Use of Survey Software

• Know IU’s privacy requirements. IU is subject to many laws and regulations that safeguard private information and there are internal policies to ensure compliance. Becoming familiar with privacy requirements will help you to develop surveys that meet organizational needs.
• Inform your respondents about how their responses will be handled. Disclosing your privacy practices to your respondents will help to increase response rates by putting potential respondents at ease. You can disclose your privacy practices on the introduction page of your survey, or in the body of communications containing the survey invitation. Follow all IU and organizational privacy policies. Privacy statements should detail at least the following things:
  • What personal information you are collecting?
  • How do you plan to use the responses?
  • Will responses be disclosed to anyone else? If so, who?
  • How can respondents access their own responses?
  • How respondents can contact you if they have questions or need additional information.
  • A link to the online survey provider’s privacy statement and security safeguards.
• As always, collect only the minimum amount of personal information necessary to achieve your purposes. Avoid asking for sensitive information in your surveys. Never ask for information classified as critical unless approved by the Committee of Data Stewards.
• Use an encrypted survey link to distribute your survey.
• If your survey is collecting personal information, limit access of the survey results to those who have a business need to know. If your survey is collecting institutional information, ensure access is appropriate to its classification level. You can provide aggregated and summary results to others in accordance with institutional data classification requirements.
• Store survey results that include personal and institutional information on registered and properly configured and managed department or central file storage services approved for the classification level appropriate to the data you are collecting. Do not store them on individual user workstations, laptops, mobile devices or other types of electronic equipment.
• Securely backup your surveys and results while they are still active.
• Delete surveys, survey results, and backup copies when no longer needed.
• When sharing survey results with others in aggregate or summary reports, ensure that the reports closely reflect the responses you received. If the survey does not get you the results you were hoping for, you may need to re-draft the questions or re-think your goals.
• Follow IU’s data management policies and standards.

• Keep it simple. When creating your survey, avoid wordy or confusing questions. Construct your questions in a manner which is easy to understand and precise. For tips, guides, tutorials and answers to survey design, including survey questionnaire structure and increasing response rates, see Qualtrics’ research resources page.
• Be resourceful. Find out what survey development training resources are available to you. Qualtrics University provides basic and advanced online training, available in various formats. The Center for Survey Research can also provide helpful expertise.
• Be aware of your environment. In order to avoid "over-surveying" respondents, be aware of other surveys which might target your audience. Avoid sending surveys out immediately before holidays and school breaks. Other times you may wish to avoid are Fridays and Mondays. Friday afternoon surveys are often tucked away and forgotten by Monday. Mondays can also be a bad time as people are generally overwhelmed with messages received over the weekend.
• Keep it short. People are less likely to participate in surveys that take longer than 5-10 minutes. Keep your survey short to avoid high abandonment rates. If this is not possible, consider inserting page breaks (which will allow respondents to come back to finish the survey at a later date) or breaking the survey up into two separate surveys.
• Consider using the Survey Library and Question Library. Qualtrics's Survey Library and Question Library allow you to be more efficient when creating your surveys. You have the ability to access your own surveys, questions, and responses from your personal library for use in any survey that you create.
• Pretest your survey. After you have created and published your survey, it is important to test the survey's functionality to ensure you are receiving the results you intend. Not only should you test the survey's performance on various operating systems and browsers, but you should generate multiple responses to ensure you are able to generate the analysis and reporting features you desire.
• Make your survey accessible. Make sure everyone will be able to read your surveys. Assistive technologies are being used more frequently and are supported at the Indiana University. The Assistive Technology and Accessibility Centers can provide you with additional assistance and training on accessibility. Qualtrics can also help in creating accessible surveys by selecting "Advanced Options" and then selecting "Check Survey Accessibility..."
• Clean up old surveys. Online survey applications are intended to serve as active collection tools, not a data storage repository. All inactive surveys should be exported as backup copies and deleted from user accounts in a timely fashion.

Much of the information in this section is based on University of Iowa’s Qualtrics Best Practices.

• IT-01: Appropriate Use of IT Resources | University Information Policy Office
• IT-07: Privacy of Electronic Information and Information Technology Resources | University Information Policy Office
• Research with Human Subjects (PDF) | Office of Research Administration
• Student Rights under FERPA | University Student Services and Systems
• Data Management Policies and Guidelines | Committee of Data Stewards

• Confidentiality and Privacy in Research Involving Human Subjects
• Web Site Privacy Notices Policy ISPP-24
• HIPAA Compliance (Office of Research Compliance)
• Student Privacy and FERPA