It's reasonable to be worried about anonymity - there are many stories of university staff, academics particularily, being punished for voicing their opinions. If you've ever seen some of these people battle for who gets the big room at the end of the corridor, you'll have a pretty good idea of how nasty it could get if somebody leaked survey results. Anyway, the single computer (or maybe access from the public labs) sounds like a great idea. We have ballot booths for a similar reason, and nobody criticises them, do they?

As an example of how people can get the idea of intrusive computers, my friend reported an experience that left him a little shaken. He had stayed back late studying in a computer lab. His mother rang the university to find out where he was. The guards checked the access logs to the buildings and rooms, found him on the video camera monitors, then called the phone in the room and put his mother through when he answered. I just can't imagine where people get these big brother ideas from. Nope. Not at all...

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

Your example certainly is shocking and I'd be surprised if a few heads didn't roll in the ensuing melee. I could imagine security phoning each computer lab on campus and asking the lab assistants/monitors to check if the individual was present but this seems to me a flagrant misuse of resources.

As for the public computer idea. Who is to say that our spies (Computer Center) won't be keeping a paper log of who is using which machine at any given time ;-)

--Jim

Small miscommunication. Our labs are usually unmanned, and access is only permitted when you swipe your card. Access is open to almost all 10,000 card holders. There was no melee, he didn't really care that much, because it was kind of convenient for him.

I've noticed this is an attitude where Australians do differ from Americans. Like coreolyn says, we knew we are being monitored, we just trust (and hope) that people aren't abusing the system too much. We really go to town on people who break the trust though.

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

While I have only been employed for a few weeks now, I don't have much experience with end users, but I can see why some people might get paranoid about their privacy and anonymity (especially after knowing about all the sites that collect user information). To help with this, you might want to add a FAQ page with questions and answers about these issues (and mentioning that anonymity could be compromised in the old pencil and paper surveys). You might also want to add pointers to "Anonymizing Proxies" that people can use when filling the surveys (not that you can actually trust people running these proxies). Getting a third party (the CS department for example) to set up a proxy that people (from campus) can use could very well be a solution.

Hope this helps,,,

Actually we do have a FAQ page though I believe you are correct that it should be expanded to include the dangers inherent in the older "paper" survey methodology. Your suggestion about the "Anonymizing Proxies" is excellent also. I'll certainly recommend it in the future and include it in the FAQ as well. Thanks for the feedback.

--Jim

People usually get paranoid for a reason. In the case of universities, there seems to be dissonance between their professed ideals of academic freedom and free speech, and their actual practices. That keeps people uneasy.

You really can't know whether some administrator will waltz in and demand to see your logs.

After Compline,
Zaxo

The dissonance you mention is certainly a factor, though I believe their main fear is retribution from their direct superiors (who in most cases don't have the resources to determine how an individual responded). This stems from the misconception that somehow the Computer Center is in cahoots with all administrators and would readily comply with their every whim.

You really can't know whether some administrator will waltz in and demand to see your logs.

The possibility of this happening is extremely remote, given the legal rammifications that would ensue. In our case the only person with the authority to do so would be the president of the university who has much bigger fish to fry. A request from any administrator would probably be met with a suggestion that we set up a meeting with the university's attorneys office for consultation. Even after obtaining the logs (assuming that we would turn them over without a supoena), the majority of university addresses are NATted and the only mapping of university IP addresses is held by the Computer Center. A database that is probably only 60% accurate at any given time.

Granted not all university administrators are perfectly sane and no university is without some degree of corruption.

--Jim

The possibility of this happening is extremely remote, given the legal rammifications that would ensue.

That doesn't matter much. The _perception_ of people is more important. For everything people do, they balance the benefits against the drawbacks (often without really being aware of it). The (perceived) benefit of a student to fill out the survey is small. The perceived drawback (they can trace you and god knows do what) for some of them is big. So, they simple don't do it.

Flying is safer than driving. Yet there are many people who will never fly, because they are afraid, and have no problem driving 80 miles/day. In their perception flying is unsafe, so they will not do it.

Abigail

-sam

Actually neither is the case unfortunately. Whether or not users choose to participate has no direct bearing on me whatsoever as the Computer Center is simply a neutral third party that volunteered to do the work free of charge.

