How to store emails separately from other collected data | XM Community
Skip to main content

As part of my survey I am asking for interested respondents to participate in a follow-up interview. I am therefore asking for their email so that I can contact them to set up this interview. However, the ethics board does not want these emails stored with the rest of the survey data. They seem to think that this is very easy to do (and I'm sure that it is) but as I am new to Qualtrics I'm struggling to do so. They have suggested a few ways to do it and I was wondering if someone could advise on the easiest way? These are the options that I have so far:

  • Code a response so that the identifying email is not directly stored with the data/ have particular questions in a survey stored in a separate file but linked to the survey (I have no idea how to do this)

  • Use unique survey links in Qualtrics to send potential participants their own survey link (I have figured out how to send out unique survey links, I just want to make sure that I will be able to connect the specific email to the responses. I'm familiar with where to find the distribution summary but have yet to find an easy way to cross-reference the email distribution with the responses. I also don't want to go through the hassle of adding all of the contacts if this is not the most efficient solution)

  • Link original survey to a secondary survey where they would be asked to provide their email (I am worried that this extra step will deter participants from providing their email)

  • Indicate that email will be removed from the dataset and replacing it with a code and have an encrypted file that has the email address and the survey code stored separately

  • Something with embedded data...?

Thanks in advance for your help! This very tired and stressed grad student is very appreciative 😊

Hi michelle_giesbrecht,
That requirement is quite bizarre. Coming up with a novel way to separate the email away from the survey data is less secure than keeping it all in one (protected) place. But I digress.
For the second method, are you sending those links via email? If so, the email should already be included in the results data when you download it, so you don't need to request their email again.
If there's some ethics reason preventing you from doing that however, you can cross-reference the responses against the distributions by downloading the distribution history. Eg, this would allow me to download the data for all links distributed in May:
image.pngWithin that file there is a column titled ResponseId. All respondents that have made progress on the survey will have one, and it matches the ResponseId column in the results data. Throw them into Excel and you'll be able to VLOOKUP the email address with its response data.
Failing that, you could look into using workflows (if you have access to them) to create a list of respondents that agree to a follow up interview.
Good luck!

Hi, there is also a way to link two surveys together in a way that will appear nearly seamless to the respondent, if you are able to make the email question the last item in the survey. See this Use Case on the Qualtrics Support pages. Although their example is an anonymized raffle, the objective is similar to your project: keeping survey data separate from email addresses. In your case, Survey 1 would contain the majority of your questions, and Survey 2 would have the "Do you consent to participate?" question and the email field.

Hi,

You can do this by creating two surveys. At the end of the main one you ask if the person is will to be contacted. If they say "yes", then redirect them to the second survey which will ask their contact info. The redirect is done in survey flow. I have a video tutorial on this at https://researchguides.library.syr.edu/dataservices/Qualtrics, scroll down to "Anonymity" and look for the tutorial on Voluntary Contact Information.

phbern MatthewM bgooldfed
Thank you all so much for your help (and your fast responses). I have submitted the changes to my ethics committee, here's hoping that this change addresses their concerns!

Leave a Reply


Terms & Conditions