How do I get colleges and universities to respond?
November 7, 2014 6:25 PM Subscribe
I am a doctoral student that needs to deploy a short survey as my research data collection instrument for my dissertation. I have passed a rigorous IRB process at my University. I am having an incredibly hard time getting college and universities to respond to my email request for permission to deploy my survey to their school student email systems.
I can't even get my dissertation chairs to respond to my emails for guidance!? What am I doing wrong? I'm polite, grateful and provide them with all the forms and paper work. The survey is not about sensitive information, I'm seeking to understand if there is a connection between video game play and interest in Science careers (for women)... I am getting very discouraged. I've never done this sort of thing before, so I am clueless as to how to get them to respond and grant me permission to deploy my survey at their campus. I think if I am overly pushy they will shut me down, and if I'm not pushy enough they will ignore me. Any thoughts, advice, or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
I'm offering a raffle for a Windows tablet to students who respond, I am offering a small gift certificate to students that I will interview (only a couple will be sufficient)
Is there some conventional wisdom on how to go about this? I have no experienced person to ask, as I am the first person in my family and that I know personally to get a doctorate degree. I am doing great in the program, and well liked among my peers (I am quite a bit older than they are).
Again, your thoughts are very appreciated!
:D
I can't even get my dissertation chairs to respond to my emails for guidance!? What am I doing wrong? I'm polite, grateful and provide them with all the forms and paper work. The survey is not about sensitive information, I'm seeking to understand if there is a connection between video game play and interest in Science careers (for women)... I am getting very discouraged. I've never done this sort of thing before, so I am clueless as to how to get them to respond and grant me permission to deploy my survey at their campus. I think if I am overly pushy they will shut me down, and if I'm not pushy enough they will ignore me. Any thoughts, advice, or recommendations would be greatly appreciated!
I'm offering a raffle for a Windows tablet to students who respond, I am offering a small gift certificate to students that I will interview (only a couple will be sufficient)
Is there some conventional wisdom on how to go about this? I have no experienced person to ask, as I am the first person in my family and that I know personally to get a doctorate degree. I am doing great in the program, and well liked among my peers (I am quite a bit older than they are).
Again, your thoughts are very appreciated!
:D
Yeah, your dissertation advisor should be helping you out on this, if only with their rolodex.
Well, who are you asking for permission to deploy the survey? Getting access to student listservs can be very difficult based on who you approached. So, emailing the university president may not get you any results while emailing the chair of the education department may get you more results. But seriously, I would be VERY nary of posting surveys to the student listservs for a grad student who was not introduced to me and who did not give me much time to digest the request.
posted by jadepearl at 6:40 PM on November 7, 2014
Well, who are you asking for permission to deploy the survey? Getting access to student listservs can be very difficult based on who you approached. So, emailing the university president may not get you any results while emailing the chair of the education department may get you more results. But seriously, I would be VERY nary of posting surveys to the student listservs for a grad student who was not introduced to me and who did not give me much time to digest the request.
posted by jadepearl at 6:40 PM on November 7, 2014
Best answer: If the target university has an Office of Institutional Assessment, I'd start there. They're typically the ones distributing surveys.
(agreed that your advisors should be helping you, too)
posted by hollyholly at 6:44 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
(agreed that your advisors should be helping you, too)
posted by hollyholly at 6:44 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I'm queer and thus in the target demographic for any number of surveys. I usually run across them via queer mailing lists or postings by Facebook friends (who I assume saw them on an mailing list), never via an email sent to the entire university student population (okay, I remember something about queer PhD students where they may have gotten access to a list with most grad students on it, but it also may have come from a queer organisation, I don't remember). Usually someone in a position of power has been emailed by the researcher with a brief blurb about their research and background, the IRB information and a link to the survey. This email is almost invariably forwarded in its entirety. There are bonus points (in terms of getting me to take your survey) if you're either known to the person who you emailed or they know your advisor (because then they say "I got this email from X who is a student of Y and Y does really cool work, so X is probably going produce something good" when they forward the email).