The point is, that in the scheme of things this really isn't such a big deal (at least 50% felt safe enough to participate last year--the majority of which are still employed) yet the paranoia persists. This isn't the most serious problem we've ever encountered and I would hazard to say that it ranks pretty close to the bottom. Thus, the irony. That is why I'm interested in the experiences of the rest of the community.

--Jim

Having an extra terminal with a browser that is restricted (through a proxy) to the survey can help. The restriction is because people should not be using the computer for other things: more people need to submit the survey.

- Yes, I reinvent wheels.
- Spam: Visit eurotraQ.

Putting up such a terminal isn't going to help. You could set it up such that it is done totally anonymously. But then, there is no way to check whether all the responses you got are from different persons, or whether all the responses came from just one person. But if you prevent this by giving people one-time keys, you will have an almost impossible task to prove that the survey cannot be tracked.

Abigail

But if you prevent this by giving people one-time keys, you will have an almost impossible task to prove that the survey cannot be tracked.

We have used one time keys in school for a survey. Nobody has his own computer, so any computer could be used. The key codes were printed on paper, and we shuffled them, and handed them out in random order.

- Yes, I reinvent wheels.
- Spam: Visit eurotraQ.

Maybe you can get some powers-that-be to create and approve an "online survey privacy policy" which, in plain english, not university obfu, details the realitites and promises of privacy and/or anonymity. This may also include some details of the care and attention given by the committee that designed/supervised the process. Maybe the survey page could contain a "certified by" phrase naming the committee, etc.

Searching for "building trust" on Google yields huge results on this exact issue. Marketers and ecommerce players have been on this issue for while, and it's still being debated.

It must be possible to build enough trust to allow useful surveying to occur, including a reminder that non-participation (a non-representative tally) may result in unpopular decisions being made.

Also, possibly the university could ask it's outside accounting firm to set up the survey on *their* web site, they count it, etc... (Ooops, might not work in light of Enron news ;)

If the university is not satisfied with survey participation, they will need to step up and participate in privacy, usage and security issues, along with other more mundane marketing actions geared to trust building, that the rest of us have long been dealing with. Are they likely to?

Hmm. Thorny. Good luck!

As long as we're way out on an (OT) limb . .

/me hears a branch starting to break

It boggles my mind that younger (College) computer literate people to be paranoid about such things. I would think that people who have grown up with computers as an accepted fact in their life would understand that anonymity is at best a concept not an achievable reality anymore.

For myself I assume that everything I do, everywhere I go, everything I say can be traced back to me. I live my life as an open book, but I doubt anyone would want to know that much about me.

There is one benefit to adapting to this mindset. It forces you consider what you can (or are willing) to defend and stand for.

Freedom does not come from those who hide in the shadows and exploit it's opportunities but from those who accept the consequences of exercising it.

I think you are missing the implicit reasoning of the 'paranoid people'. They assume that somebody does want to know about them, personally. Your comments are true in a broad sense - I am not concerned that my bank knows where I shop, or similar things.

However a lot of people could potentially be personally interested in things I say on a survey. A university is a small place. People play tennis with each other. They go to lunch. They have to have something to talk about. And one day it might be the scintillating witty reply someone put on their survey.

Also you're being pretty smug about your virtuous life. At least have a bit of compassion for people who are less virtuous than you, and aren't ready to be proud of it. Doesn't freedom mean that they can do what they want without a fight? If they can't, they're not really free.

____________________
Jeremy
I didn't believe in evil until I dated it.

Didn't mean to imply I've lived a virtuous life, far far from it. My opinion is based on my expirience of naively believing in my right to freedom. I am very jaded by current definitions and understanding of freedom.

From my expirience freedom has meant that I have the right to engage in the fight to do what ever I want. If I want to drive 65 in a 55 I have that right -- but I have to live with the consequences. In the same way I have the right to my opinion -- but ...

I don't believe that freedom has anything to do with anonymity, while anonymity can be a powerful tool for understanding more individual opinions, the fact that anonymity is required is direct evidence that not only does the anonymous user feel that their freedom is at risk, but the individual is unwilling to accept the responsibilities for their freedom.

coreolyn -- cynic extraordinaire