YES! Through Rankin & Associates, the survey is stored on a third-party server and you will never be asked to identify yourself. No data protected through regulation or policy (e.g., social security number, campus i.d. number, etc.) is obtained through the survey.
Questions about Survey Confidentiality/Institutional Review Board
SVSU understands that confidentiality is vital to the success of campus climate research, particularly because sensitive and personal topics are discussed.
- Participation in this assessment is voluntary. If you decide to participate, you do not have to answer any questions on the survey that you do not wish to answer.
- Refusal to take part in this assessment will involve no penalty or loss of student or employee benefits.
- Individuals will not be identified and only group data will be reported (e.g., the analysis will include only aggregate data).
- You can choose to withdraw your responses at any time before you submit your answers.
Confidentiality for Participation
- Your confidentiality in participating will be kept to the degree permitted by the technology used (e.g., IP addresses will be stripped when the survey is submitted).
- No guarantees can be made regarding the interception of data sent via the Internet by any third parties; however, to avoid interception of data, the survey is run on a firewalled web server.
- Rankin & Associates will not report any group data for groups of fewer than 5 individuals that may be small enough to compromise confidentiality. Rankin & Associates will combine the groups to eliminate any potential for demographic information to be identifiable.
- You do not have to answer any question or questions about which you are uncomfortable.
- Participants who choose to use a paper/pencil survey will be provided with a self-addressed, stamped envelope so that all submissions are mailed directly to Rankin & Associates. The paper and pencil surveys are returned to Rankin & Associates and kept in a locked file drawer in a locked office. They are destroyed after they are merged with the on-line data.
Anonymity for Comments
- Upon submission, all comments from participants will be de-identified to make those comments anonymous. Thus, participant comments will not be attributable to their author.
- Depending on what you say, others who know you may be able to attribute comments to you. If certain comments might be attributable to an individual, Rankin & Associates will make every effort to de-identify those comments or will remove the comments from the analyses.
- Anonymous comments will be analyzed using content analysis and submitted as an appendix to the survey report. In order to give “voice” to the quantitative data, some anonymous comments may be quoted in publications related to this survey.