In other words, you probably want to ask your advisor(s) if you should be contacting a) students group for women in science, b) student groups focused on women, c) student groups interested in video games and d) anyone they know who may have access to a relevant mailing list. You should also ask and think about what impact that will have on the demographics of your respondents.
posted by hoyland at 6:50 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
In other words, you probably want to ask your advisor(s) if you should be contacting a) students group for women in science, b) student groups focused on women, c) student groups interested in video games and d) anyone they know who may have access to a relevant mailing list. You should also ask and think about what impact that will have on the demographics of your respondents.
posted by hoyland at 6:50 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Are you asking to send this out to the entire student body? I HOPE they say no, and I'm a social science researcher. There is nothing in it for them or for their students. You may be able to pull this off at your own school, which has interest in seeing you succeed, but others won't want you spamming their students. You MIGHT be able to get individual departments or organizations interested enough in your project, by selling the benefits of your research to them, but it will take luck and a good amount of legwork. Your advisors should have told you this would be a problem earlier.
If they don't have better ideas, I think the best way to salvage your study would be to post the link on campus bulletin boards and the electronic equivalents thereof. How many respondents do you need?
posted by metasarah at 6:53 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
If they don't have better ideas, I think the best way to salvage your study would be to post the link on campus bulletin boards and the electronic equivalents thereof. How many respondents do you need?
posted by metasarah at 6:53 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
Best answer: Have you tried calling them, instead of just sending a cold email? I think a phone call might be the place to start here; it's harder to ignore than an email.
However, have you stepped back to consider the basic question of what's in it for them? What's their motivation in granting you access to their listserve? You're not their student and there's no obvious benefit to them. However, students may complain about this type of email and they may be concerned that there's a potential privacy issue, despite your assurances that there isn't.
You need to identify alternative ways of distributing your survey. This could include a personal introduction to a faculty member at the target university, or it may include rethinking your survey design entirely.
posted by chocotaco at 6:54 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
However, have you stepped back to consider the basic question of what's in it for them? What's their motivation in granting you access to their listserve? You're not their student and there's no obvious benefit to them. However, students may complain about this type of email and they may be concerned that there's a potential privacy issue, despite your assurances that there isn't.
You need to identify alternative ways of distributing your survey. This could include a personal introduction to a faculty member at the target university, or it may include rethinking your survey design entirely.
posted by chocotaco at 6:54 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Spamming an entire university email system for a grad student's survey isn't going to happen, at the school I work at even pretty important stuff is opt-in.
I would take a different tack and try contacting a group more likely to have the people you're interested in interviewing. Quality over quantity. The Society of Women Engineers, for example, might be actively interested in your work (and is a group I have been involved with.) The faculty advisor or student leadership for such groups would be a useful contact, and should be easily findable. Most scientific disciplines have professional societies with local chapters and student members. Profs who teach the big 100-level science and education courses might be willing to give you 30 seconds and some whiteboard space for a URL. Your advisors may even be willing to give extra credit for participation (I remember this being pretty standard practice in my psych classes.) The education departments at these schools might look more kindly on your requests, or have paths that they use to get the word out.
posted by tchemgrrl at 7:07 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
I would take a different tack and try contacting a group more likely to have the people you're interested in interviewing. Quality over quantity. The Society of Women Engineers, for example, might be actively interested in your work (and is a group I have been involved with.) The faculty advisor or student leadership for such groups would be a useful contact, and should be easily findable. Most scientific disciplines have professional societies with local chapters and student members. Profs who teach the big 100-level science and education courses might be willing to give you 30 seconds and some whiteboard space for a URL. Your advisors may even be willing to give extra credit for participation (I remember this being pretty standard practice in my psych classes.) The education departments at these schools might look more kindly on your requests, or have paths that they use to get the word out.
posted by tchemgrrl at 7:07 PM on November 7, 2014 [7 favorites]
Best answer: I used to administer the primary campus-wide mailing lists used to reach students, staff, and faculty at a well-known university. If your request had reached me at the time I was doing that, I might have explained that members of the community (specifically, faculty and staff--students had to get a sponsor) had a mechanism for sending out messages that other departments and sub-groups could opt to trickle down to interested parties on moderated sub-lists they controlled, and the registrar and alumni organization had separate mailing lists that were for their official/institutional business only.
