[Year 12 Its] Primary vs Secondary Data Sources

[Charmaine Taylor]

I agree with you Kevork.
When I'm attempting to distinguish the two I use this rule of thumb:  a 
primary data source is uninterpreted data ie the individual or 
aggregated responses to the customer survey. An analysis of the survey 
could also be primary source if it didn't contain value judgements but 
the commentary on the survey would be a secondary data source because it 
is someone's interpretation of the data and thus is a variable the value 
of which is dependent upon the skill, bias, knowledge, motive of the author.
Perhaps someone else has a simpler way to distinguish the two.


Charmaine Taylor
Sunbury Downs College


Kevork Krozian wrote:

>Hi folks,
>
>   Just rolled out SAC32 and went through the practice VITTA CD SACs.
> I have a concern with one question in Sample SAC B on Happy Homes.
>
>Question 2:  What other information would you collect and how and who would you collect this information from? Also identify which of these are primary or secondary sources of data. 
>
>Answer: Primary sources of data would include the collection of the forms presently used to write quotes, any output produced by the system for example the 'order' printout produced by the 'jobs' database and screen dumps of input screens. 
>
>Interviews of the customer service staff who process the quotes and the salesmen, would provide additional sources of primary data. 
>
>Secondary sources of information would include the customer satisfaction surveys and customer complaints log.
>
>Observation and performance of the processes would provide another source of primary data and help to get a more defined view of the present system and its problems.
>
>            < end of answer>
>
> I would have thought customer satisfaction surveys and customer complaints logs would still be primary sources of data as they are still directly connected to the system in question. 
> An example of Secondary data here might be say an across the board survey as found in a newspaper or industry magazine or web site about customers of home security systems in general.
>
> Happy to hear any comments
>
>Regards
>
>
>Kevork Krozian
>IT Manager , Forest Hill College
>Mailing List(s) Creator and Administrator
>http://www.edulists.com.au
>k.krozian at fhc.vic.edu.au
>Mobile: 0419 356 034
>
>
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