I. PURPOSE
This policy sets forth the acceptable use of survey software and is intended to guide the development and use of electronic surveying.
II. ACCOUNTABILITY
Under the direction of the President, the Chief Information Officer and the Director of Information Security shall ensure compliance with this policy. The Vice Presidents, Deans, and other members of management will implement this policy.
III. APPLICABILITY
This policy applies to any broad sampling or census of a population at Rowan University, including employees, students, applicants, former students, former employees, alumni and guest affiliates, conducted with survey software.
Examples of surveys covered by this policy include but are not limited to:
Surveys that address all faculty, staff, and/or students within the University
Surveys that are aimed at a broad subset of the population (e.g. first-year student population)
Surveys covering a variety of topics (e.g. use and satisfaction with various university services) which utilize survey software.
IV. DEFINITIONS
Refer to Rowan University Technology Terms and Definitions for terms and definitions that are used in this policy.
V. POLICY
Institutional Electronic Surveys
The University provides Rowan-licensed survey software for research-related and administrative self-service electronic surveys. It is important to use only Qualtrics, IRT’s approved software package, as other survey products may generate email that will be identified by Rowan systems as spam or other malicious email. The Office of Student Life has licensed Baseline for its own use and only its use.
Compliance with all other Laws and Policies
Surveys must comply with all other applicable University policies and state and federal laws, including the General User Password Policy and Acceptable Use Policy.
The survey service may not be used for personal or commercial gain.
Users will not spam or use other forms of unsolicited mass communication.
Eligibility and Access
The University provides Rowan-licensed Qualtrics software for research-related and administrative self-service electronic surveys. For information about accessing that software, go to the IRT Surveys page. The use of other tools, which may not work as expected, is not authorized. For example, large numbers of emails from unapproved vendors like SurveyMonkey may be blocked by University resources as spam.
Eligibility and access to Rowan-licensed Qualtrics is limited to the Rowan Community.
Student surveys are limited to two active surveys. Faculty may request additional active surveys on behalf of students for academic purposes. Employees have unlimited active surveys. The number of emails are limited by university policies for email usage.
Responsibility for Content/Content Ownership
Each survey has a primary survey owner.
The owner of a survey is responsible for content posted or distributed through the software.
The survey owner is subject to the normative rights and obligations in the Rowan community as expressed in the University policies, rules and regulations.
Use of this service excludes pornography, commercial use and confidential information as outlined in the Acceptable Use Policy.
If sensitive data is to be collected, or if you are unsure if your data is sensitive, please contact the Information Security Office through the IRT Support Portal. Rowan community members of the School of Osteopathic Medicine should review the policy Protection of Sensitive Electronic Information which applies to that school.
Contact the Institutional Review Board for approval regarding research.
Support and Service Availability of Applicable Services
In order to provide service improvements and maintenance, Survey Application Administrators have access to all accounts and content in Qualtrics.
In order to ensure that the survey owner has a successful survey, IRT provides a calendar of scheduled surveys and can advise the survey owner regarding scheduling the survey to avoid multiple surveys sent to our students in a short period of time. Please request consultation about survey scheduling through the IRT Support Portal.
Support will be provided by normal IRT processes at the IRT Support Portal.
Request for a survey sample should be requested through the IRT Support Portal.
Training materials are available on the IRT Training Resources page or you may request additional training through the IRT Support Portal.
Data Archiving
Survey owners are responsible for archiving their data to other media prior to the expiration of their Rowan accounts (either expiration of access of the individual to Rowan resources or the expiration of a particular survey in the appropriate software). Rowan University is not responsible for archiving data.
Administering an institutional survey establishes an obligation on the part of the survey owner to use, store, protect and archive the data responsibly, including not distributing the data to others in, or outside the university, unless the survey owner is an authoritative source for and an authorized distributor of the data and the recipient is authorized to receive the data.
VI. POLICY COMPLIANCE
Violations of this policy may subject the violator to disciplinary actions, up to or including termination of employment or dismissal from a school, subject to applicable collective bargaining agreements and may subject the violator to penalties stipulated in applicable state and federal statutes. Sanctions shall be applied consistently to all violators regardless of job titles or level in the organization per the Acceptable Use Policy.
By Direction of the CIO:
Mira Lalovic-Hand,
SVP and Chief Information Officer