This was some time ago, and other universities are doubtless very different. But if I understand what you're trying to achieve, you'd have had no meaningful chance of making it happen at this one school--not even if you'd been a faculty member at the university yourself. You could have gone to the individual organizational units to which different segments of the student body belonged, and they might have forwarded your request to some students, but it would have been spotty.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:11 PM on November 7, 2014
This was some time ago, and other universities are doubtless very different. But if I understand what you're trying to achieve, you'd have had no meaningful chance of making it happen at this one school--not even if you'd been a faculty member at the university yourself. You could have gone to the individual organizational units to which different segments of the student body belonged, and they might have forwarded your request to some students, but it would have been spotty.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 7:11 PM on November 7, 2014
Best answer: As an alternative, there are unofficial facebook groups that will reach large swaths of students from schools, often organized by graduation year, faculty, etc. You might be able to get permission from the people (usually just random students) who manage those groups to post your survey and you'd reach potentially hundreds or thousands of students at a time.
posted by jacquilynne at 7:19 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 7:19 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Besides those things others have mentioned, most universities have entirely separate IRB procedures for studies examining their own students, especially undergraduates. So if you are at University X and looking to do a survey at universities A, B, and C, you would actually also need approval from university A, B and Cs IRB for research on students in order for their to facilitate your research on their students. Universities tend to be protective of both their students and their reputations so this can be something of a hurdle.
I'm surprised your advisor did not bring up the difficulty of this method when you made your proposal.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:27 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
I'm surprised your advisor did not bring up the difficulty of this method when you made your proposal.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:27 PM on November 7, 2014 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I don't know how applicable this is across campuses, but the college I used to work at had heavy advertisements (in paper) of surveys or on-campus tests, usually with a raffle or payment. My alma mater also has several unofficial Facebook groups, which often have posts with links to surveys, and I often see old classmates posting and reposting links to their own surveys or surveys produced by their friends. I don't remember ever getting an all campus link to a survey that wasn't based in my own campus. Have you tried Facebook or tumblr as options?
posted by jetlagaddict at 7:33 PM on November 7, 2014
posted by jetlagaddict at 7:33 PM on November 7, 2014
Best answer: It takes years of rapport building to get access to student emails in the way you're describing. It is really unlikely that you'll get access.
Why haven't you reviewed the literature on sampling this way? Where is your committee in this?
IAAA, IANYA
posted by k8t at 7:54 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
Why haven't you reviewed the literature on sampling this way? Where is your committee in this?
IAAA, IANYA
posted by k8t at 7:54 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Find a new survey method. Schools will not send your survey to their email lists.
posted by JackBurden at 8:02 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by JackBurden at 8:02 PM on November 7, 2014 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Committee management is perhaps the most important aspect of graduate student success, so the fact that you can't get them to reply suggests you might have bigger problems. Your advisors should be advising you.
