Survey Requirements & Data Security Guide

In general, the types of information that individuals would consider highly confidential are not gathered during the survey administration. In rare cases, we may collect partial employee IDs or similar information for the purpose of grouping survey results into various reporting categories, but it’s one of Denison’s Core Values to protect our clients’ confidentiality (and that of every survey participant), a responsibility that we take very seriously.

The data we typically gather includes names and email addresses for the purpose of sending survey invitations and reminders, although for most survey administrations even this information is not collected. We may also collect job title information, which is sometimes necessary for reporting by job function. We naturally collect your subjective survey information, and we may also collect custom information at the request of a client, which could also include open-ended questions, which allow users to type their answers into a text field.

Denison surveys are conducted online via an SSL-encrypted website. This is the same encryption technology that has been around for many years, and that keeps even your banking transactions and online purchases safe and secure. Even though we’re only collecting subjective survey information, we still employ the same security methodologies in an effort to give our clients and survey participants that same level of peace of mind.

Survey Link Types

General
Your survey can be conducted in a number of ways. The most common and most confidential way is via general links. A general link is a single link that can be sent to any number of participants either by Denison or by the client organization. Because the link is not specific to each individual, Denison cannot track which specific participants have taken the survey. This means that we are not able to send reminders only to those users who have not completed the survey. Instead, all participants are reminded whether they have completed the survey or not.

Unique
Alternatively, Denison can generate a unique survey link for each survey participant. The link is absolutely unique to that individual and cannot be shared. This is useful because we’re able to track survey participation and are able to send periodic reminders only to those participants who have not completed the survey.

Kiosk
For those clients whose participants may share a computer terminal, we can issue what is called a kiosk link. A kiosk link allows the survey to be completed by multiple participants at a single terminal. The downside of the kiosk link is that a participant is required to complete the survey in a single session, and cannot partially complete a survey and return to it later.

Paper
We can also collect data through the use of paper surveys, for those instances where access to the Internet is difficult to come by.

As your encrypted data is submitted, it is stored within a Microsoft SQL database. Denison’s SQL databases are further encrypted using asymmetric encryption keys (a public key to encrypt the data and another private key to decrypt).

Our SQL databases are clustered to guard against hardware failures, and to ensure the high availability of surveys and reporting data.

The servers that form our database cluster are housed within secure, climate-controlled data centers located in the United States and Germany that are monitored 24/7. Only select Information Technology staff have direct access to these locations.

Finally, Denison has implemented comprehensive Disaster Recovery safeguards to protect against data loss or unscheduled downtime.

Your data is used primarily to create reports. Our diagnostic reports are designed to inspire honest conversations that lead to thoughtful action and increased business performance.

In addition, your data will eventually be incorporated into our robust normative database, which is used to ensure the continued accuracy of our benchmarking. It is important to note that only the subjective survey information is incorporated into this database. We do not use any information that identifies the data as having originated with your organization.

Once the data has been reduced to this wholly anonymous format, our Research & Development department may use it for additional analysis.

Access to your data throughout its lifecycle at Denison is highly restricted. Only three types of Denison employees have access to your data:

• Information Technology staff have direct access to the data, as they maintain the performance of the database cluster and execute the backup and disaster recovery methodology.
• Your Client Manager can access your data during the course of your survey administration, to assist you with report generation, data feed updates (if required), and other tasks related to the management of your project.
• Research & Development staff may use the subjective survey response data to perform additional analysis or to prepare the data for normative database inclusion.