True Random Number Service

Testimonials - Random Sampling

RANDOM.ORG is a true random number service that generates randomness via atmospheric noise. This page contains testimonials from users of the service.

Random Selection of Students

From: Jerid Krulish
Date: 1 October 2008
I am a teacher, and part of my student's grade is based on an in-class response to questions. I noticed that on some days, I was calling on the students who usually don't have the answers, and then on other days, I called on the better students. To solve this, I produced a truly random class list for every class meeting. Now I don't have to think about who knows what, I just read the next name in the list.

Linguistics Study

From: Ingrid Souillé
Date: 27 August 2008
For the experiment I'm conducting for my MA thesis (linguistics) I needed to create a randomised list. The experiment contains 36 times an order of three pictures, of which the participant needs to select one as correct. The order of these three pictures had to be one of the 6 possibilities for each of the 36 items (ABC, ACB etc), and I had to make three different versions. Fortunately for me I found the list randomiser on your website random.org. I gave each possibility a number, entered all six numbers six times and clicked randomise. Within a few seconds, I had three different versions of sequences! This saved me quite some time! I will of course refer to the randomiser correctly in MLA style in my thesis. Thank you for providing this free opportunity online.

Random Drug Testing

From: Mike England
Date: 29 January 2008
Donation: Concern
I am a DOT Compliance Consultant in Chicago IL (USA). I have several clients who are required to conduct random drug testing. I use your web site and I really like it. I just donated $20 to your favorite charity per your request and am notifying you of same per your request.

Clinical Data Analyst

From: Sally B. Buttry from Quality and Safety Services at the Central DuPage Hospital
Date: 17 July 2007
I use random.org to decide a sample population for individual studies. Last month when I went to generate the numbers it appeared the site was gone - but you're back! Thanks for this great free program.

Sarbanes-Oxley Compliance Audits

From: Joe Glade from Resources Global Professionals
Date: 17 May 2007
Greetings, I just wanted to send you a note to say that we are using your web site to do random sampling for Sarbanes-Oxley compliance audits. We include screen prints of your web site to document our selection universe and the random integers generated. Thanks for making it available.

Survey of Medical Residents

From: Charles Lloyd
Date: 15 May 2007
I Googled onto your site to find a random number generator for my wife’s PhD dissertation. She is doing a double blind type survey of medical residents. We used your tables to feed a MS Word macro that apples a random number (300 count) to each page of an 18 page survey. 300x 18 is a big word file. Then we print the surveys as required for each school’s survey requirements. Your site is a great source and we appreciate your effort.

Demographic Study of Bibliographic Database

From: Jay H. Bernstein who is Assistant Professor, Reader Services Librarian, and Interlibrary Loan Librarian at the Robert J. Kibbee Library at Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, New York, USA
Date: 20 April 2007
I used Random.org in 2004 to create a sample of bibliographic records in OCLC WorldCat for a demographic study of that bibliographic database. The results were published in my article, "From the Ubiquitous to the Nonexistent: A Demographic Study of OCLC WorldCat," Library Resources & Technical Services 50 (2): 79-90, Spring 2006. I have since taken two samples for further studies of WorldCat.

Study of Political Bias on CSPAN

From: Alex Vincent
Date: 11 February 2007
I am high school student taking AP Statistics. I am using the random sequence generator for a major project studying if CSPAN has any political bias. Given the large size of their programming archive, I needed a way to randomly select which days and hours to research. Thank you random.org!

USAID Health Survey

From: Charles Wright
Date: 15 January 2007
Hey, just wanted to say thanks for your random sequence generator. I work for a clinic run by Peru Mission in the city of Trujillo, Peru. We used your sequence generator to do a USAID health survey in one of the poorer neighborhoods in La Esperanza. It was quick and provided exactly what we needed for carrying out the random survey. Thank you once again!

Randomization of Dutch War Veterans

From: drs. Rudy C. de Jong from DPAU University in Dronten, The Netherlands
Date: 28 November 2006
Thank you for offering the random number generator. I have used it for a research on the effects of target specific communications in a N=2000 population of Dutch War Veterans. In the experimental setting is was necessary to randomise the research population and to divide them over four sub-groups, similar in size. The only acceptable way was to do so by adding a randomised variable in SPSS. Afterwards it was possible to assign the subjects to one of the groups by sorting on the randomized variable. Of course I gave due credit in the report by mentioning your service and revealing the URL.