That said, you probably won't be able to email your survey to an entire student body. If universities allowed that, the email lists would be overrun with that kind of stuff. So think smaller: contact TAs or profs of large introductory general ed classes and see if you can get them to cooperate. You might have better luck. Make sure you track what types of students are in the class (majors and grade) so you can determine how representative your sample is.
posted by griseus at 8:06 PM on November 7, 2014
That said, you probably won't be able to email your survey to an entire student body. If universities allowed that, the email lists would be overrun with that kind of stuff. So think smaller: contact TAs or profs of large introductory general ed classes and see if you can get them to cooperate. You might have better luck. Make sure you track what types of students are in the class (majors and grade) so you can determine how representative your sample is.
posted by griseus at 8:06 PM on November 7, 2014
Best answer: From the perspective of a school administrator who has received requests like this, it's pretty hard to get approval for this kind of thing in-house, much less through other campuses you do not attend. The first barrier to entry is the issue of creating additional spam to students who are usually not thrilled about getting emails from their own school (if they still use email at all). Many schools these days have developed intentional barriers to prevent access to private student information so as not to violate FERPA in some way nor excessively bother student with information they don't need.
Secondly, from an administrative perspective, there isn't always an official avenue set up in most places to approve something like this going forward from outside requests (at least not where I work). Without an immediate payback, many administrators are overworked anyway and won't see the net benefit, outside of helping someone else in academia. It's one of those things, though, that if you create a policy of allowing it, it potentially opens the door to requests that become overwhelming. Administrators have a sense of where to guard the gate, so to speak, so as not to make their lives potentially more difficult in the long run.
And honestly, there's just the issue of trying to encourage enough momentum that an administrator would prioritize this high enough on their to-do list with everything else that is going on, if there's no formal process for accommodating it.
I'm sorry this isn't great news, but it sounds like you received some good advice up-thread about some alternate options.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:28 PM on November 7, 2014
Secondly, from an administrative perspective, there isn't always an official avenue set up in most places to approve something like this going forward from outside requests (at least not where I work). Without an immediate payback, many administrators are overworked anyway and won't see the net benefit, outside of helping someone else in academia. It's one of those things, though, that if you create a policy of allowing it, it potentially opens the door to requests that become overwhelming. Administrators have a sense of where to guard the gate, so to speak, so as not to make their lives potentially more difficult in the long run.
And honestly, there's just the issue of trying to encourage enough momentum that an administrator would prioritize this high enough on their to-do list with everything else that is going on, if there's no formal process for accommodating it.
I'm sorry this isn't great news, but it sounds like you received some good advice up-thread about some alternate options.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:28 PM on November 7, 2014
Best answer: I'm not surprised that no one will let you e-mail spam their entire student body for your survey; further, you go to a school with 40,000 students so it's not like you should need to involve other schools to find a large enough sample frame.
If your survey is actually a short survey, without a need for personal information, I'd use the $400 that a tablet costs to deploy a Mechanical Turk survey. Here's a good starting paper discussing many of the issues.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:02 PM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
If your survey is actually a short survey, without a need for personal information, I'd use the $400 that a tablet costs to deploy a Mechanical Turk survey. Here's a good starting paper discussing many of the issues.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:02 PM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Wait, are you trying to get eyes on this for free? If so, I can't believe your advisor and committee members didn't warn you off of it. I think your best bet is a Facebook ad ($) including an iPad mini (not Windows tablet, sorry) raffle ($) for people who complete. I bet you can get the whole thing done for under $500. Seems like your problem is getting eyes on it, and a Facebook ad is going to work much better than a mass email.
posted by supercres at 9:05 PM on November 7, 2014
posted by supercres at 9:05 PM on November 7, 2014
Best answer: I see a lot of post it on facebook, put out an ad, etc. advice. Do not deploy any of this advice before talking with your committee.
Not everyone giving this advice may understand how sampling works. Post a survey on FB to be filled out by whoever decides to click your link and your p-values are meaningless. Maybe your committee is ok with that (seriously, maybe they are. I'm not disparaging the idea, just telling you to check), but the project they approved was based on a sampling method that is more statistically sound. Do not assume without asking that they will be ok with less. If they are not ok with less, there are other statistically valid ways of sampling that you will have to look into, rather than just putting the survey out there for whomever.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:10 PM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
Not everyone giving this advice may understand how sampling works. Post a survey on FB to be filled out by whoever decides to click your link and your p-values are meaningless. Maybe your committee is ok with that (seriously, maybe they are. I'm not disparaging the idea, just telling you to check), but the project they approved was based on a sampling method that is more statistically sound. Do not assume without asking that they will be ok with less. If they are not ok with less, there are other statistically valid ways of sampling that you will have to look into, rather than just putting the survey out there for whomever.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 9:10 PM on November 7, 2014 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I would expect my own university to say no to such a general request to spam staff.
