Survey Support
Survey Support & Administration Guidelines
The Xavier University Office of Institutional Research (IR) provides consultation, training, and strategic oversight for campus-wide survey administration to maximize data quality, protect participant privacy, and minimize survey fatigue.
To manage institutional resources effectively, the IR office clearly defines the boundaries of its services. Below is an overview of what our office will do and will not do regarding survey support and administration.
What We Do
The Office of Institutional Research provides high-level administrative, strategic, and technical advisory support for university-sanctioned research:
- Survey Consultation & Design: We assist with survey objectives, question construction, methodology, and compliance with institutional standards.
- Platform Provisioning: We oversee Xavier's enterprise survey software licensing and provide basic access configuration.
- Survey Coordination & Scheduling: We manage the University Survey Calendar to coordinate large-scale deployments, prevent overlapping requests, and combat campus survey fatigue.
- Institutional Data Requests: We provide authorized populations, sample parameters, and verified institutional contact lists for approved institutional research projects.
- Compliance Oversight: We verify that large-scale campus surveys comply with university policies and coordinate with the Institutional Review Board (IRB) when necessary.
What We Do Not Do
The IR office does not provide hands-on execution, operational management, or specialized technical troubleshooting for individual or departmental projects:
- Survey Building & Programming: We do not build, type, code, or configure logic for your surveys within the platform. Users are responsible for programming their own question blocks.
- Distribution Management: We do not distribute surveys, send invitation reminders, or manage active mailing lists on behalf of individual departments or researchers.
- Primary Technical Support: We do not handle basic technical troubleshooting, password resets, or account lockouts.
- Data Cleaning & Analysis: We do not clean raw data, write custom analysis scripts, or build individual summary reports for departmental surveys.
- Student Project Execution: We do not build or distribute surveys for student course assignments or independent research. Students must work through a sponsoring faculty or staff member.
In an effort to reduce survey fatigue and enhance security, any survey going to more than 100 members of the Xavier community requires approval from the Office of Institutional Research. For more information, please review the complete survey guidelines: View survey guidelines
Important Survey Guidelines:
- In order to minimize survey fatigue, survey administration plans may need to be adjusted to avoid overlapping with other survey efforts
- A survey sent to more than 500 members of the university community is to utilize Today at Xavier and the Announcements site for communications to faculty and staff, and to submit communications for inclusion in the SGA Student Weekly for communications to students. These can be submitted at xavier.edu/announcements. Any communication outside these channels to the university community, including email blasts, should go through University Communications via a request from a member of the Senior Executive Team.
- A survey invitation targeted to more than 500 current students requires specific approval of the Provost Office
- IRB approval documentation must be submitted with each Survey Request Form. In determining whether your survey requires IRB approval, please see the IRB's FAQ (IRB FAQ) and contact the IRB directly ( IRB@xavier.edu) with any questions about how to initiate the review process
To request survey assistance, please complete a Survey Request Form (link below) at least 3 weeks in advance of the intended survey launching date. If IRB approval is required, documentation of your survey's "Approved" or "Exempt" status must be submitted as part of your Survey Request Form.