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S
URVEY
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UIDE
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Will incentives be offered?
Will HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act)
privacy rules be applicable?
Since IRB approval cannot be granted after the fact, it is extremely important to
follow the appropriate protocol prior to conducting your survey, if there is even a
remote chance that you will someday want to publish the results of your
research.
A
W
ORD
A
BOUT
C
LIMATE
S
URVEYS
Frequently initiated by a school or college’s Equity and Diversity Committee,
climate surveys can be a useful way to gather data on job satisfaction, the quality
of interactions within the workplace, and potential issues requiring intervention.
It is always a good idea to find out what other climate assessment may have
been conducted with your target population. For example, on the UW-Madison
campus, the Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI)
has been studying the quality of work life for faculty since 2003, and makes the
survey data available at the school/college level.
WISELI has also developed extensive materials for enhancing department
climate (see
http://wiseli.engr.wisc.edu/climate.php
), including a template climate
survey for individual departments.
So You Want to Run a Climate Survey?! (Frehill, 2006) offers numerous tips and
design considerations specific to climate surveys.
G
ETTING
H
ELP WITH
Y
OUR
S
URVEY
The University of Wisconsin Survey Center (see
www.uwsc.wisc.edu
) offers a
complete range of survey research capabilities and serves a wide variety of
clients including faculty, staff, and administration at the University of Wisconsin;
faculty and staff at other universities; federal, state, and local governmental
agencies; and not-for-profit organizations.
The Survey Center can consult with you at one or more points in the survey
process or Survey Center staff can take the lead role in designing and
implementing your survey. Specific tasks on which it can be helpful to get
assistance include:
Developing protocols that yield high response rates
Reviewing the instrument and refining questions
Sampling
Developing cost proposals
Foreign language and international work