If I was doing this I would perhaps focus at contacting people in specific departments and selling the gender issue as potentially leading to results that would be of interest to them. Many STEM departments will have someone who is responsible for trying to encourage more women to apply to study in their field, especially engineering depts. This might be a general admissions or outreach person or a person with a specific 'Women in Engineering' brief. You might see if you can find this person and then contact them explaining what you are doing and asking if they might be willing to help by passing on your survey to their students.
posted by biffa at 12:07 AM on November 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
If I was doing this I would perhaps focus at contacting people in specific departments and selling the gender issue as potentially leading to results that would be of interest to them. Many STEM departments will have someone who is responsible for trying to encourage more women to apply to study in their field, especially engineering depts. This might be a general admissions or outreach person or a person with a specific 'Women in Engineering' brief. You might see if you can find this person and then contact them explaining what you are doing and asking if they might be willing to help by passing on your survey to their students.
posted by biffa at 12:07 AM on November 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: At my university the entity you would contact would be the Institutional Research and Analysis office. However, they would tell you that our explicit written policy is that research surveys are never allowed to be sent to students from non-My-University researchers. The one and only way you could do this here would be to find a collaborator on campus who would be willing to be your Co-Investigator on an IRB protocol, and then he or she would do the legwork with the IRA.
It may be that what you are looking at is impossible unless you are willing and able to take the time to identify a collaborator at each university, sell them on a reason to work with you, and have them be the ones to go through this process.
Even then, at least here, there are a lot of limits on what sort of surveys you can send, on the number of students you can send them to, etc.
posted by Stacey at 4:05 AM on November 8, 2014
It may be that what you are looking at is impossible unless you are willing and able to take the time to identify a collaborator at each university, sell them on a reason to work with you, and have them be the ones to go through this process.
Even then, at least here, there are a lot of limits on what sort of surveys you can send, on the number of students you can send them to, etc.
posted by Stacey at 4:05 AM on November 8, 2014
Best answer: Not everyone giving this advice may understand how sampling works. Post a survey on FB to be filled out by whoever decides to click your link and your p-values are meaningless.
Yeahbut, if you're taking suitable demographics you can reweight on the back end, or do some manner of propensity matching out of the sample, etc. But this would still require advice and consent from the committee.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:40 AM on November 8, 2014
Yeahbut, if you're taking suitable demographics you can reweight on the back end, or do some manner of propensity matching out of the sample, etc. But this would still require advice and consent from the committee.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 5:40 AM on November 8, 2014
Best answer: Also, I wanted to say that I'm so sorry your advisors have failed you in this. They had the experience to know this would be a problem, and their poor communication is horribly unfair. Unfortunately it's not terribly unusual either.
posted by metasarah at 6:41 AM on November 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by metasarah at 6:41 AM on November 8, 2014 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Reddit is your answer.
There is a subreddit r/samplesize which is dedicated to surveys of all types. Make sure to put clearly in the title of your post what demographics you are looking for.
If you need to reach college students specifically, every school has its own subreddit. Find a bunch of them and post your survey link there.
posted by CathyG at 7:21 AM on November 8, 2014
There is a subreddit r/samplesize which is dedicated to surveys of all types. Make sure to put clearly in the title of your post what demographics you are looking for.