Random Seating of Court-Martial Panels in Germany

From: LTC Brad Huestis, Chief of the US Army Claims Service Europe
Date: 16 November 2006
Dr. Haahr, I have attached an article about how the U.S. Army used your website to successfully seat random court-martial panels in Germany. I credited you for establishing and maintaining Random.org at footnote 56.

Wildlife Sampling

From: Dan Dawson from the Department of Wildlife Ecology and Conservation at the University of Florida
Date: 28 August 2005
I have used your random list generator, as well as your random integer generator, to pick cells in a grid that was over-layed a digital picture of an area in order to randomly select wildlife sampling locations. It has been a most useful program, and has saved me a lot of time in getting my wildlife inventory and monitoring program up and running. Thanks a bunch!

Health Thesis Work

From: Rose Campbell from the Department of Medical Informatics and Clinical Epidemiology at the Oregon Health & Science University
Date: 4 January 2005
I just wanted to let you know that and how I've used your delightful service. In the course of writing my thesis I needed to be able to randomly assign 15 items to five different categories and then randomly order the categories. I was going to use old fashioned D&D dice for the job but found your site and was able to do it in far less time! Thanks a lot, and you will be cited in my final document.

Audits by the US Environmental Protection Agency

From: Alfred J. Baginski from the Chemical Accident Prevention Program at the US Environmental Protection Agency
Date: 23 September 2004
My group at the US Environmental Protection Agency is required by law to conduct audits of randomly selected facilities. I utilize random.org for the selection process; the format of the query page is well suited to our needs [...] Until I found (stumbled upon via GOOGLE) your website, the recommended procedure for ‘random selection’ was to go down the list of items selecting every nth one; actually these atems are industrial or municipal facilities which store/use more than a minimum quantity of a chemical from a list of 140 chemicals selected for their toxic/flammable and dispersable properties. I found this methodology a statistical embarrassment; random.org made it acceptable, and defensible, such as when a facility responds ‘why me?’

Sample Selection at University of Toronto

From: Ilija Milicevic
Date: 9 September 2004
Dear Mr. Haahr, I would like to express my appreciation for your random number generator. I used it for selecting a sample of 40 (of about 400) for my Work-Study project, a way to provide students on government assistance with money and work experience, at the Department of Classics, University of Toronto, Erindale Campus. My supervisors, Dr. Catherine Rubincame and Elaine Goettler would also like to express their thanks. I hope you keep up the good work.

Audit of Healthcare and Research Records

From: Stanton Royce from the Cancer Research and Treatment Center at the University of New Mexico
Date: 23 July 2004
As Ethics and Compliance Officer for a University research and health care clinic, I use your random number generator to select records for review or audit. The US Office of Inspector General suggests standards for compliance programs . Compliance programs are to assure companies and institutions are complying with various regulations in healthcare, particularly with regard to submission of claims for treatment payment and the expenditure of federal funds for research. Standard of care plus various other regulatory and certification agencies also require reviews and audits of the healthcare and research (both clinical and basic science) process. Using random numbers, we select a percentage of things such as patient visits, physicians, billing records, grants, researchers, etc. for review or audit. Thank you for this valuable service.

Ophtamology Trials

From: Francesca Fortenbaugh
Date: 15 July 2004
I've been using your random.org website to help create experiments for the last year and a half (by making sure trial orders are random) and would just like to say thank you for making it available. I was working in cognitive psychology as an undergrad and am now working in ophthamology at Johns Hopkins as a research assistant. Needless to say, both fields use numerous trials in experiments and the ability to quickly get ten to twenty lists of random sequences has made it very easy to gain more control in the research I'm working on.

Archeological Sampling

From: Jeb J. Card who's a graduate student of Anthropology at Tulane University
Date: 7 June 2004
I am using the random sequence generator to take a 15% sample of the archaeological potsherds I am studying. More specifically, I am studying the ceramic vessels and fragments collected, over the course of eight years, from an early Spanish colonial town in Central America. The town was occupied for only a generation, so there was minimal change through time in ceramic style. For each excavation unit and level, I analyze all potsherds that include handles, rims, painted decoration, unusual clay characteristics, and the like. These are my diagnostic sherds. The remainder do not provide enough information to make analyzing and recording each one individually worthwhile, but I don't want to neglect them entirely, as in certain contexts they make up a high percentage of what we have. So, I use your random sequence generator to help me select 15% of this non-diagnostic remainder for study. Thank you for the help.

