Student Survey Data Sharing Guidelines
Requesting Data
The Office of the Provost (OTP) is committed to facilitating scholarly and quality improvement research using deidentified administrative student data.
Student-level survey data shared by the Office of the Provost will not include any personally identifiable information.
To begin the process of accessing deidentified survey data, requestors must complete the Data Request Form or send an email request to Amanda Brodish, Associate Vice Provost for Data Analytics, or Brett Say, Assistant Director of Surveys in the Office of the Provost.
Receiving Data
Once a request for data is processed, the Office of the Provost will provide a set of administrative variables to make the survey data useful to the requestor.
These variables will include things such as academic plan, level, gender identity, race/ethnicity, etc. Note that the Office of the Provost may recode some of these variables to minimize small sample size.
Under no circumstances should requestors use the survey data, either alone or in combination with other information, to make any effort to identify or contact individuals who responded to the survey.
Data Sharing and Use
After data is received from the OTP, Pitt community members may share aggregated results with program and department leadership for the purposes of internal assessment, program review, accreditation, etc.
Any sharing of aggregated data beyond these purposes will require written consent of the Office of the Provost.
Responses to survey questions that receive less than five unique responses should be omitted from aggregate reports to protect student anonymity.
When sharing data with faculty or staff outside of the original requestor group, please adhere to the following:
- Individual student-level responses should not be shared with programs and departments, under any conditions.
- If requestors plan to share data with students, including student workers, beyond the aggregate level, requestors should first check with the Institutional Research & Analytics Team in the Office of the Provost.
Data Storage
Schools should take all reasonable measures to safeguard the survey data and to keep it confidential and secure. Survey data should only be stored on Pitt devices and within protected.
Schools must comply with special requirements related to the securing of the “Private Data” outlined by Pitt Digital at Data Risk Classification and Compliance Operating Standard.
Survey Development and Administration Guidelines
The Office of the Provost administers a variety of institutional-level surveys each year to assess the student and faculty experience at the University of Pittsburgh. We also provide reporting, analytics, and insight to guide decision-making for Pitt administrators and the broader educational community.
Depending on the goals of your college/school, or research project, data within these surveys is designed to answer a vast array of questions related to student academic and personal experiences. Before developing and administering a new survey, please check with the Institutional Research & Analytics team to see if existing data within our office can be applied to your project.
To guide survey administration, the OTP and Survey Governance Committee has developed three categories of survey reporting.
Required Survey Reporting
To reduce survey fatigue, increase response rates, mitigate survey duplication, and ensure surveys administered to Pitt students follow ethical data collection practices, institutional-level surveys that meet one or more of the following criteria are required to seek approval through formal review:
- Surveys that seek to collect a variety of data from large groups of Pitt students across academic programs and/or colleges/schools. Due to the number and variety of existing institutional student surveys at Pitt, student data on many topics may already exist and can be accessed by Pitt community members.
- Surveys related to federal or state reporting.
Recommended Survey Reporting
Review is not required for the following survey categories, though the committee suggests reporting these categories of surveys to help avoid survey overlap which can decrease student engagement.
Moreover, in many cases, survey data related to the following topics may already be available upon request:
- Surveys related to accreditation (institutional or specialized).
- Surveys related to the evaluation of academic programs or departments.
- Surveys conducted as part of annual rankings initiated by external organizations.
Voluntary Survey Reporting
Surveys designed to assess a smaller group of students’ experiences, based on their involvement in a course, event, or program, do not require reporting. Surveys of this nature may range from assessing student engagement in student organizations to study abroad experiences.
In these cases, survey administrators are welcome to report their surveys to ensure other institutional surveys will not conflict with their own or to receive assistance with survey design/administration.
We also hope administrators for these types of surveys benefit from the best practices outlined in this guidebook.
Reporting of the following survey categories is completely voluntary:
- Surveys conducted by instructors as part of course activities to inform instruction.
- Surveys that seek to evaluate professional development programming.
- Surveys associated with a research study that is approved through the Human Research Protection Office (HRPO).
- Surveys conducted to obtain information required for employment or matriculation.