If you need to reach college students specifically, every school has its own subreddit. Find a bunch of them and post your survey link there.
posted by CathyG at 7:21 AM on November 8, 2014
Best answer: I'm a dept. admin in charge of the grad and undergrad email lists for a specific science department at a good-sized university. I have had a few survey requests like this from students at other universities. They usually call the department and ask who they should contact and then they call or email me directly to ask permission and help, addressing me by name which lets me know they've done their groundwork. The survey is usually (but not always) directed towards students our specific field, not a big blast to everyone in STEM. I'll usually look the person up on their department's website and then ask them for exact text they want sent out.
These kind of surveys are much less hassle for me than all the ones I get asking me to put together data dumps for them, but in either case, you're asking for a favor. You're asking for the time and attention of someone administering the list, and for them to impose more email on their students. There really needs to be some incentive or motivation for these other people to help you out. In my case, it would be that I was helping a grad student in our field.
posted by Squeak Attack at 7:25 AM on November 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
These kind of surveys are much less hassle for me than all the ones I get asking me to put together data dumps for them, but in either case, you're asking for a favor. You're asking for the time and attention of someone administering the list, and for them to impose more email on their students. There really needs to be some incentive or motivation for these other people to help you out. In my case, it would be that I was helping a grad student in our field.
posted by Squeak Attack at 7:25 AM on November 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: If your committee aren't responding to your emails, go to see your main advisor in person. Talk to them about whether it's a good call to set up a in-person committee meeting to get more guidance, or whether you should just make the rounds to each committee member one-on-one.
Managing faculty is a huge part of being a successful graduate student, and sending polite emails (which get ignored) is usually only the starting point. You need to develop methods to divert their attention from the billion other things they're doing instead.
posted by Squeak Attack at 7:32 AM on November 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Managing faculty is a huge part of being a successful graduate student, and sending polite emails (which get ignored) is usually only the starting point. You need to develop methods to divert their attention from the billion other things they're doing instead.
posted by Squeak Attack at 7:32 AM on November 8, 2014 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I've run surveys before, and have always done it through subject appropriate listservs. I've only contacted department heads etc. that I knew personally or knew through someone I knew personally. Advice about going to your adviser makes sense. S/he may already have a list of places they send their surveys to.
posted by Toddles at 9:09 AM on November 8, 2014
posted by Toddles at 9:09 AM on November 8, 2014
Response by poster: I want to thank everyone who responded to my plea for help, you are all wonderful and kind to share your wisdom! Hopefully, I can sort out what to do to successfully complete my data gathering. My dissertation chairs are insanely busy people, so I understand why I haven't heard from them. I am going to use advice from every one here, maybe the Reddit thing will work. I did fritter away 6 weeks on Mechanical Turk, first learning it, then doing demographic screenings for my sample population: 18-20 year old female STEM major freshmen, but as you may note, that is a very specific demographic and MTurk doesn't do specific populations well at all. I think I deployed 3 demographic screenings and got maybe 5 students that fit my demographics. I am supposed to have my data gathered by Dec 15... may not meet that deadline, but at least I have some direction now...
thanks again to all!
~Connie
posted by ConnieL at 7:01 AM on November 9, 2014
thanks again to all!
~Connie
posted by ConnieL at 7:01 AM on November 9, 2014
Response by poster: update: I did try Reddit, and while I did post to around 15 subreddits, I started getting angry messages claiming that I was "spamming" the subreddits, as well as some useful and occasionally harsh feedback on my survey design. I ended up with -5 karma for messages there in Reddit (no idea what that means), but i did personally respond to everyone that messaged me. I will try Facebook... altho I contacted them about placing an ad and the fellow tried to convince me that i needed to sign up for a month's training to learn how to create a Facebook ad. Needless to say, I did not place an ad. I am getting some good responses to my survey, some thu the Reddits that I placed before the angry posters told me to stop, and some from the college where I work. ;p
posted by ConnieL at 6:30 PM on November 19, 2014
posted by ConnieL at 6:30 PM on November 19, 2014
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posted by drpynchon at 6:35 PM on November 7, 2014 [1 favorite]