In order to make its phone interviewers more productive and to allow them to pose questions in more complicated sequences, ISR became one of the first academic survey organizations to use computer-assisted telephone interviewing, in which interviewers enter information directly into a computer. ISR expanded this approach in the early 1990s with computer-assisted personal interviewing, outfitting interviewers with laptops for face-to-face interviews.

Monitoring the Future (MTF) is a study founded in 1965, focusing on epidemiological and etiological research. In addition to being a basic research study, MTF is one of the nation’s leading sources for information on tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use in adolescents and young adults.