What steps are being taken to protect the anonymity of my survey responses?
We know that you must have the assurance your responses are confidential and secure if we are to receive accurate and candid feedback. Survey participants' privacy is of utmost importance to us, and strict internal safeguards are in place to ensure that privacy.
No one outside of the CU Denver | Anschutz Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness (OIRE) staff—no administrators, supervisors, or faculty—has access to survey respondents’ identities or to files that may connect names or email addresses with answers to survey questions.
Members of the OIRE team will manage the survey email distribution list, wherein it is recorded who has and has not completed the survey questionnaire.
Once a participant submits their survey, the identifying information that permitted the database manager to keep track of who did and did not respond to the survey is automatically deleted. In other words, each case in the final data file is an anonymous case. In addition, the data file is encrypted and stored in a secure, encrypted drive which only OIRE staff can access.
Questionnaire responses will be aggregated for statistical analysis and reporting. We will aggregate the data into groups of 10 or more responses in order to maintain the anonymity of survey participants. If any demographic group or combination of group characteristics has fewer than 10 individuals, those data will not be reported. OIRE will not provide any findings that would risk making someone identifiable due to the uniqueness of their demographic characteristics, years at CU, faculty rank, job category, department, major, or a combination of those factors. Your anonymity is our first duty of care and will be protected in all reports resulting from this survey. We are committed to ensuring that individuals can provide candid feedback with confidence. Anything else is counter-productive to the effort.
Please email cwcsurvey@ucdenver.edu for more information regarding steps taken to ensure anonymity and confidentiality.