Acceptable Use and Restrictions for Qualtrics

Owned by Jonathan Lashley (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Feb 28, 2022 by Adonis Hamad (Unlicensed)
3 min read



Summary

Boise State licenses Qualtrics to Boise State faculty, staff, and students to conduct surveys for the purposes of learning, research, and effective administration of Boise State activities. In order to maintain the availability of this resource, you must adhere to the Qualtrics restrictions of the license agreement.

You may not use Qualtrics to do any of the following:

  • Send emails to people who have opted out from receiving survey emails

  • Upload or display content that contains links to nudity, pornography, adult content, or profanity (except for in the cases of valid research purposes)

  • Upload or display content that condones, promotes, or contains warez, cracks, hacks or other illegal software

  • Upload or display content that is racist or otherwise extremely offensive, including content that aggravates, harasses, threatens, defames or abuses others

  • Upload or display content that exploits images of children under 18

  • Upload binary or executable code or files

Prior Approval Requirements

It is important to exercise caution when surveying members of our Boise State community for two main reasons:

  • There may be legal issues (such as FERPA) concerning the use of individual contact information

  • We need to be careful to avoid “survey fatigue” or feelings about being hassled by survey requests

Surveying Students

If you need to survey more than 50 students who are not associated with your organizational unit, then you need to request prior approval from Student Affairs. For more information on how to gain approval, learn the Boise State guidelines. If you need a random sample of students, please contact Institutional Research. 

Surveying Faculty

If you need to survey a random sample of faculty (or all faculty) not associated with your organizational unit, you will need to request prior approval from Institutional Research.

Surveying Staff or a Mixture of Students, Faculty, and Staff

If you need to survey a random sample of staff (or all staff) not associated with your organizational unit, you will need prior approval from Institutional Research. Institutional Research can also help coordinate approval where a mixture of students, faculty, and staff are required for the survey.

Exceptions When Prior Approval Is Not Required

Exceptions occur when it can be reasonably implied that a person has “opted-in” to consent to be contacted and surveyed.Further exceptions are:

Associated with your Organizational Unit

You do not need prior approval if your survey is canvasing people within your organizational unit. As long as the survey involves organizational business, sharing an organizational affiliation is sufficient for “implied consent” to be surveyed. Examples of exceptions include the following:

  • A teacher or student surveying students in your class(es) (on class-related issues)

  • A college administrator surveying students, faculty or staff in their college (on college-related issues)

  • An officer in an employees association surveying members of their association (on association-related issues)

Focused surveys

A “focused” survey is one that is given to a defined population for a specific operational purpose. The contact information is already available to the surveyor and a relationship is already established. Examples of exceptions include the following:

  • A department chair requesting surveys of students waitlisted for classes the department offers.

  • The Housing office surveying all students who have requested on-campus housing.

  • The Transportation and Parking Services office surveying all parking permit holders regarding parking issues.

  • The Help Desk surveying those who have requested assistance regarding their service satisfaction.

Websites

If you place a survey link on your website for visitors to voluntarily click on to take the survey, no prior approval is required as long as the survey is relevant to the website content. The “opt-in” is implied when potential respondents must freely locate, visit and choose the link to complete the survey.

Have an issue or article suggestion?

Email us! lts@boisestate.edu