Survey Software at Northwestern
March 3, 2022
Northwestern has had a University-wide license for Qualtrics Survey Software since 2018. All Northwestern faculty, staff, and students have unlimited access to Qualtrics for no additional charge, because the agreement is funded via contributions from a large variety of departments and schools within Northwestern. It has come to our attention that there are still some faculty and staff members using Survey Monkey for surveys, including paid users. In addition to being an unnecessary expenditure of funding, using Survey Monkey is risky for a variety of reasons, including:
- Lack of proper data security vetting
- Lack of proper vetting for users with disabilities
- Lack of proper legal vetting of terms and conditions
- Potential lack of proper protocols for PHI and other sensitive data
Additionally, end users that are using personal Survey Monkey accounts may run afoul of proper data collection standards because the responses may be tied to an individual person and not the University. This could result in data being lost if the survey creator leaves the University.
End users that are using Survey Monkey should consider stopping their usage and migrating to Qualtrics. Additional information about the Northwestern Qualtrics agreement can be found on the Northwestern IT website.