The Future is here, now!

Were delighted to announce the launch of our new panel - The Future Panel. Set up in collaboration with UCAS Media, The Future Panel will comprise around 20,000 applicants and prospective applicants to higher education. Built from respondents to UCAS's Applicant and Pre-Applicant Databases, it includes Year 12 and 13 pupils (so that's predominately 16 - 18 year olds) from schools and colleges across the UK plus smaller sub-sets of mature and international applicants. The Future Panel will provide a unique platform for anyone wanting to conduct research with young people and prospective students: independent, well recruited and managed, tailored and focused to the needs of our panellists and clients.

For higher education researchers...

As well as enabling researchers to pose questions on an ad-hoc basis, a sample of Future Panellists has been recruited to take part in a longitudinal study. The study will track prospective students at key points along their decision making journey to investigate when and how decisions are made about where and what to study at university/college. By carefully setting quotas for sub-groups and asking questions in near real-time, we will find out how, when and why students make their decisions, thereby answering questions critical to all universities and colleges.

Contact Eleanor Simmons on 020 7288 8789 to find out more.

Omnibus goes weekly

Our Student Omnibus is going weekly (it's been run fortnightly for the past three years). Its the perfect vehicle (forgive the pun) when you have a relatively small number of questions that need answering by a large, highly representative sample of students. Great for PR work, incidence checks, market sizing and valuation, attitude and usage, trend monitors (were happy to negotiate special rates for ongoing projects) and capturing open responses.

Check out the costs and timetable in our new brochure

Facebook leads the pack among those considering university

We asked the members of The Future Panel about their online communities which they have signed up to and of the sites they belong to, which they have used in the last four weeks. Facebook is out in the lead but MySpace is also hugely popular and well-used. Second Life does less well with this crowd Do you need to research how your customers or applicants use these sites? Call Eleanor on 020 7288 8789 to discuss.

Base: n = 12,000 16 and 17 year olds, new members of The Future Panel, Feb/March 2008.

Questionnaires more engaging than ever

You've probably completed loads of online questionnaires. How many did you find engaging or, dare I say it, fun? We've been working hard lately to make ours far more interesting. Take a look at some examples. Why do we bother? We all know the answer instinctively. Questionnaires that are boring will elicit uninspired responses.

Higher Expectations 2007/8

This year is turning out to be the best ever for our annual flagship Study, Higher Expectations. Continued development with The Knowledge Partnership and exciting new sections on employability, university communications, green factors, new pricing charts and total benchmarking flexibility in Module 3 are all helping to keep the Study fresh.

Download a brochure or contact Ben on 020 7288 8789 for more information.

Facebook

Becky Lewis presented on 'Social media as a platform for brand communication amongst students' at the Web 2.0 and Social Media conference back in October 2007. If you'd like to know how students use Facebook (as well as some penetration and usage stats) then please give Becky a call on 020 7288 8789. She'll be happy to send you a copy of her report outlining the recent conference presentation.

The Team

Were happy to announce new additions to the Opinionpanel team. Eleanor Simmons is our new Associate Director for Higher Education and will be heading up the launch of The Future Panel. Joyce Obanishola has joined as Senior Data Processing Executive and Chris Yorkston is our new IT whiz kid and joins as IT and Data Executive. Were running out of space!

Check out the rest of the team.

Doctors on the dole?

Read our new Article of the Month by Lara Khoury, a fourth year medical student at Newcastle University. She's contemplating the prospect of unemployment or leaving the country after five years of hard study and taxpayer funding her to the tune of around 200,000!

MRS Company Partners

Opinionpanel is a Market Research Society Company Partner. Were committed to upholding and advancing the highest industry standards and best practice.

Come and eat sweets with us!

We'll be sponsoring and exhibiting at the Inspired Student Spend conference on Tuesday 29th April. If you're attending please come and say hi!

About Opinionpanel

Opinionpanel is the independent market research agency dedicated to understanding students before, during and after their time at university. We recruit specialist panels annually with UCAS and now run the UK's only large scale research platform in this market; over 60,000 applicants, students and graduates with verified academic 'ac.uk' email addresses and detailed profiles.

Upcoming Conferences

We'll be sponsoring and exhibiting at the Inspired Student Spend conference on Tuesday 29th April. If you're attending please come and say hi!

Contacts

Ben Marks
benmarks@opinionpanel.co.uk
020 7354 6470

Becky Lewis
becky@opinionpanel.co.uk
020 7354 6471

Eleanor Simmons
eleanor@opinionpanel.co.uk
020 7354 6472

Sam Williams
sam@opinionpanel.co.uk
020 7288 8796

General tel. 020 7288 8789

Opinionpanel Ltd
Aberdeen House
22-24 Highbury Grove
London N5 2EA