By following this policy, institutional research can ensure that all surveys conducted within the institution align with the college’s goals and objectives, follow ethical guidelines, and produce valid and reliable results. Surveys should do no harm and should, ideally, benefit the participants; follow legal guidelines for protected information (e.g., HIPAA, FERPA); and mitigate “survey fatigue.”
Surveys, as defined above, must follow an expedited IRB process outlined in the College-wide survey procedure for human subject research involving students and employees of the college. This policy applies to surveys on student groups larger than one (1) class section, metacourse, or cohort, and/or employee groups larger than one (1) division, or upon exception by Institutional Research. This policy is intended to cover surveys as defined above, not informal questionnaires or polls.
If in doubt about whether this policy applies to your question(s), contact Institutional Research.
Exceptions
Surveys that are part of a research project from an outside organization, including faculty conducting research that utilizes institutional data, must utilize the full IRB process.
Surveys by students conducting a research study within a course should be reviewed by their instructor.
Surveys of bargaining unit members conducted by their representative body; any survey by any other body with the right to conduct surveys protected by collective bargaining agreements, other contractual agreements or any other statutory or regulatory right; and anonymous Student Government Association surveys of students are exempt from this policy.
A survey is a systematic, deliberate, and meaningful method for gathering information from a sample of entities for the purposes of constructing quantitative descriptors of the attributes of the larger population of which the entities are members. These quantitative descriptors are the statistics or summaries of observations on a set of elements to gain insight, opinions, attitudes, behaviors, or demographic data.