An open access poll is a type of opinion poll in which a nonprobability sample of participants self-select into participation. The term includes call-in, mail-in, and some online polls.
The most common examples of open access polls ask people to phone a number, click a voting option on a website, or return a coupon cut from a newspaper. By contrast, professional polling companies use a variety of techniques to attempt to ensure that the polls they conduct are representative, reliable and scientific. The most glaring difference between an open access poll and a scientific poll is that scientific polls typically randomly select their samples and sometimes use statistical weights to make them representative of the target population.
Read more about Open Access Poll: Advantages and Disadvantages, Online Poll, Voodoo Poll
Famous quotes containing the words open, access and/or poll:
“A man’s most open actions have a secret side to them.”
—Joseph Conrad (1857–1924)
“In the greatest confusion there is still an open channel to the soul. It may be difficult to find because by midlife it is overgrown, and some of the wildest thickets that surround it grow out of what we describe as our education. But the channel is always there, and it is our business to keep it open, to have access to the deepest part of ourselves.”
—Saul Bellow (b. 1915)
“If Rosa Parks had taken a poll before she sat down in that bus in Montgomery, she’d still be standing.”
—Mary Frances Berry (b. 1938)