About
By default, surveys that use a contact list include re-identifiable information about people and their responses.
Contact lists are populated with first and last names and K-State emails. In some cases, the seeding contact lists may have other data, such as demographic data for the respondents. (Protected data should not generally be put in a contact list. Researchers should connect the unique data records offline later. Contact list information populate into data columns of the survey, so any private information integrated into a Contact List, which Qualtrics enables, can mean an unintentional mass distribution of information to whomever has access to the data.
If "embedded data" variables reference the demographic information, then whoever has access to the survey data will also have direct access to the demographic information.) When surveys are sent out with unique links for each respondent, the responses can be re-identified.
Audience
Details
Using a contact list without collecting individual respondent data. The Contact List invitation for a survey may be used without auto-generating a unique link per person. The Contact List invite can be used to send out the message and a general link to the survey (not a unique one for each recipient of the email). In this case, the responses may be collected without general identifiers, and the "anonymize" solution may not have to be used.
Using emails to invite survey responses. For large-scale surveys, emails (via electronic mailing lists) may be sent out with a web address to a survey, without involving unique identifier information. (Most people cannot use IP information or latitude-longitude to re-identify an individual respondent without additional data.)
Access to personally identifiable information (PII). If you have not guaranteed anonymity or confidentiality and want/need to view personal information such as name, email, etc., you can request enabling the View Restricted Data feature by submitting a Request Polling and Survey Services form. The viewing of personally identifiable information (PII) can be problematic for sensitive data.
This feature is enabled at the account level, not per survey. If you have the View Restricted Data feature enabled and would like to then send out an anonymous response survey, do the following:
- Click Survey Options.
- Check Anonymize Response.
- Click Save.
No corresponding personal information will be associated with the responses.The "Anonymize" feature will mean that the Internet Protocol (IP) information is not captured, and the latitude and longitude information is not captured. If the IP and latitude/longitude information is needed in the future, it will not exist and cannot be brought back. The "anonymize" setting is a fairly extreme choice.
Those who request this higher level of access to PII should notify the Service Desk to end their higher level of access once their need is complete. Otherwise, they can continue accessing PII even long beyond the particular use case for that level of access.
Sensitive data. Surveys used to collect sensitive information will require even more awareness of data safety and human protections protocols. Please reach out to the University Research Compliance Office (URCO) and the Institutional Review Board (IRB) for the research for more information.
Notes:
- The Anonymous Link is a link used to take the survey and can be distributed in an email, on a website, etc. In an anonymous link, no personal information (name, email address, etc.) is collected unless asked for in the survey. See the Qualtrics documentation about Anonymous Link for more information.
- Anonymity of information collected from research participants refers to the fact that the project does not collect identifying information for participants or the project cannot link responses with identities.
- Confidentiality limits who has access to identifying information from specific subjects. Usually this is the primary investigator (PI), co-primary investigators (co-PIs), and/or the research team.