There is an increase of surveys, performed through the web and we can also expect fast further development, especially because of the advantages which web surveys bring, compared to other means of data collection. We can also expect that the percentage of people with internet access will increase (rural population and older generations) and respondents in web surveys will differ less from the general population. Web panels are becoming especially important in web surveying, where the respondents are included in the survey for longer periods of time (i.e. a year or more), they receive surveys regularly (i.e. weekly or monthly) and are rewarded for their cooperation. With several years of delay, web panels have also arrived to Slovenia. In this paper, we first address the general problems of web surveys and web panels in particular, and then we present the situation in Slovenia in detail. Within this procedure, we have performed interviews or surveys with web panel providers. It has been shown that their size, characteristics, management and methodological approaches are quite similar. Analyses also show that survey results in web panels are encouraging, although they do not represent the entire population in all cases. But we can still expect further rapid increase of web panel use in Slovenia.

Keywords: web panel, internet, research, general population, demographic characteristics