Ensuring Surveys are Anonymous

From skylightwiki

There are two issues to understanding how surveys are anonymous

Things done by the survey designer

Things done by the survey system

Notes from conversation with a Silhouette user (applies to Flashlight 1.0!)

but there's nothing to worry about
> in Skylight. After the survey has been completed there is no such link
> between any information about the respondent and the actual survey data.
> While we do log information such as I.P. and time, that information is on the
> respondent info side of the break. There's no data on the response side to > match that against.
> > We've talked a bit about the time stamping of response data. I'll make
> certain that there is no way to create some type of link through that
> information.
> > M.
> > -----Original Message-----
> From: Help Desk [1]
> Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 11:15 AM
> To: Diana Voss
> Cc: Wang, Hongjun; Shirey, Matthew
> Subject: Your Request #11780
> > Dianna
> > Further information. Your goal is to ensure that the respondents are
> anonymous. Hongjun answered to you that we capture the IP in our logs, but not
> in the survey data that you can access. Here is a bit more of the story.
> > The survey data is date/time stamped, as are the logs, so it would be possible > to take the time stamp in the survey and locate it (and the IP) in our logs. > > However, our logs are purged at regular intervals, so that linkage will be > routinely destroyed. We do not routinely give access to the logs, but if > subpoenaed we would. > > A couple years back a respondent made a death threat to an instructor in an > end of term survey. The campus requested the identity of the respondent. Our > attorney declined the request, saying that there was no crime and if one did > occur the data could be subpoenaed. > > What you should also know is that if you use Respondent IDs in our system to > restrict respondents to replying to a survey only once, this ID will be > recorded with the survey data and will reveal to you the respondent's > identity. >