Survey of Police Reports in Texas

From: Cmdr. Warren A. Zerr of the San Marcos Police Dept. in Texas
Date: 29 September 2003
The San Marcos Police Dept. in San Marcos, Tx, USA was in need of a number generator to identify people at random through our case number systems who, over the course of a year, had filed police reports. We were conducting a survey to ascertain the level of satisfaction our "victims" had with the police service we provided them. Using your generator, I was able to pull random numbers from 1 through 58,000. It worked perfectly. THANK YOU!

Financial Auditing

From: Dan C. Smith who is a Controller with TABS Direct
Date: 27 August 2003
Hello, We use random.org to select random invoice numbers for financial auditing. We recently instituted a self-auditing program as a part of our compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley legislation. Auditing standards often require random selections, and random.org helps us in this area by giving us a documented and supportable source of random numbers...

Drug Screening

From: Gregory M. Glueck from The Shaw Group
Date: 24 July 2003
Thank you for your work you have done on your random page. I stumbled upon it one day and use it regularly to generate numbers for random drug screens. We are a worldwide contractor who works in construction and pipe manufacturing, among other things. We are very progressive in our drug free workplace program and do randoms on a quarterly basis. I recommend this sight to anyone who needs to pull numbers for any random purpose. Thanks again for the hard work.

Random Sampling for Undergraduate Research

From: Christine Whetmore from Southern Adventist University
Date: 11 April 2003
Dear Randomizers: I'm an undergraduate doing my first big research project. The whole idea seemed a little random, but I realized most of my classmates, as well as former students, lose the power of their study over having a nonrandom sample. Your generator made choosing a truly random sample, easy and intriguing. I was able to have a different set of numbers for each group without more than a few clicks. You've helped put me to the head of the class!

Drug Testing of Employees

From: Jenny Narinesing from Lab Medica Services
Date: 21 January 2003
We are a medical lab located in Trinidad and we also do drug and alcohol testing. We are responsible for random selection of employees to be tested from various clients. We use Random.org for periodic random selection of employees for drug testing because it is better than Excel which most Companies use. This is a good selling point and when we explain to Companies the difference they are sold on the application!!

Vegetation Control Study

From: Jason Hall from the Department of Wildlife Ecology & Conservation at the University of Florida
Date: 4 October 2002
I needed to obtain several runs of true (genuine) random numbers so that I could set up a three-tier system of 60 randomly assigned sample plots for a vegetation control study. Your informative and useful site saved me some time, thanks again.

Archeological Survey

From: Cheryl Foster-Curley from the US Bureau of Land Management
Date: 1 July 2002
Donation: Mads's Amazon Wishlist
I am an archaeologist, looking into settlement and subsistence patterns in the Northern Great Basin of the western United States. The project involves sampling an area (a survey universe), which has been divided into three ecozones, and then further subdivided into 200 x 200 meter quadrats. Each quadrat is given a number according to what ecozone it falls in. The numbers are then chosen randomly (this is where you came in) and that quadrat is surveyed for archaeology. The old fashioned method of choosing numbers was by the toss of the dice. Your website makes it extremely easy for me to draw the amount of random numbers I need in advance, which essentially makes planning field work easier. Well thanks again!

Archaeological Survey in California

From: Mike Avina from Jones & Stokes
Date: 24 May 2002
Your random number generator is great. I needed exactly this sort of service, to generate random numbers for a stratified, random sampling strategy for an archaeological survey, here in California, USA.

Anthropological Surveys

From: Rod Stubina from the Department of Anthropology, University of Florida
Date: 1 March 2001
I use Random.org to generate random numbers for a random sample of informants when I conduct surveys. It really beats using the dart board or hat.

Electricity Load Shape Studies

From: Bob Smith from OG & E Electric Services
Date: 16 January 2001
I am using your random number generator to pull unique 6-digit odd integers between 100000 and 999999 as unique seed numbers for a random sample I will use to study the load shapes of our electric utility customers. We pull samples for each of our rate classifications. Thanks for making this available, and easy to use.