Survey Coordination

Surveys meeting either of the following criteria are coordinated with UAC.

1. Surveys administered to 100 or more students, faculty, staff, administrators, and/or alumni (excludes surveys developed by students for academic purposes).
2. Surveys that are broader in scope than evaluating a single program.

Coordination with UAC requires completing the following steps before creating the survey:

1. Communicate with your Qualtrics Division Administrator or Institutional Research and Effectiveness (IRE) about the project at least one month before you’d like to administer the survey.
2. Check the UAC Survey Calendar to determine if any other surveys are scheduled during the timeframe you’d like to administer the survey. Review the Cyclical Survey Overview to learn more about regularly scheduled campus-wide surveys.
3. Determine if the project can be coordinated with another survey to yield the best response rate.
4. Use Qualtrics, rather than a different survey platform, to administer the survey so that it can easily be shared with other colleagues now or in the future. Request a Qualtrics account on the USD Qualtrics website.

Contact your Qualtrics Division Administrator or IRE for support in designing your project.

If you have determined you need demographic information (e.g. gender, race/ethnicity) to achieve the research purposes for your survey, review the following documents:

USD Guidelines for Collecting Demographic Information on Surveys

USD Guidelines for Collection and Use of Disability Data

Some questions that can help guide your project include:

1. What question(s) are you trying to answer with your project?
2. What data will help you answer your questions and take action?
3. Has the data you’re interested in collecting already been collected? Check with your Qualtrics Division Administrator or IRE.
4. Do you plan to publish and/or present the results of your project to external audiences? If so, please visit the Institutional Review Board (IRB) website to determine if you will need IRB approval to move forward with the project.
5. Is a survey the best way to collect the data? If so…
   1. does a similar, previously developed survey(s) exist?
   2. do you plan to collect responses confidentially or anonymously?
   3. will you be using a generic link or contact list to administer your survey?
   4. where do you plan to get your contact list?
   5. do you plan to use embedded data to reduce the number of items in your survey?
   6. consult these resources for writing good survey questions