[WEB4LIB] Allowing only Unique Survey Responses

[Thomas Dowling]

> Has anyone ever put a survey on the Web and somehow controlled so that
each
> person who fills it out, can only do so once, so as not to skew the
results?
> I'm thinking the only way to do this would be to distribute "keys" in
the
> form of a unique password that once used becomes disabled...any other
ideas?
>

...but then you'd need a way to make sure you weren't distributing
multiple keys to the same people, which is the same problem.

The only way I've seen this reliably work is to ask for an externally
issued ID (credit card number, library barcode, student ID number, etc.)
and a name, *and actually check* that the two match.  So, you just need
two things: a mechanism for doing this, and a ready explanation to users
of why you're checking this information.

Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu