Protection of Research Data | Executive Strategy & Planning | BYU-Idaho

# Protection of Research Data

The office of Executive Strategy and Planning (ES&P) at BYU-Idaho conducts formal, university-sponsored research, which often includes collecting survey or interview data. ES&P informs research participants about how their responses will be collected and managed as part of surveys or interviews. This page provides additional information about the different survey and interview data classifications used by ES&P.

1. ****Anonymous**** 
 When survey responses are anonymous, the responses are not connected in any way to personally identifiable information (name, username, email address, I-Number, IP address, etc.). This is the greatest level of data protection provided and is used to ensure that the survey responder can reveal sensitive information if they choose to do so. Survey results are not shared unless there are at least 5 responses collected. This is especially applicable to cases where extra credit is awarded in a course for completing the survey and the results of the survey are made available to the instructor. This is to help ensure anonymity of responses. ES&P cannot keep responses anonymous if the survey responder reveals their identity in the response (such as including their name in an open-text response).
2. ****Confidential**** 
 When survey responses are confidential, the response is tied to personally identifiable information, but the identity of a response is not made available to personnel outside of ES&P (see Title IX Requirements below for an exception to this policy). Often, the personally identifiable information is used to connect the response to other demographic information to help with data analysis (for example, to see if a phenomenon is more influential for a certain subgroup). All data is reported in aggregate or made anonymously (such as when sharing a quote from an open-ended survey question). Survey results are not shared unless there are at least 5 responses collected. This is especially applicable to cases where extra credit is awarded in a course for completing the survey and the results of the survey are made available to the instructor. This is to help ensure the anonymity of responses. ES&P cannot keep responses confidential if the survey responder reveals their identity in the response, such as including their name in an open-text response.
3. ****Non-confidential, university use only**** 
 When survey responses are non-confidential, university use only, the identity of responses is shared with a specific organization within the university for an intended purpose. The purpose for the organization to know the identity of survey responses is stated in the introduction of the survey.

## Reporting Requirements

In accordance with federal and state reporting requirements, if a BYU-Idaho employee reviews a survey response that contains evidence of sexual assault, child or elder abuse, or other violations of Title IX or state law, the response and data identifying the survey-taker will be shared with the appropriate office or agency.

## Security of Stored Data

ES&P stores survey data in Qualtrics servers and in the university data warehouse. Both repositories are compliant with federal privacy laws and standards. For further information about Qualtrics security, see Qualtrics ultimate data protection.