note that option#2 is a much larger file.

Windows users: If you aready have an earlier version of RDSAT 7.1, you may use Option#1.

Current Version:   RDSAT 7.1.46
Release Date:      17 January 2014

Legacy Versions of RDSAT

RDS Coupon Manager:

• Default password for RDSCM is "password" (all lowercase)
• RDSCM is available six languages: English, Russian, Spanish, French, Chinese, Greek and Vietnamese.
• The ethnicity and other categories can be modified to fit your site as follows:
  1. Click on Edit at the top left of the screen, then click on Edit Settings. Insert the administrative password, i.e., the initial value is "password."
  2. Click on "Studies" and in the new widow that pops up, click on "Custom Fields," and then on "Ethnicity." This will pull up the default list of ethnicities, e.g., "Black/African American."
  3. Edit this list: double clicking an entry to delete it and create new items using the "Add" button. Type in each ethnicity which fits your study, and then press the Add button.

• English Version
• Russian Version
• Spanish Version
• French Version
• Chinese Version
• Greek Version
• Vietnamese Version

Contact:

Department of Sociology
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14850
Email: douglas.heckathorn@cornell.edu